Ex-DOJ officials sound alarm on Trump’s 'incredibly harmful' Bondi and Patel picks

10 December 2024

During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump vowed to nominate only MAGA loyalists for positions within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and use them as instruments of revenge against his political enemies.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and many of her allies warned that Trump's threats showed a blatant disregard for the rule of law; regardless, Trump narrowly defeated her, winning the popular vote by a margin of 1.4 or 1.5 percent (according to the Cook Political Report). And now, as president-elect, he is picking loyalists who have threatened retaliation against Trump's foes — including former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for U.S. attorney general and conspiracy theorist Kash Patel (a QAnon supporter) for FBI director.

The Guardian's Peter Stone, in an article published on December 10, warns that some DOJ alumni are sounding the alarm about the threat that Bondi and Patel pose from a civil liberties standpoint.

"Patel and Bondi have each mimicked Trump's calls for taking revenge against key Democrats and officials, including ones who pursued criminal charges against Trump for his aggressive efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat and his role in inflaming the January 6 attack on the Capitol that led to five deaths," Stone reports. "Trump has lavished praise on both picks, calling Patel a 'brilliant lawyer' and 'advocate for truth,' while hailing Bondi as 'loyal' and 'qualified.' But critics say their rhetoric and threats are 'incredibly harmful to public trust' in the two agencies undermining the integrity of the FBI and DOJ, and potentially spurring violence."

Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade, a frequent legal analyst on MSNBC, is among the DOJ alumni sounding the alarm about Bondi and Patel.

McQuade told The Guardian, "The rhetoric of Bondi and Patel is incredibly harmful to public trust in our government institutions and the reputations of individual public servants. There's absolutely no public evidence of wrongdoing to 'rig' the 2020 election. Pledges to prosecute the prosecutors and investigate the investigators based on the complete absence of evidence is reckless because even if investigations do not materialize, unhinged members of the public will hear these bombastic accusations as a call to action."

Former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich also regards Bondi and Patel as troubling picks.

Bromwich told The Guardian, "Members of the Senate Judiciary committee have a duty to explore the basis of those often-repeated beliefs. If Bondi and Patel maintain that the election was stolen, they either are liars — and lying under oath is a crime — or they are so detached from reality that they shouldn't be trusted to run a two-person convenience store, much less the DOJ and the FBI."

Read The Guardian's full article at this link.

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