Trump ignites pressure campaign on Pam Bondi to target rivals

President Trump is growing more brazen in his calls to prosecute his political rivals, turning up the public pressure on Attorney General Pam Bondi and others in the Justice Department to go after his opponents.

Trump has in recent days ousted a U.S. attorney who would not bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and posted on social media a message for Bondi saying the lack of charges against rivals like James and another rival, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) were “killing our reputation and credibility.” 

Trump caused a stir on Saturday with his Truth Social message directed at his own attorney general.

“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,’” Trump posted.

“There is a GREAT CASE….We can’t delay any longer.”

The public pressure campaign from Trump comes after the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, resigned rather than bring charges against James, reportedly concluding there was not sufficient evidence to back Trump’s allegation she committed mortgage fraud. 

The claims against James came alongside similar allegations made against two other Trump foes — Schiff and Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook — who also face accusations of mortgage fraud.

Siebert had also been investigating former FBI Director James Comey, another probe in which he reportedly faced roadblocks.

The message has led to a flurry of questions about whether Trump still has confidence in Bondi and whether he wants to see his rivals prosecuted regardless of evidence.

“The president has every right to express how he feels about these people who literally campaigned on trying to put him in jail, who literally tried to ruin his life and ruin his businesses. He wants to see accountability for those who abuse their office and abuse their power,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday, referring specifically to James.

Asked if that was retribution, Leavitt instead called it “accountability.”

Trump’s comments sent shock waves among former prosecutors as well as those who have been actively targeted by the president. 

“He made it very clear that he was firing [Siebert] for not bringing a meritless mortgage fraud case against Letitia James, and he's basically out in the open pressuring his attorney general, sending a message to other U.S. attorneys out there that if they don't do his will, they don't do his bidding and bring meritless cases against his enemies, they could be fired,” Schiff said during an appearance on MSNBC, noting his own work on Trump’s impeachment and on the Jan. 6 committee.

“And what he wants to try to do is not just go after me and Letitia James or Lisa Cook, but rather send a message that anyone who stands up to him on anything – anyone who has the audacity to call out his corruption will be a target, and they will go after you. It's an effort to try to silence and intimidate people, but I refuse to be silenced or intimidated.”

The public call for charges sparked several comparisons to Watergate, with Schiff noting that former President Nixon also “had his enemies list.”

“Imagine if Richard Nixon had just tweeted out the Watergate scandal rather than putting it on secret tapes,” Hillary Clinton wrote on X. 

“That’s what this is.”

Trump has in recent days said Bondi is “doing a great job.” And he denied threatening DOJ leadership if they did not prosecute Comey or James, even though in his Saturday post he took credit for firing Siebert.

"No. I don't do that. I don’t do that,” Trump said Sunday before turning to James. “I mean, I look at the facts like everybody else. You read the facts. And to me, she looks terrible. She looks very guilty. But that’s going to be up to the DOJ.”

Schiff, James and Cook have all denied wrongdoing in connection with their mortgages, arguing Trump ally Bill Pulte, who runs the Federal Housing Finance Authority, abused his power to forward the investigations targeting them to the Justice Department.

Abbe Lowell, an attorney for James as well as Cook, called Siebert’s forced exit “a brazen attack on the rule of law.  

“This prosecutor did exactly what justice required by following the facts and the evidence, which didn’t support charges against Attorney General James,” Lowell said of her case.

“Firing people until he finds someone who will bend the law to carry out his revenge has been the President’s pattern – and it’s illegal. Punishing this prosecutor, a Trump appointee, for doing his job sends a clear and chilling message that anyone who dares uphold the law over politics will face the same fate.”

After Siebert’s resignation, Trump said he planned to replace him with Lindsey Halligan, a White House staffer who practiced insurance law before she joined his criminal defense team in 2022. She has never tried a federal case.

DOJ lawyers must follow ethical guidelines as well as the standards outlined in the Justice Department manuel.

Beyond being barred from bringing charges for political reasons or to target perceived enemies of the president, prosecutors must also be assured there is sufficient evidence to back any case.

DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

Joyce Vance, a former U.S. Attorney under President Obama, said Siebert and other career prosecutors who worked the case did the right thing after they “looked at the evidence and came up empty-handed.”

“Not all investigations mature into prosecutions. Prosecutors do their jobs not only when they indict, but when they decline to bring faulty cases as well,” she wrote on her blog over the weekend, noting that Trump was already discussing less qualified successors for Seibert. 

“It feels like it should be unnecessary to state the obvious here, that there’s not much of a case if the only way to get it prosecuted is by firing an experienced prosecutor to get an inexperienced one (or no prosecutor at all) to bring it,” she wrote. 

“So let’s be clear about what Trump wants. He wants to turn us into a banana republic where the ability to prosecute people becomes a political tool in the hands of the president. That means he wants to exercise the ultimate power to put down any opposition to his rule.”

The White House on Monday waved away questions about whether Trump was weaponizing the Justice Department, with one reporter noting the president used his inaugural address to vow that the power of the state would not be used against political opponents.

“We are not going to tolerate gaslighting from anyone in the media or from anyone on the other side who is trying to say it is the president who is weaponizing the DOJ,” Leavitt said. “It was Joe Biden and his attorney general who weaponized the DOJ.”

The president on Sunday underscored the degree to which his dislike of his opponents shapes his approach to politics during a memorial tribute to the conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

“He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them,” Trump said. “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry."