With Pam Bondi out as Attorney General, her eventual replacement is expected to meet several requirements, one of which will likely be "impossible for anyone” to meet, former U.S. attorney Elie Honig said on Friday.
Bondi was ousted as the nation’s top law enforcement official this week by President Trump, who reportedly was dissatisfied with her inability to secure criminal convictions for his perceived political adversaries. Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting attorney general in the immediate aftermath of Bondi’s firing.
Bondi’s eventual successor, however, is likely to leave Trump equally dissatisfied, Honig theorized Friday during an appearance on CNN, given what he believed were Trump’s requirements for the role.
“It appears there are basically two qualifications for the job: one is easy to find, one is really hard. The easy one, in Donald Trump's mind, is somebody who is 100% loyal to him, who will not hesitate to carry out his political agenda – Pam Bondi certainly met that qualification,” Honig said.
“The second one though is that you need someone, in Donald Trump's view, who can actually succeed on these prosecutions, who cannot just investigate, but successfully indict and convict, and Pam Bondi was 0% in doing that. All of the cases that she tried to bring that were political failed – rejected either by judges or by grand juries.”
The Justice Department under Trump has sought to criminally convict a number of the president’s perceived enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, and Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, all of whom Trump has publicly smeared.
Those efforts have all failed, however, and for one reason, Honig explained.
“I don't know that there's a human being alive who can satisfy that second criteria because it doesn't matter who you are – if the evidence isn't there, you're just not going to get an indictment!” he said.