Nobody Trusts Pam Bondi
The Jeffrey Epstein scandal turns Trump's base against the AG
On my first day as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, I received “the Reservoir Speech.”
Justice Department alums are nodding in recognition; we all got some variation of the talk. In broad strokes: Think of DOJ as a reservoir, and the water in it as public trust. It takes years to build up that water supply, but even a slight crack can drain it quickly. Now that you’re part of the Justice Department, you’ll have the benefit of the doubt, and judges and the general public will believe you because of that hard-earned public trust. Don’t be the one to crack the reservoir and drain it.
After just five months leading the Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi is threatening to leave the reservoir tapped out. She has confirmed the worst fears of Democrats who opposed her from the start, and now she’s pulled off the more difficult task of alienating conservatives and the pro-Trump MAGA base (those two categories not necessarily being one and the same).