As Billy Joel Sang, ‘Honesty Is Such A Lonely Word, Everyone Is So Untrue’
A high level trump advisor by the name of Boris Epshteyn allegedly has been strongarming people seeking appointments in the trump administration.
Oh my.
Will trump be man enough to order an investigation of one of his own henchmen? Is there a tooth fairy, Santa Claus, an honest cabbie?
Maybe we’ll have to rely on trump’s latest nominee for attorney general to be honest and objective. That would be Pam Bondi, the second choice after trump’s first nominee for attorney general former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., vaporized in a cloud of alleged sexual improprieties.
Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, the attorney general must be “learned in the law” and is expected to execute a president’s priorities while protecting the rule of law. “Learned in the law” and “a president’s priorities” are right up there with those famous weasel words “some people say” and “studies show.”
If confirmed by the Senate, Bondi would serve as long or as brief as trump wanted. Trump is the first president to receive blanket power to break the law, as ruled by the Supreme Court. It will be a tall task and take great integrity for Bondi to serve a president who has vowed to seek revenge against his political rivals. Bondi’s ability to be objective is on thin ice; she is notorious for having joined in in the anti-Hillary Clinton shout to “Lock her up” at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Maybe objectivity is a bar too high.
Would bondi prosecute trump sycophants? Unlikely because she is one.
“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones,” Bondi said on Fox News last year after Trump was indicted in Georgia on charges of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “The investigators will be investigated.”
Her words do not instill a promise of objectivity.
But even if she is as bad as trump’s picks usually are, Bondi will have a ong way to go to equal probably the nation’s worst constitution trampler, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. In 1919, the Bolshevik Revolution looked to spread Communism to the U.S. In an incredibly illegal overreaction, Palmer, attorney general from 1919 to 1921, used the 1917 Espionage Act and 1918 Sedition Act to justify arresting numerous left wing individuals, dissidents and foreigners. He detained some without charge and deported others, without hearings. Palmer meant to fight Communism, but instead his lawlessness gave rise to the civil liberties movement and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which was formed partly in response to the “Palmer Raids.”
That is not to diminish the other really bad attorney generals, a long list of lawyers who have twisted or ignored the law, from William Barr and Jeff Sessions to John Mitchell and John Ashcroft.
Take trump’s word, Bondi will be great for the country or at least great for trump.
“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans — Not anymore,” trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again. I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!”
Bondi was the Florida attorney general in 2016 when she endorsed trump in March 2016. It was then reported that Bondi had personally solicited a $25,000 political donation from trump while considering whether the state would join an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University.
In 2017, trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University, ending nearly seven years of legal battles with customers who claimed they were misled by failed promises to teach success in real estate.
Prior to the donation to trump, Bondi had received at least 22 fraud complaints regarding Trump University. A Bondi spokesperson said that her office was considering joining a lawsuit initiated by Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, regarding tax fraud potential charges against Trump.
Four days later, a political action committee established by Bondi to support her re-election, “And Justice for All,” received a $25,000 donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. Bondi subsequently declined to join the lawsuit against Trump University. Both Bondi and Trump said the donations were perfect.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service in 2016. The Trump Foundation said the donation had been made in error, and that the donation should have gone to Bondi’s unrelated Kansas non-profit “Justice for All.”
In June 2016, Bondi’s spokesman said that she had solicited the donation directly from trump several weeks before her office announced it was considering joining the lawsuit. On March 14, 2016, Bondi endorsed trump in the 2016 Florida Republican presidential primary, reflecting on their long term friendship.
In September 2016, the IRS determined that the donation to Bondi’s PAC violated laws against political contributions from nonprofit organizations and ordered Trump to pay a fine for the contribution. Trump also was required to reimburse the foundation for the sum that had been donated to Bondi. Neither Bondi nor her PAC were fined or criminally charged. In November 2019, a New York state court ordered trump to close down the foundation and pay $2 million in damages for misusing it, including the illegal donation to Bondi.
“The money came from a Trump family foundation in apparent violation of rules surrounding political activities by charities. A political group backing Bondi’s re-election, called And Justice for All, reported receiving the check Sept. 17, 2013 — four days after Bondi’s office publicly announced she was considering joining a New York state probe of Trump University’s activities,” according to a 2013 story in the Orlando Sentinel.
Bondi later denied her office was ever investigating Trump. At the time, she acted in true Shakespearean manner when she “doth protest too much.”
“I never, nor was my office, investigating him. Never. I would never lie. I would never take money. I’ve been obviously devastated over this,” Bondi told the Miami Herald.
Bondi is a former county prosecutor and later Florida attorney general. In 2019, after her final term as Florida attorney general, Bondi was hired by Ballard Partners, a firm with close ties to trump, and she began working as a registered foreign agent for the government of Qatar.
Bondi once earned $115,000 a month as a registered foreign lobbyist for the Qatari government, which has often been accused of human rights abuses ranging from stealing migrant workers wages to imprisoning those who protest the government. She worked for Qatar in 2020 during the run-up to the 2022 soccer World Cup, when the state introduced new laws to end one of the most abusive elements of the country’s labor system.
Bondi was registered to lobby for such major companies as Amazon, General Motors and Uber, as well as the Qatari government and various financial firms.
Ballard Partners was run by trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles. The company founder is Brian Ballard, a top trump fundraiser. The company was one of the most powerful lobbyists during the first trump reign and will certainly retake that post in the second trump rule of terror.
Ballard Partners was the fifth highest-grossing lobbying firm in 2020, when it brought in $24.6 million, up from $19.1 million the previous year. Clients range from Amazon to Google to KyodoPR in Japan, The GR Company in the Republic of Korea and Cefeidas Group in Latin America.
In November 2019, trump hired Bondi to help the defense in the first impeachment proceedings. On January 17, 2020, Bondi was named as part of trump’s defense team for the second Senate impeachment trial. He was exonerated in both trials.
During the first impeachment trial, Bondi claimed that former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, were involved in corruption in Ukraine, stemming from the younger Biden’s position on the board of Burisma Holdings.
It also came out that in 2018, while she was Florida attorney general, and in 2019, Bondi met with Lev Parnas, a businessman with close ties to Rudy Giuliani and Ukraine. Parnas, Giuliani, and others were involved in creating the false Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, which is part of the Trump–Ukraine scandal’s efforts to damage Biden. As president, trump said he did not know Parnas or what he was involved in; Parnas insisted trump “knew exactly what was going on.”
Parnas was arrested in 2019 and accused of illegally funneling foreign money from Ukrainians and Russians to U.S. Republican politicians, particularly in Florida, where he lived and where trump’s estate, Mar-a-Lago is located. In October 2021, Parnas was found guilty in U.S. Federal Court on six counts related to illegal donations to trump’s 2020 campaign. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison, three years of supervised release and $2,322,500 in restitution on June 29, 2022.
Bondi spoke in support of trump at the 2020 Republican National Convention and backed his bogus claims that he was a victim of widespread voter fraud. Apparently grateful for her support, trump later appointed Bondi to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Bondi was attorney general in August 2018, when she co-hosted The Five on Fox News three days in a row while also appearing on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Fox News claimed that the Florida Commission on Ethics had approved Bondi’s appearance on the program. The spokeswoman for the commission said that no decision was made and that the commission’s general counsel did not make a determination whether or not Bondi’s appearance as a host violated the Florida Code of Ethics.
Bondi heads the legal arm of the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute, a model for the trump administration. America First Policy Institute is led by Linda McMahon, trump’s nominee for education secretary and Larry Kudlow, a Fox commentator and close trump advisor.
Bondi, 59, served as Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019. She won her first term with the support of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Among her more notable cases, she was the lead attorney general in an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare.
She also was against the legalization of medical marijuana and defended a 2008 amendment to the Florida Constitution banning same-sex marriage. Bondi was formerly an assistant state attorney and prosecuted former Major League Baseball player Dwight Gooden in 2006 for violating the terms of his probation and for substance abuse.
Beginning in 2010, wealthy members of the controversial Church of Scientology organized multiple fundraisers for Bondi’s political campaigns. Bondi said her involvement stemmed from the group’s wishes to help stop human trafficking. Scientology’s most famous members include John Travolta and Tom Cruise.
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by the American author L. Ron Hubbard. It is variously defined as a cult, a business, a religion or a scam. Key Scientology beliefs include reincarnation and that traumatic events cause subconscious command-like recordings in the mind (termed “engrams”) that can be removed only through an activity called “auditing.” A fee is charged for each session of “auditing.” Once an “auditor” deems an individual free of “engrams” they are given the status of “clear.”
In 2010, two state prosecutors, June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards, members of the state’s Economic Crimes division, were investigating how law firms across the state were using hundreds of thousands of phony documents to kick homeowners out of their homes. Clarkson and Edwards were concentrating on the Florida firm, Lender Processing Services, which had donated at least $2,000 to Bondi’s 2010 election campaign.
Soon after she was elected, Bondi fired both prosecutors. Bondi’s spokesperson denied any quid pro quo for the campaign contributions and Clarkson’s and Edwards’s dismissals. The spokesperson said the attorneys were fired for a “lack of professionalism.”
In 2011, Lender Processing Services was part of a massive settlement with the government over industry-wide foreclosure misconduct that occurred after the housing crash. The settlement stemmed from document missteps in the third-party foreclosure process at some very large banks and mortgage servicers in the aftermath of the subprime crisis. The settlement also included names like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup.
LPS’ former parent, Fidelity National Financial, bought up the company and merged it with another subsidiary, ServiceLink Holdings, and formed Black Knight Financial Services. In 2017, the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced that they fined ServiceLink $65 million for the “improper actions” of LPS that contributed to that 2011 settlement.