‘Why Is a Judge Trying To Protect Terrorists?’: Defiant Pam Bondi Finds Her Voice Denouncing ‘Meddling Judges’ Blocking Trump’s Agenda

America’s 87th attorney general is emerging as the tip of the spear as the 47th president takes on the judiciary.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Attorney General Bondi speaks ahead of remarks by President Trump at the Department of Justice, March 14, 2025, at Washington, D.C. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

When Attorney General Bondi took her oath of office she promised to make President Trump “proud,” and she appears to be finding her voice at the tip of the spear in his escalating series of confrontations with federal district court judges intent on disrupting his agenda. 

Ms. Bondi on Wednesday appeared on Fox News to opine on Mr. Trump’s attempted deportations of alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Judge James Boasberg has grilled the government over those deportations, notwithstanding his order that they be halted.    

The attorney general explained that “this judge has no right to ask those questions” and that Judge Boasberg, a district court judge, has no “business, no power” to impede Mr. Trump’s immigration policy. She castigated Judge Boasberg for “meddling in foreign affairs” and “meddling in our government.” She asked: “Why is a judge trying to protect terrorists who have invaded our country over American citizens?”

Ms. Bondi’s outspokeness on executive power comes after she appeared to take a back seat during the first major controversy of her time atop the Department of Justice — the order to drop federal bribery charges against Mayor Adams. 

That effort was spearheaded by the principal deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, who, while acting deputy attorney general, commanded the then-acting United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, to dismiss the case. She resigned alongside some eight other senior prosecutors. 

It was Mr. Bove rather than Ms. Bondi who, in a public letter, accepted Ms. Sassoon’s resignation and upbraided her for having “lost sight of the oath” that she took when she “started at the Department of Justice by suggesting that you retain discretion to interpret the Constitution.” Ms. Sassoon alleged a quid pro quo between the mayor and the Trump administration with respect to immigration enforcement.

Messrs. Adams and Bove both denied the existence of such an arrangement, but Ms. Bondi appeared to set herself at a degree of remove from the proceedings, which now rest before Judge Dale Ho after an independent lawyer, Paul Clement, recommended the charges be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning they could not be brought again. Ms. Bondi last month told reporters: “I did not know that it had not been dropped yet.”

On Wednesday, though, Ms. Bondi put her own name to a filing to Judge Boasberg accusing the jurist of “Continuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the Government legally immaterial facts” that are “wholly within a sphere of core functions of the Executive Branch.” She labels this pursuit “both purposeless and frustrating to the consideration of the actual legal issues at stake in this case.” Mr. Bove and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche — who together defended Mr. Trump against Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the Stormy Daniels case —  also put their John Hancocks on the document.

The lawyers for some of the Venezuelan migrants — alleged to be Tren de Aragua “terrorists” — make the argument that the “implications of the government’s position are staggering. If the President can designate any group as enemy aliens under the Act, and that designation is unreviewable, then there is no limit on who can be sent to a Salvadoran prison, or any limit on how long they will remain there.”

Ms. Bondi signaled her intention to adopt Mr. Trump’s agenda as her own just days after she was sworn in. With the stroke of a pen she created the “Weaponization Working Group,” whose remit includes probing “Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff, who spent more than $50 million targeting President Trump, and the prosecutors and law enforcement personnel who participated in the unprecedented raid on President Trump’s home.”

The 87th attorney general has also stepped into the spotlight in respect of the rise in attacks on Tesla, the electric vehicle company owned by the world’s richest man and a staunch ally of Mr. Trump, Elon Musk, who’s been slashing government expenses — and jobs — with relish. On Tuesday she released a statement declaring that the “swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind.”


The New York Sun

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