Heads in Washington are still spinning after Donald Trump named Pam Bondi as his choice for attorney general, just hours following Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from consideration.
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and close ally of the president-elect, would most likely share his and Gaetz’s goal of shaking up the Justice Department. But the switcheroo also raises questions about how willing Republicans might be to push back against the more divisive elements of the Trump agenda.
What to know: As Florida’s attorney general, Bondi participated in efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act and the legalization of marijuana, as well as a multi-state lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.
Since leaving office in 2019, she has worked for the powerful Republican lobbyist Brian Ballard — where her clients included General Motors (labor and tax policy), Amazon (cloud computing and trade) and Uber (the gig economy) — and a separate right-wing think tank that’s close to the Trump transition team.
But while she is a favorite of Trump’s, it’s unclear whether she had been on a vetting list for an administration role. The Times reports that she interviewed for the position only on Thursday.
It’s also uncertain how Bondi would steer the Justice Department. She is a longtime loyalist who served on the legal team that fought his first impeachment and publicly criticized the prosecutors and judge in his Manhattan criminal trial. “For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans — Not anymore,” Trump wrote in announcing her selection.
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