President-elect Donald Trump final week introduced the nomination of Florida’s former legal professional common, Pam Bondi, to go up the Justice Division, touching off a flurry of hypothesis as to how Bondi, a longtime prosecutor and shut ally of Trump, may lead the division.
Former colleagues who knew her greatest throughout her time as a Florida prosecutor, together with a Democrat opponent for state legal professional common who she later tapped to be her drug czar, described Bondi in a collection of interviews as an skilled litigator whose management fashion is extra consensus-builder than bridge-burner and whose tenure could generate much less friction amongst rank-and-file profession employees on the Justice Division than early critics may worry.
If confirmed, these near Bondi informed Fox Information Digital that she is going to seemingly espouse lots of the similar priorities she did in her years as a prosecutor in Florida, primarily in cracking down on drug trafficking, illicit fentanyl imports and in operating a Justice Division that enforces honest remedy of each political and profession appointees alike.
“From a lawyer’s standpoint, this girl is aware of how one can be a lawyer and a trial lawyer,” Nicholas Cox, Florida’s statewide prosecutor, informed Fox Information Digital of Bondi’s document. “There’s simply not a query about it.”
Listed here are a few of the methods her time in Florida might inform her tenure as legal professional common.
President-elect Donald Trump and nominee for AG Pam Bondi (AP | Getty)
Drug crackdown:
In Florida, Bondi rapidly earned a repute for cracking down on opioids and the various “tablet mills” working within the Sunshine State when she was elected because the state’s legal professional common in 2010. On the time, Florida “was the epicenter of the opioid disaster,” Florida statewide prosecutor Nicholas Cox stated in an interview.
It was additionally a hub for so-called drug tourism: Out-of-state residents traveled to Florida from throughout the nation to buy opioids in bulk, counting on the state’s many-house pharmacies, “cash-only” clinics and a scarcity of statewide prescribing legal guidelines to buy the addictive medicines, largely with out restriction.
When Bondi took workplace, opioids have been killing round seven folks every day, Dave Aronberg, the state legal professional for Palm Seaside County, who previously served as Bondi’s drug czar, stated in an interview.
There have been additionally “extra ache clinics than McDonald’s places” in Florida on the time, he stated, illustrating the magnitude of the issue.
Aronberg, a Democrat who ran towards Bondi for legal professional common in 2010 earlier than she appointed him to the put up, credit his former boss as being the individual “most chargeable for ridding the state of Florida of damaging tablet mills.”
He and others level to Bondi’s push for laws that helped get rid of tablet mills within the state, her crackdown on docs and clinics chargeable for prescribing the ache capsules en masse, and her work in imposing Florida’s “Statewide Prescription Drug Diversion and Abuse Highway Map” to greatest coordinate federal, state and native efforts as serving to finish the disaster.
Later, she served in Trump’s first presidential time period as a member of his Opioid and Drug Abuse Fee.
If confirmed as U.S. legal professional common, Bondi has made clear she plans to stay targeted on drug trafficking points, together with cracking down on drug cartels, trafficking and extra.
Now, these folks informed Fox Information Digital they count on Bondi will convey the identical playbook to Washington as legal professional common, this time with a watch to drug trafficking and illicit fentanyl use.
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Florida Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi shows a court docket order granting Trump’s marketing campaign extra entry to vote counting operations in Philadelphia. (AP Picture/Matt Slocum)
Working throughout the aisle:
Bondi has spent years as a prosecutor in Florida, first as a prosecutor within the Hillsborough County State Lawyer’s Workplace earlier than being elected in 2010 because the state’s legal professional common.
Cox, the Florida state prosecutor, famous that Bondi’s profession was additionally closely formed by her 18 years working within the Florida District Lawyer’s Workplace, a profession place that was not knowledgeable by politics.
“All of us labored collectively, and it made for a extremely sturdy legal justice system,” Cox stated.
Aronberg echoed this evaluation.
In Florida, Bondi “was not seen as a really partisan individual,” he stated, citing her “sturdy working relationship with Democrats,” which continued even after being sworn in as state legal professional common.
“She would assist laws no matter whether or not it was supported by Democrats or Republicans,” Aronberg stated, and in return, she was well-liked throughout the aisle.
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Pam Bondi (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name by way of Getty Photographs)
TRUMP ‘ENEMIES’
In asserting Bondi as his nomination for legal professional common, Trump once more took intention on the Justice Division, which he characterised as being “weaponized” towards him.
“Pam will refocus the DOJ to its meant objective of preventing Crime, and Making America Protected Once more,” Trump stated within the assertion.
However these near Bondi stated they don’t consider her as an excessively political individual, saying they imagine the various years she spent as a litigator and state legal professional common will assist her deftly navigate the distinctive political pressures within the function, together with Trump’s calls to go after his so-called “enemies” inside the Division of Justice.
Although Bondi herself has echoed calls to “examine the investigators” concerned within the particular counsel investigations into Donald Trump, former colleagues stated they assume she has realized from former Justice Division leaders earlier than her, together with former Lawyer Basic Invoice Barr and former Particular Counsel John Durham, who was tapped by Barr to analyze alleged misconduct within the Trump-Russia probe.
“I’ve informed my Democratic buddies to not overreact as a result of we now have been via this earlier than,” Aronberg stated, citing the particular counsel probe led by Durham.
Within the subsequent 4 years, he stated, “I believe we’ll see extra of that.”
However Aronberg sees a distinction between Bondi and others, together with Trump’s former legal professional common nominee, Matt Gaetz.
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Bondi “shouldn’t be going to burn the home down,” Aronberg stated. “She’s not going to fabricate proof as a strategy to stroll Trump’s enemies out in handcuffs.”
