The firing of former Attorney General Pam Bondi underscored the challenges of the job under President Donald Trump.
If acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, or his eventual replacement, leaves the Justice Department on good terms with Trump, they may well be the first to do so.
Jeff Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump for president in 2016, at a time when most Republican elected officials were skeptical of the brash real estate developer and reality TV star’s entry into politics.
The Alabama Republican had charted an alternate path for Republicans on immigration after many party operatives and establishment figures believed their 2012 presidential election loss meant they needed to embrace amnesty for most illegal immigrants in the country. Sessions arguably believed in Trumpism before Trump did — he even introduced Trump to Stephen Miller.
When Trump unexpectedly won in 2016 and tapped Sessions to be his first attorney general, it seemed like a reward for loyalty and political entrepreneurship.
“Jeff has been a highly respected member of the U.S. Senate for 20 years,” Trump said in a statement at the time. “He is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and US Attorney in the state of Alabama. Jeff is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him.”
But Sessions’s role in the Trump administration degenerated into an embarrassing spectacle that upended his long political career. Sessions quickly became ensnared in the Trump-Russia affair based on a small number of undisclosed contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. He then recused himself from the subsequent Trump-Russia investigation.
This set in motion a chain of events that culminated in the appointment of Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller. While Mueller was never able to prove any collusion between Trump or his campaign and the Russians, and his final report did not spark an impeachment inquiry, his investigation cast a pall over much of Trump’s first term. Trump himself has certainly not gotten over it.
The necessity of the recusal was debatable. The columnist and former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, hardly a MAGA legal commentator, argued against it. But Trump was incensed by it, and his relationship with Sessions never recovered.
Trump berated Sessions in person in the Oval Office. He denounced him online before the whole world. He told reporters he shouldn’t have nominated Sessions in the first place. A Sept. 14, 2017, New York Times headline read: “Trump humiliated Jeff Sessions after Mueller appointment.” Trump told the outlet in July, “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”
But Trump didn’t fire Sessions until Nov. 7, 2018. Sessions technically resigned, but his resignation letter makes clear that he did so on Trump’s orders. ”Dear Mr. President, at your request, I am submitting my resignation,” he wrote.
The episode wasn’t over, however. Sessions tried to return to the Senate seat he had last won in the general election with 97.3% of the vote, though he had no Democratic challenger. He sought to return to Trump’s good graces with a series of supportive, almost fawning, campaign ads. “When I left President Trump’s Cabinet, did I write a tell-all book? No. Did I go on CNN and attack the president? Nope. Have I said a cross word about our president? Not one time,” he said in one.
Trump would have none of it. His 2020 campaign called Sessions “delusional.” Trump himself forcefully backed former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville in the primary. “We only assume your campaign is doing this to confuse President Trump’s loyal supporters in Alabama into believing the President supports your candidacy in the upcoming primary run-off election,” a Trump campaign official wrote in a letter to Sessions about his pro-Trump ads. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Sessions lost to Tuberville in the runoff, taking just 39.3% of the vote. Politico ran the headline, “Trump humiliates Sessions.” Tuberville went on to win the Senate seat, which he currently holds.
Trump’s second Senate-confirmed attorney general had previously held the job under President George H.W. Bush. Bill Barr was a tough law-and-order Republican. But the two would come to clash over the 2020 election, when the Barr-led Justice Department could not find enough voter fraud to cast doubt on Trump’s loss. Or, as Barr later put it to the Atlantic, “It was all bulls***.”
Barr, at the urging of then-Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, had gone public with his findings. The Associated Press reported, “Disputing Donald Trump’s persistent baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.”
“Did you say that?” Trump later asked Barr, according to the former attorney general’s account. “Yes,” Barr replied. “How the f*** could you do this to me?” Trump demanded. “Why did you say it?”
When Barr responded that his comments were true, he claimed Trump shot back, “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.” Trump has disputed this version of events, saying that he instead concluded Barr’s inability to find the fraud proved the attorney general was too weak to stand up to the Left.
Something Sessions, Barr, and Bondi have all had in common was that they did not sufficiently satisfy Trump on his various legal grievances. It’s likely one of the reasons Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman, was Trump’s first choice over Bondi. Gaetz’s nomination was pulled after it became clear he was unconfirmable.
“We can’t delay any longer,” Trump posted on Truth Social in a message aimed at Bondi last September. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” He told “Pam” that the lack of criminal charges against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James” was “killing our reputation and credibility.”
In July 2017, Trump fumed on social media that Sessions “has taken a very weak position on Hillary Clinton Crimes.” He continued in the early morning hours, “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign – ‘quietly working to boost Clinton.’ So where is the investigation, A.G.,” tagging Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“By the end of the meeting, Trump was doing almost all of the talking,” Jonathan Karl wrote in the Atlantic about the 2020 White House showdown between Trump and Barr. “Why hadn’t Barr released John Durham’s report on the origins of the Russia investigation before the election? Why hadn’t he prosecuted former FBI Director James Comey? Trump was banging on the table. He said that Barr had been worthless.”
Trump’s critics have argued that he lacks sufficient respect for the rule of law, leading to attorneys general who wanted to be loyal to him failing.
TRUMP FIRES ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI
The president’s allies point to the lawfare campaign against him, ranging from the investigations of his 2016 campaign during the Obama administration to the multiple Trump prosecutions by Democratic appointees and elected officials to the weaponization of the Epstein files against him, as reasons he would be sensitive to these issues.
Either way, it has made life difficult for officials chosen to lead the Justice Department on more than an interim basis while Trump is in office. Blanche can at least take comfort in the fact that Mark Whitaker’s tenure as acting attorney general between Sessions and Barr was comparatively uneventful.