by
Nathan
Posner/Anadolu
via
Getty
Images)
The
battle
to
replace
Pam
Bondi
is
already
underway.
The
former
Attorney
General’s
picture
is
barely
cold
in
the
trashcan,
and
already
her
would-be
replacements
are
jockeying
to
be
the
next
lawyer
to
land
headfirst
in
the
rubbish,
with
only
a
pile
of
congressional
subpoenas
to
cushion
the
blow.
Jeanine!
Alina!
Harmeet!
The
gang’s
all
here.
This
job
is
objectively
a
shit
sandwich.
An
increasingly
demented
and
desperate
president
is
staring
down
the
likely
loss
of
at
least
one
House
of
Congress
in
the
midterms
and
a
wildly
unpopular
war
that
refuses
to
end
no
matter
how
much
he
shitposts
at
it.
The
one
thing
Trump
wants
from
the
DOJ
is
the
scalps
of
his
enemies
—
a
prize
that
moves
ever
further
out
of
reach
as
statutes
of
limitations
run.
The
problem
isn’t
that
Pam
Bondi
lacked
“smarts
and
guts,”
as
Trump
reportedly
complained.
The
former
county
prosecutor
and
Florida
state
AG
worked
like
hell
to
give
her
boss
the
perp
walks
he
demanded.
The
problem
is
that
the
American
legal
system,
battered
as
it
is,
retains
a
stubborn
capacity
to
distinguish
between
actual
crimes
and
the
president’s
personal
grievances.
Darn
you,
grand
juries!
Darn
you,
federal
judges!
Darn
you,
probable
cause!
This
is
a
problem
familiar
to
Jeanine
Pirro,
Trump’s
second
choice
to
lead
the
US
Attorneys
Office
in
DC.
After
Ed
Martin
failed
to
win
Senate
confirmation,
Trump
tapped
the
former
Fox
News
host
for
the
job.
Pirro
was
a
former
state
prosecutor
in
New
York,
but
her
chops
are
a
little
rusty.
She’s
gotten
no-billed
dozens
of
times
by
grand
juries,
suffered
an
embarrassing
string
of
losses
related
to
DHS’s
“surge”
into
DC,
and
her
subpoena
for
the
Federal
Reserve
got
quashed
by
Chief
Judge
James
Boasberg,
who
found
that
the
DOJ’s
“justifications
are
so
thin
and
unsubstantiated
that
the
Court
can
only
conclude
that
they
are
pretextual.”
For
the
case
against
lawmakers
who
posted
a
video
reminding
service
members
of
their
obligation
to
disregard
illegal
orders,
Pirro
brought
in
a
ringer
—
a
retired
state
prosecutor
currently
working
as
a
dance
photographer.
But
his
presentation
fell
flat,
and
not
a
single
grand
juror
voted
to
indict.
The
Atlantic
reports
that
Pirro
is
undeterred,
and
is
actively
lobbying
for
the
job
at
Mar-a-Lago.
She’s
joined
by
Trump’s
sparklemagic
lawyer,
Alina
Habba,
who
recently
relocated
to
Florida
to
be
closer
to
the
action.
The
former
dress-up
US
Attorney
for
New
Jersey
is
theoretically
a
senior
Justice
Department
official
advising
on
US
Attorneys
Offices.
She’s
never
prosecuted
a
federal
case
in
her
life,
but
Caligula
made
his
horse
a
consul
so
…
sure,
why
not?
Other
reported
contenders
include
EPA
Administrator
Lee
Zeldin,
who
practiced
law
for
three
whole
years
in
Long
Island
before
being
elected
to
the
New
York
State
Senate.
Trump
has
referred
to
Zeldin
as
his
“secret
weapon,”
thanks
to
Zeldin’s
uncanny
ability
to
pump
out
expedited
permits
for
hydrocarbon
extraction,
which
is
just
like
running
the
world’s
largest
law
firm.
CBS
reports
that
Harmeet
Dhillon,
another
of
Trump’s
personal
lawyers,
is
in
the
mix,
too.
Dhillon
presided
over
the
evisceration
of
the
DOJ’s
Civil
Division,
reorienting
the
office
to
hunt
trans
kids
and
protect
white
men
from
academic
and
workplace
“discrimination.”
But
unlike
Bondi,
who
understood
that
social
media
is
just
a
tool
for
pumping
out
content
to
keep
sweet
with
the
White
House,
Dhillon
isn’t
in
on
the
joke.
She
actually
boasted
once
to
the
Wall
Street
Journal
that
she
wakes
up
and
scrolls
X.com
for
“a
list
of
new
horrors,”
after
which
“I
text
my
deputies,
and
we
assign
cases,
and
we
get
cranking.”
She
could
turn
the
DOJ
into
an
anti-DEI
machine
without
blinking.
(Because
she
never
blinks.)
Senators
Mike
Lee
and
Eric
Schmitt
are
mentioned
as
possible
candidates
as
well,
but
the
real
man
to
beat
is
Deputy
AG
Todd
Blanche,
yet
another
of
Trump’s
former
personal
lawyers.
In
the
post
announcing
that
Bondi
would
be
relocated
to
a
farm
upstate
where
she
could
run
around
and
chase
squirrels
with
the
other
discarded
former
lawyers
—
say
hi
to
Rudy!
—
Trump
said
“our
Deputy
Attorney
General,
and
a
very
talented
and
respected
Legal
Mind,
Todd
Blanche,
will
step
in
to
serve
as
Acting
Attorney
General.”
Graded
on
the
Trump
curve,
Blanche
is
comparatively
qualified:
He
worked
as
a
prosecutor
at
SDNY
early
in
his
career.
He
has
actual
experience
in
Justice
Department
leadership.
He’s
not
obviously
delusional.
But
if
Blanche
wasn’t
able
to
make
those
political
prosecutions
happen
as
the
second-in-command
at
DOJ,
why
would
he
be
able
to
do
it
from
the
big
chair?
He’s
also
got
some
stink
on
him
from
the
Epstein
files,
another
grenade
Bondi
tried
and
failed
to
diffuse
for
the
president.
Blanche
interviewed
Epstein’s
accomplice
Ghislaine
Maxwell
in
person,
right
around
the
time
she
found
herself
transferred
from
Florida
to
a
cushy
facility
in
Texas
that
categorically
bars
sex
offenders.
It
was
at
this
meeting
that
Maxwell
remembered
that
Trump
was
always
a
perfect
gentleman
when
she
knew
him
—
an
amazing
coincidence
Blanche
will
certainly
be
asked
about
in
a
congressional
hearing
if
he
takes
the
top
job.
Will
he
be
reduced
to
screeching
about
the
stock
market
when
asked
about
his
boss’s
former
buddy?
There
is
one
more
potential
wrench
in
the
works.
Senator
Thom
Tillis,
the
North
Carolina
Republican
who
doomed
Ed
Martin’s
nomination
by
making
sure
he
never
got
out
of
the
Judiciary
Committee,
says
he’s
a
“no”
on
anyone
who
downplays
the
January
6
attack
on
the
Capitol.
“For
me,
the
threshold
for
somebody
following
Pam
Bondi
ends
the
moment
I
hear
they
said
one
thing
that
excused
the
events
of
January
the
6th.
I’ve
been
very
clear
on
that,”
he
told
CNN’s
Kaitlan
Collins.
“So
I
hope
whoever
they
have
in
mind
to
follow
General
Bondi
is
very
clear-eyed
on
my
position
on
Jan.
6.”
So
…
none
of
the
above?
Whoever
succeeds
Bondi
will
preside
over
an
institution
that’s
been
gutted
during
her
14-month
tenure.
More
than
6,400
employees
were
either
fired,
resigned,
or
took
early
retirement.
The
Civil
Rights
Division
lost
roughly
three-quarters
of
its
attorneys.
The
share
of
top
law
school
graduates
applying
to
work
at
DOJ
has
plummeted,
and
US
Attorneys
are
reduced
to
asking
anyone
with
a
MAGA
hat
and
a
bar
card
to
slide
into
their
DMs.
Worst
of
all,
judicial
deference
to
the
government
is
decimated,
thanks
to
the
terrible,
mendacious
arguments
Bondi
forced
her
employees
to
make
during
the
past
14
months.
“I
won’t
believe
it
until
you
testify.
That’s
what
has
happened
to
the
credibility
of
your
office,”
New
Jersey
Judge
Zahid
Quraishi
excoriated
a
hapless
AUSA
in
March.
“Generations
of
Assistant
U.S.
Attorneys
had
built
the
goodwill
of
that
office
for
your
generation
to
destroy
it
within
a
year.”
None
of
that
will
change
for
whichever
lickspittle
slobbers
his
or
her
way
to
the
top
of
Main
Justice.
Bondi’s
successor
may
be
a
better
manager,
or
have
a
clearer
understanding
of
how
federal
prosecutions
work.
But
he
or
she
won’t
be
able
to
magic
up
crimes
by
Trump’s
enemies
where
none
exist.
The
only
thing
different
is
the
name
on
the
next
portrait
to
wind
up
in
the
trash.
Liz
Dye produces
the
Law
and
Chaos Substack and podcast. You
can
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by
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the
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