When Donald Trump made it clear that he wanted the Justice Department to go after former FBI Director James Comey, the president faced a fair amount of resistance from officials who were ostensibly members of his own team.
For example, Erik Siebert, the Trump-nominated U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, refused to pursue the case. Career prosecutors similarly explained in detail and in writing that the evidence didn’t support charging Comey. Even John Durham, a Trump-appointed special counsel, reviewed the allegations and opted not to follow through on them.
But perhaps most notably, there were multiple reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi herself was not on board with charging the former FBI director and had voiced concerns behind the scenes.
The president orchestrated Comey’s indictment anyway.
Two weeks later, Bondi was also apparently on the outside looking in when the next member of Trump’s enemies list was also charged. The New York Times reported:
Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy were not given notice that a Trump-allied prosecutor in Virginia planned to indict Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, for bank fraud on Thursday afternoon, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Times’ account hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC, and Team Trump insisted on the record that everyone’s on the same page. That said, there were related reports from CNN and ABC News, both of which concluded that the attorney general was “caught off guard” when her own Justice Department indicted New York’s Democratic AG, thanks to the work of Trump’s handpicked U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, who apparently didn’t keep Bondi in the loop.
It’s possible, of course, that there were some breakdowns in communication within an administration known for chaos and incompetence, but a pattern does appear to be coming into focus:
- Bondi reportedly went to bat for Siebert, urging the White House not to fire the Trump-nominated U.S. attorney. The prosecutor was ousted anyway.
- Bondi reportedly cautioned against indicting Comey. He was charged anyway.
- Bondi reportedly wasn’t even notified about the indictment against the New York attorney general.
- It was Trump, not Bondi, who was reportedly responsible for choosing Halligan as the U.S. attorney in Virginia.
- It was also Trump who barked orders at Bondi about the political enemies he expected the Justice Department to pursue.
- The Wall Street Journal reported that it’s the president, and not the attorney general, who “calls the shots” at the Justice Department.
In recent months, there have been a great many questions about whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is actually in charge of his department, with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington suggesting during one recent hearing that he might not be the one “making decisions” at his agency. Soon after, there were related questions about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the degree to which the White House is in control at the Pentagon.
It hardly seems unreasonable to wonder whether Bondi belongs on the same list.
