Commentary: Pam Bondi is already targeting Trump's enemies

Barbara McQuade, Bloomberg Opinion on Feb 12, 2025

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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has no appreciation for irony.

In a memo issued on her first day on the job, Bondi created a “Weaponization Working Group.” Quoting President Donald Trump, she wrote that the Department of Justice had engaged in an “unprecedented, third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process.”

Though vague on the specifics, she appears to be referring to the indictments charging Trump with unlawfully retaining government documents and conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Those cases ended not because of flaws in their factual basis but because the special counsel dismissed them after Trump won the 2024 election, and under Justice Department policy, a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

With no acknowledgment of the hypocrisy, the memo directs Justice Department employees to weaponize law enforcement. She shrouds this directive as an effort to “root out corruption” and then lists the targets of what can only be seen as retribution.

Topping the hit list is former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the prosecutions against Trump. The list includes federal employees who cooperated with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office successfully prosecuted Trump for falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments made to an adult film star just before the 2016 presidential election.

Also on the list is New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a $454 million civil judgment against Trump for fraudulent business practices by the Trump Organization. Justice Department personnel who worked on cases against the Jan. 6 attackers also made Bondi’s list, accusing them of “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions.”

That’s quite a first day for an attorney general who testified under oath at her confirmation hearing that “there will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice.” Maybe she had her fingers crossed behind her back.

What Trump and Bondi fail to understand is the apolitical nature of criminal prosecution. In their world, it seems, everything is political. You are either for us or against us. But prosecutors are charged with assessing the facts and law in an evenhanded manner and bringing charges where necessary to protect the public, deter crime and uphold the rule of law by holding accountable those who commit serious violations.

The Principles of Federal Prosecution, implemented after the Watergate scandal, provides policy guidance for DOJ attorneys. Among its directives is that an attorney for the government “may not be influenced by ... political association, activities, or beliefs.”

I served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit for almost 20 years and saw firsthand how cases are initiated, investigated and prosecuted. Cases begin with reports from victims, law enforcement agents, or sometimes even media reports. Investigators interview witnesses, execute search warrants, elicit testimony before a grand jury, and use other investigative techniques to learn all the facts.

Then, prosecutors determine whether those facts violate a federal statute. If so, a second decision must be made — whether the criminal charges would advance a substantial federal interest and serve the best interests of justice. Many prosecutors I know keep in their offices a framed copy of a famous quotation from a Supreme Court case called Berger v. United States. It states, “A prosecutor may strike hard blows, but he is not at liberty to strike foul ones.”

Government attorneys are not bipartisan; they are non-partisan, something Trump and Bondi seem unable or unwilling to comprehend.

When I served as a U.S. attorney during the Obama administration, my office brought cases against corrupt public officials of both parties. In those simpler times, no one questioned my integrity because the charges were filed against a Republican or a Democrat. One of the most significant cases I supervised charged the Democratic mayor of Detroit. We investigated reports from victims of extortion and took the case where the evidence led us.

But today, thanks to Trump, we live in a world of us versus them, where everyone is either a good guy or a bad guy. Taking a page from his reality television career, Trump understands the public’s appetite for villains and heroes. And Bondi is right there with him.

The name of her memo? “RESTORING THE INTEGRITY AND CREDIBILITY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.” Maybe Bondi does appreciate irony after all.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law school, a former U.S. attorney and author of "Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America."

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