New US Attorney General Pam Bondi Announces Tough Enforcement Policies

WASHINGTON — Pamela Bondi got off to a hard-nosed start Wednesday as the new U.S. attorney general by announcing plans to potentially prosecute the government attorneys who prosecuted President Donald Trump, by encouraging the death penalty in capital cases and by planning to sue local officials in sanctuary cities.

She pledged to “completely eliminate” drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

She also said in a memo that any Justice Department attorneys who decline to carry out Trump administration policies could be fired. 

The next morning, the Justice Department sued the state of Illinois and city of Chicago for a sanctuary city policy that protects illegal immigrants from deportation.

Bondi also froze all Justice Department grant money to sanctuary cities whose police refuse to cooperate with immigration officials.

Bondi described her agenda of “zealous advocacy” in directives she circulated to the Justice Department’s staff.

One of the directives said that “any Justice Department attorney who declines to sign a brief, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Trump administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the Justice Department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.”

Bondi’s directive that prompted some of the most resistance Thursday resulted from what she called the “Weaponization Working Group” to review whether Justice Department employees or state prosecutors engaged in “politicized justice” during the Biden administration.

She was referring to efforts to prosecute Trump and his associates for election interference and mishandling classified documents, as well as for his felony convictions last year for falsifying business records to cover up payments to an adult film actress.

The prosecutors said they pressed charges against Trump just as they would anyone else. Bondi said they secretly wanted revenge against Trump for his criticisms of former President Joe Biden.

The working group’s first reviews — potentially leading to criminal charges — are targeted at  former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The working group also plans to review possible politically motivated intentions of FBI agents and U.S.attorneys who prosecuted insurrectionists during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump pardoned all of them as one of his first actions as president.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told FBI employees in a memo this week that if they “simply followed orders” in investigating the Jan. 6 defendants, they would not be fired or face other penalties. If they demonstrated “partisan intent,” they should be “concerned,” the memo says.

Former FBI Deputy Director John Pistole was skeptical during an MSNBC interview Thursday, saying it looked like Bondi and her staff were seeking political “retaliation.”

“The FBI should not be politicized, that’s the bottom line,” Pistole said.

Bondi’s directives also ended the Justice Department’s moratorium on the death penalty that started during the Biden administration. She said U.S. attorneys’ offices should focus their death penalty prosecutions heavily against violent drug gangs.

Her decision to end the moratorium complies with a Jan. 20 executive order from Trump.

“Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens,” the order says.

Many of the Justice Department’s efforts against drug gangs and human trafficking have been concentrated in two special groups, Joint Task Force Vulcan and Joint Task Force Alpha.

Bondi said the task forces would be “further empowered and elevated.” She plans to add a third task force to go after Muslim terrorist groups like Hamas.

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