Soon afterwards it announced that Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, would seek the top position at the Justice Department instead.
Ms Bondi, 59, who served as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019 and represented the president-elect at his first impeachment trial in the Senate, is both an experienced public official and a long-time Trump ally. Mr Gaetz reacted to the choice on X/Twitter by calling her “a stellar selection” as well as “a proven litigator, an inspiring leader and a champion for all Americans”.
South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham was even more effusive, posting: “Well done, Mr President. Picking Pam Bondi for Attorney General is a grand slam, touchdown, hole in one, ace, hat trick, slam dunk, Olympic gold medal pick. She will be confirmed quickly because she deserves to be confirmed quickly.”
Donal Trump and Ms Bondi have ties that date back over a decade, to when Bondi was serving as Florida’s first female attorney general. In 2013, as Ms Bondi’s office was receiving complaints from people alleging they had been scammed by the future president’s Trump University seminars, her political committee received a $25,000 donation from the Donald J Trump Foundation.
While New York pursued lawsuits related to the seminars, the Sunshine State did not. Both Mr Trump and Ms Bondi have denied the donation was improper or related to the charging decision. That wasn’t the only campaign-related scandal in her time in Florida. That same year, she persuaded then-governor Rick Scott to reschedule the execution of convicted murderer Marshall Lee Fore to accommodate a fundraiser.
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