If something, Ms. Bondi’s résumé most resembles that of Janet Reno, who spent 15 years because the state legal professional for Miami-Dade County (known as Dade County on the time) earlier than serving because the U.S. legal professional normal from 1993 to 2001. That’s to not counsel Ms. Bondi is the following Ms. Reno. Throughout her tenure, Ms. Reno emerged as essentially the most fiercely impartial legal professional normal of the fashionable 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 she or he 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, stated, “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 similar time, as Florida’s legal professional normal, 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 normal 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 turned the legal professional normal in 1985. Jimmy Carter nominated his childhood pal, Griffin Bell, to the highest job on the Justice Division. John F. Kennedy appointed his personal brother.
However, greater than prior presidents, Mr. Trump has made clear that he expects unwavering devotion from his appointees. And the legal professional normal greater than different cupboard members should at occasions train independence from the president, significantly with respect to legal charging choices. The query, then, is whether or not Ms. Bondi can do this because the legal professional normal, regardless of her prior work with and round Mr. Trump, or whether or not she is going to allow his worst instincts.
