AG Bondi reviewing Epstein paperwork for launch, may maintain consumer record
AG Pam Bondi mentioned she is reviewing the discharge of extra paperwork related to Jeffrey Epstein’s case. It might embrace an inventory of his purchasers.
Straight Arrow Information
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Pam Bondi pledged in her Senate confirmation hearing to take politics out of the Justice Department and never weaponize the best way it oversees a sprawling array of federal law enforcement investigations and prosecutions.
As she sat earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 15, Bondi offered obscure however repeated assurances that the Justice Division below her watch would “solely observe the details and the regulation” and the White Home and a President Donald Trump bent on revenge would play no improper function in circumstances it investigated or introduced.
She additionally pledged to help frontline prosecutors and case brokers from federal companies such because the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration who work with the Justice Division in constructing circumstances, whereas forcing out solely the “unhealthy” ones.
And above all, the previous two-term Florida lawyer normal who defended Trump in opposition to allegations he abused energy and obstructed justice at his February 2020 impeachment, instructed she would stand as much as the president if requested to do one thing fallacious, unlawful or unconstitutional.
“Sure, I consider that the Justice Division should be impartial and should act independently,” Bondi advised senators throughout intensive questioning by skeptical Democrats. “The No. 1 job is to implement the regulation pretty and even-handedly, and that’s what might be completed if I’m confirmed because the lawyer normal.”
“Politics is not going to play an element,” Bondi additionally mentioned. “I’ve demonstrated that my complete profession as a prosecutor, as lawyer normal and I’ll proceed to do this.”
Bondi’s feedback appeared in sync with a Justice Division effort – relationship again to the Watergate scandal of the Seventies – to stay impartial of the political pursuits of the administration in energy.
However inside hours of her swearing-in on Feb. 5, Bondi moved swiftly to align the Justice Division with one thing else: Trump’s political agenda.
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Pairing DOJ with Trump’s agenda
That night, Bondi issued 14 formal memorandums reversing core DOJ insurance policies, together with many enacted by the administration of former President Joe Biden.
One of many directives established a “Weaponization Working Group” to research all federal and state prosecutions of Trump that the President has insisted with out proof had been overly politicized. In courtroom and on the marketing campaign path, Bondi supported these claims.
One other mandate required Justice Division attorneys to “zealously advance, protect, and defend” not the pursuits and insurance policies of the US however these of Trump himself.
A 3rd disbanded DOJ initiatives to guard U.S. democratic processes from overseas actors, regardless of the Russian authorities’s persistent meddling in methods U.S. intelligence officers beforehand decided had been meant to assist Trump in elections relationship again to 2016.
Since she began, Bondi’s Justice Division – and the FBI it oversees – have fired, transferred or launched investigations into dozens of senior officers deemed problematic.
That housecleaning included everybody on special counsel Jack Smith’s team who investigated and prosecuted Trump for making an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election he misplaced and for mishandling classified documents.
Others, together with James Dennehy, the highest agent on the FBI’s New York subject workplace – the company’s largest – had been compelled out for pushing again in opposition to Trump’s meddling in Justice Division and FBI affairs, together with the calls for to enact mass firings of frontline and supervisory personnel.
Utilizing DOJ ‘to attain political targets or different improper goals’
Bondi testified at her affirmation listening to that she opposed pardoning defendants who attacked police within the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump instructed he would possibly. If requested, she mentioned, she would evaluate every defendant on a case-by-case foundation.
When Trump offered a blanket pardon to nearly 1,600 defendants on Jan. 20, his first day in workplace, Bondi was not but confirmed. However Bondi by no means objected publicly, earlier than or after taking her oath of workplace; as an alternative, the DOJ helped facilitate them.
At Bondi’s first information convention on Feb. 12, she introduced that the Justice Division was suing New York officials including Attorney General Letitia James, who had convicted Trump in a civil fraud case, over the state’s immigration insurance policies.
Two days later, the DOJ dropped the prosecution of a Trump political ally, New York Mayor Eric Adams on bribery and marketing campaign finance fees, on the route of high Bondi aide Emil Bove (one other former Trump defense lawyer tapped to steer the Justice Division) and over the objections of the case’s prosecutors.
In a letter to Bondi, Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon pledged to resign if Bondi wouldn’t meet together with her to rethink dropping Adams’ case primarily based on Sassoon’s issues about not utilizing “the legal enforcement authority of the US to achieve political objectives or different improper goals.”
After Sassoon resigned, so did six different prosecutors, together with the lead prosecutor on the Adams case, Assistant U.S. Legal professional Hagan Scotten.
“I anticipate you’ll ultimately discover somebody who’s sufficient of a idiot, or sufficient of a coward, to file your movement” to drop the costs, Scotten mentioned in his personal resignation letter to Bove. “However it was by no means going to be me.”
Bondi additionally campaigned for Trump and has been a frequent visitor at his Mar-a-Lago dwelling and membership in Palm Seashore. And she or he made at least $3 million from the creation of the mum or dad firm of Trump’s social media platform, Fact Social, in response to her monetary disclosure kind.
The Senate final Wednesday confirmed a 3rd former Trump protection lawyer and former prosecutor, Todd Blanche, as deputy lawyer normal, the No. 2 place on the DOJ in control of working the 115,000-employee division and overseeing the FBI and different federal companies. (Blanche and Bove defended Trump at his hush money trial in Manhattan, and Blanche additionally represented him within the federal classified documents case in Florida.)
Bondi’s monitor file: main takedowns, investigations
In her first month on the job, Bondi has mentioned she is working aggressively to depoliticize a DOJ that she and Trump say is each biased in opposition to him and in opposition to political conservatives normally.
Supporters like Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who pushed by way of Bondi’s affirmation, mentioned she just isn’t solely “a extremely certified alternative” however a vital one.
Change, Grassley mentioned, “is desperately wanted” at a Justice Division that’s “contaminated with political decision-making whereas its leaders refuse to acknowledge that actuality.”
The Justice Division, by way of spokesman Chad Gilmartin, declined to remark for this text. However the DOJ offered an inventory of Bondi’s accomplishments at USA TODAY’s request. They included main arrests of suspects in terrorism, human smuggling and drug trafficking circumstances.
The DOJ below Bondi, the record mentioned, has additionally dismissed four DEI lawsuits introduced in opposition to police and hearth departments below the Biden Administration.
It warned officers in California, Maine, and Minnesota that failure to adjust to the federal regulation to “keep men out of women’s sports,” would end in federal lawsuits.
It launched a multi-agency federal task force to combat antisemitism and introduced it would go to 10 universities accused of failing to guard Jewish college students and school members from illegal discrimination.
Final Friday, the duty drive introduced it was pulling about $400 million in federal funds from Columbia College resulting from “continued inaction within the face of persistent harassment of Jewish college students” and mentioned “extra cancellations are anticipated to observe.”
Eradicating Watergate-era guardrails, ‘the other’ of depoliticizing, professional says
Bondi’s flurry of exercise on legal and civil issues has led some authorized specialists and former Justice Division officers to query her pledge to depoliticize the DOJ.
“I’d lean towards that she has completed the other,” mentioned Jeffrey Breinholt, a profession senior Justice Division lawyer who served throughout 5 administrations, below Republicans and Democrats, earlier than his retirement final 12 months.
Breinholt advised USA TODAY that Bondi has politicized the DOJ by actively responding to Trump’s political needs in each New York circumstances and by in search of to rid the company of profession personnel she views as unsupportive of Trump’s agenda.
Probably the most important transfer may need are available in a little-noticed Feb. 9 memo that lowered Watergate-era guardrails barring contact between the DOJ and White Home officers, in response to Breinholt and others USA TODAY interviewed.
These guardrails spell out how the lawyer normal and different DOJ attorneys can keep neutral whereas interacting with the White Home − together with limits on who can work together and what they will discuss − have been “refined by way of trial and error over the previous 50 years,” Breinholt mentioned.
However the Feb. 9 White Home memo, he mentioned, “is a nasty indication that there are going to be some modifications in these norms. It raises the specter of a politicized DOJ.”
As proof of how Bondi could also be politicizing the company, Breinholt cited her much-promoted efforts final month to launch paperwork about convicted intercourse trafficker financier Jeffrey Epstein and his rumored ties to distinguished Democrats together with former President Invoice Clinton.
Though Clinton and a few others have denied wrongdoing – and have not been accused of it – Trump’s MAGA motion has been calling for the discharge of DOJ paperwork from Epstein’s legal circumstances that they consider would possibly assist Trump by discrediting Democrats. Trump’s identify additionally appeared within the flight logs Bondi launched.
Bondi mentioned in a Fox Information interview she was reviewing and releasing the Epstein paperwork as a result of “that’s been a directive by President Trump.”
In the end, Bondi launched rehashed paperwork that had been made public in earlier courtroom circumstances.
However by teeing up the Epstein case so prominently, Bondi “is clearly making an attempt to indicate her fealty to the president who appointed her,” mentioned Breinholt. And the truth that she particularly mentioned she was releasing them at Trump’s route, he mentioned, is “out of line” for a supposedly apolitical lawyer normal.
Dennehy, the assistant FBI director overseeing the New York workplace, additionally reportedly angered Bondi by what she claimed was the New York FBI workplace’s failure to show over all of the investigative recordsdata associated to Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking fees.
An ‘alarming stage of politicization and weaponization’
Final week, Bondi introduced that her purge at Justice and federal regulation enforcement companies is not over and that she plans to proceed pursuing anybody she deems sufficiently disloyal to Trump and his agenda.
In an interview with Fox Information host Sean Hannity, Bondi mentioned the DOJ can even examine the conduct of prosecutors and federal brokers concerned within the huge legal probe into Russian interference within the 2016 election.
Working with just lately confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel, Bondi mentioned, we’re “going to root them out,” she mentioned. “We will discover them, and they’ll not be employed.”
“The whole lot is on the desk, Sean,” Bondi added. “We will have a look at all the things.”
Ryan Goodman, co-director of the Reiss Middle on Legislation and Safety at New York College College of Legislation, mentioned he has been so involved by what’s occurring on Bondi’s watch that he has co-authored a working timeline of what he describes as “the alarming stage of politicization and weaponization of the Division of Justice below the second Trump administration.”
“Politicization consists of the misuse of the Division’s powers for political functions somewhat than the impartial and neutral enforcement of the legal guidelines,” Goodman says within the timeline of “probably the most clear-cut circumstances that increase such issues” for the Simply Safety web site. “Weaponization features a deliberate and systematic misuse of the Division’s powers for political or private functions and in defiance of the rule of regulation.”
Leaving ‘hostile and poisonous work atmosphere’
Within the wake of Bondi and Bove’s strategy, some rank-and-file workers have publicly taken a stand.
Joshua Stueve, a disabled veteran who served practically a decade on lively obligation within the Marines earlier than changing into a spokesperson for the Justice Division, mentioned he had witnessed “extraordinary experience, patriotism, selflessness, and steadfast dedication to the mission of public servants.”
However Stueve, who served 23 years in public service below presidents from each events, mentioned in his resignation letter late final month it was “heartbreaking to see that primary decency come to an finish.”
“Merely put, I can’t proceed to serve in such a hostile and poisonous work atmosphere, one the place management on the highest ranges makes clear we’re not welcome or valued, a lot much less trusted to do our jobs,” Stueve wrote within the letter obtained by USA TODAY.
Final Friday afternoon, a whole lot of New York FBI brokers and workers lined the hallways of 26 Federal Plaza to clap and cheer as Dennehy, the ousted assistant director, left the constructing for the final time.
As a bagpiper performed and TV cameras rolled, he advised these gathered, “I’ll all the time be trustworthy to this nation, this group and most of all, I’ll all the time be trustworthy to you.”
Josh Meyer is USA TODAY’s Home Safety Correspondent. You possibly can attain him by electronic mail at jmeyer@usatoday.com. Comply with him on X at @JoshMeyerDC and Bluesky at @joshmeyerdc.bsky.social.
Bart Jansen, a White Home reporter who beforehand coated the Justice Division, is at bjansen@usatoday.com.
