President-elect Donald Trump tapped former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday to head up the U.S. Department of Justice in his second term—a swift decision but one met with little surprise among many in Trump’s orbit.
That’s because Bondi, 59, has emerged as a close ally of the president-elect in recent years—including defending him in his impeachment proceedings, and more recently, in the run-up to Election Day, where she serves as the co-chair of the Center for Law and Justice at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) a think tank set up by former Trump staffers.
Like former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who withdrew his name from consideration for attorney general Thursday afternoon, Bondi is from Florida and is considered by many to be a staunch loyalist of the president-elect, dedicated to rooting out what the president-elect has described as the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
Beyond that, however, the two appear to have little in common.
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Pam Bondi speaks during a press conference while on a break from former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Getty)
A Florida native, Bondi has spent years as a prosecutor in the Sunshine State—spending 18 as a prosecutor in the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office before being elected in 2010 to serve as Florida’s first female attorney general.
More recently, Bondi has used her perch at AFPI to voice concerns about election security—a major issue that Republicans sought to emphasize as they filed a flurry of re-election lawsuits, mainly in major swing states.
If confirmed, it is likely that Bondi will use her post to implement many of Trump’s tough-on-crime policy proposals, including cracking down on cartels, fentanyl, trafficking and more.
A website for Trump’s Agenda47 called for policies such as extending the death penalty for human traffickers, ending welfare for migrants living in the U.S. illegally, and cracking down on violent crime in major cities, which Trump has described as having declined into “cesspools of bloodshed and crime.”
In the hours after her nomination, however, it remained unclear how—or whether—she planned to implement some of these proposals.
One member of the Trump transition team pointed Fox News Digital to a widely circulated clip of CNN legal analyst Elie Honig highlighting Bondi’s qualifications for the role.
“Pam Bondi is, without a question, qualified to be attorney general,” Honig said in the clip, calling her experience “on par with, or better than, most United States attorneys general that we’ve seen over the past 50 years or so.”
“Even CNN is fawning over her qualifications,” a source familiar, who declined to be identified, told Fox News Digital.
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Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi displays a court order granting Trump’s campaign more access to vote counting operations at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Nov. 5, 2020, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Those close to Bondi have praised her long record as a prosecutor, and her staunch loyalty to the president-elect, alongside whom she has worked since 2020—first, helping to represent him in his first impeachment trial, and currently in her post at AFPI.
Bondi is “all about integrity and the proper application of justice and fairness,” said Gianno Caldwell, the head of the Caldwell Institute of Public Safety, an organization designed to fight violent crime. Bondi serves on the advisory board of that group.
“I think she’s going to be able to root out a lot of the bad apples,” Caldwell added. “And return the Justice Department to its traditional focus, which is law and order, and fighting crime.”
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Pam Bondi, former attorney general of Florida, arrives at the Fiserv Forum on the second day of Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wis., on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Like other top contenders for the role. Bondi has not been shy in going after Trump critics, including special counsel Jack Smith, who was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate both an alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Smith appears to be winding down his investigation—a welcome relief for the president-elect, who had vowed as a candidate to fire him “within two seconds” after taking office.
Still, Bondi has shared in Trump’s criticisms, using a recent radio interview to describe Smith and his team of prosecutors as “horrible” people trying to make a name for themselves by “going after Donald Trump and weaponizing our legal system.”
“Attorney General nominee Bondi is looking forward to the confirmation process and answering any questions senators might have,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for the Trump transition team.
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Bondi’s life “has been dedicated to keeping Americans safe,” he added. “She looks forward to continuing that work at the Department of Justice.”