Bye Bye Bondi?

Bye Bye Bondi?

Trump hasn’t fired a member of his cabinet – yet. In his first term, he had difficulty with his attorney generals. He fired Jeff Sessions over his recusal to oversee the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the election in 2016. Trump said at the time “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.” As is Trump’s wont, he belittled Sessions as “VERY weak” and “DISGRACEFUL”. Then there was Bill Barr who served twice as Trump’s AG and with whom Trump also had a rocky relationship which essentially ended when Barr said that there was no widespread voter fraud costing Trump his re-election in 2020. Trump then said that Barr was a “loser” and a “RINO who couldn’t do the job. However, Barr is not one to mince words and called Trump’s defenses for his handling of classified documents “absurd” and compared Trump to a “defiant 9-year-old kid” also saying that Trump’s verbal skills were “limited.”

Now Trump is expressing his displeasure over his current AG, Pam (Blondie) Bondi for not more aggressively pursuing his enemies. Trump who once praised her is not saying that she is weak and ineffective. Trump is even contemplating appointing special counsels to pursue his wishes rather than leaving the tasks up to Bondi. He is especially upset over the handling of the Epstein files. His aide Susan Wiles had told Vanity Fair that Bondi had “whiffed” on the files and Trump agreed. Trump also expressed frustration that the Justice Department hasn’t done more to pursue those he claims helped steal the 2020 election – (Bill Barr redux). Trump however is saying “Pam is doing an excellent job. She has been my friend for many years. Tremendous progress is being made against radical left lunatics who are good at only one thing, cheating in elections and the crimes they commit.” Hum. That sounds like a vote of confidence.

Trump’s MAGA folk are after Bondi. Steve Bannon, in particular, seems to be pressing for her ouster, Also noteworthy was Bondi was MIA when Trump announced Maduro’s capture even though the Department of “Justice” will be tasked with leading the prosecution. I think the first inkling of Trump’s dissatisfaction was when he was critical of Bondi for not aggressively prosecuting James Comey, Letitia James and Adam Schiff. Trump has also demanded that Bondi investigate prominent Democrats who were named in the Epstein documents, mainly because they had accused him of misdeeds. Bondi then directed Manhattan’s U.S. attorney to lead the probe.

Then there is the witch hunt directed at the Fed’s Jerome Powell. Fox’s own Jeanine Pirro is heading that investigation. Some media sources say that the Washington office has be further demoralized by the Fed subpoenas resulting in lawyers “leaving in droves.” At a White House event where Bondi’s prosecutors (persecutors?) were at the White House the president lambasted them criticizing them as ineffective and complaining they weren’t moving fast enough to prosecute his enemies. But thus far where there have been prosecutions, the president’s lawyers have failed to either get indictments or convictions, perhaps indicating the flimsiness of the charges or as some MAGA folk would say, the biasness of the sitting judges – even those appointed by Trump himself. But maybe, just maybe, the charges are so flimsy that seasoned attorneys are reluctant to pursue them. That could be the reason why Trump had to turn to less qualified attorneys like Lindsey Halligan to take over the prosecutions.

Five federal prosecutors thus far have resigned in protest of Trump’s Somali welfare fraud investigation when the president used this as a pretext to send his immigration force into Minneapolis. Several more resigned when directed to investigate the wife of the woman who was killed by an ICE agent rather than investigate the shooting itself. All told 50 of the 135 attorneys assigned to the Minneapolis office have left since Trump’s re-election. Again this may not be so bad if they are not on board with his agenda. A president needs people who are loyal to him. But even if loyal, it is important for them to explain why they should not pursue certain actions. Perhaps this is the difficulty that he has had with his AGs who were loyalists but fired for not bending to the president’s wishes.

Speaking of Somalis, the Department of Homeland Security has revoked the “temporary protected status” of several thousand of them. The right wing media acted like this was a big deal. It isn’t. My reaction was “what took so long?” Immigration Services says that there are only 2,471 who are affected. Mind you the department ended the status for over 350,000 Haitians and 600,000 Venezuelans.