If something, Ms. Bondi’s résumé most resembles that of Janet Reno, who spent 15 years because the state attorney for Miami-Dade County (referred to as Dade County on the time) earlier than serving because the U.S. legal professional common from 1993 to 2001. That’s to not recommend Ms. Bondi is the following Ms. Reno. Throughout her tenure, Ms. Reno emerged as probably the most fiercely unbiased legal professional common of the trendy period, usually to the consternation of the president who had appointed her, Invoice Clinton, and the Washington, D.C., energy construction.
Ms. Bondi has a historical past of fierce loyalty to Mr. Trump. She represented him at his first impeachment trial, in 2020. And he or she has lengthy supported him politically; in a 2016 speech on the Republican Nationwide Conference, she gushed about Mr. Trump and, when the group started chanting “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton, mentioned, “I like that.”
In 2013, Ms. Bondi solicited and accepted a $25,000 donation from Mr. Trump’s basis to a political motion committee supporting her political prospects; across the identical time, as Florida’s legal professional common, she elected to not open a proper investigation of Trump College, which had garnered a number of complaints from Ms. Bondi’s constituents.
Ms. Bondi’s prior relationship with Mr. Trump is related however not disqualifying and even traditionally uncommon. Earlier than his affirmation because the U.S. legal professional common in 2005, Alberto Gonzales had served as an adviser and White Home counsel to George W. Bush. Edwin Meese had labored for Ronald Reagan earlier than he grew to become the legal professional common in 1985. Jimmy Carter nominated his childhood good friend, Griffin Bell, to the highest job on the Justice Division. John F. Kennedy appointed his own brother.
However, greater than prior presidents, Mr. Trump has made clear that he expects unwavering devotion from his appointees. And the legal professional common greater than different cupboard members should at occasions train independence from the president, notably with respect to prison charging selections. The query, then, is whether or not Ms. Bondi can try this because the legal professional common, regardless of her prior work with and round Mr. Trump, or whether or not she’s going to allow his worst instincts.
