Pam Bondi Grilled in Confirmation Hearing
Over Possible Political Criminal Prosecutions
Democrats accused Pam Bondi of evasiveness but Republicans strongly supported her during her Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday as nominee to become U.S. attorney general.
By the end of the hearing, there was wide agreement on the Senate Judiciary Committee that she will win confirmation to lead the Justice Department.
Bondi is a former prosecutor, lobbyist and Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019. In 2020, she was one of President-elect Donald Trump's defense lawyers during his first impeachment trial.
The main issue of contention during the confirmation hearing was whether she would target criminal prosecutions based on disagreements over political policy.
Republicans say the Biden administration sought to prosecute supporters of Donald Trump. They included his former attorneys, such as Rudy Giuliani, and some of the rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bondi promised the Senate Judiciary Committee that “politics will not play a part” in deciding who gets prosecuted.
She added, “There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice.”
Democrats raised similar concerns while citing threats from Trump and his nominee for FBI director to prosecute political officials who orchestrated criminal charges against him.
Trump has been convicted on 34 felony charges in New York for falsifying business records to cover up a sexual affair with a porn actor. He was charged with other felonies for election interference and mishandling classified government documents but prosecutors dropped the charges after Trump won reelection in November.
Some of the charges resulted from a congressional committee’s investigation that showed Trump helped to incite the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol as part of an attempt to seize control of the government. Trump suggested the committee members should be criminally prosecuted.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked Bondi whether she believed there was a factual basis for prosecuting the congressional committee members.
Bondi did not answer directly, instead calling the question a “hypothetical.”
After he repeatedly asked for a direct answer to the question, Bondi shot back by saying Schiff should be more concerned about the wildfires in California.
“Our concern comes when your loyalty to the president conflicts with your duty,” Schiff said. “That conflict will come.”
Bondi said she did not believe such a conflict of interest would arise.
Schiff responded, “It came to everyone. It will come to you and what you do in that moment will define your attorney generalship.”
Bondi is Trump’s second nominee as attorney general. The first was Matt Gaetz, a former Florida Republican congressman, who withdrew under pressure as he faced allegations of paying for illegal drugs and sex with women, including one 17-year-old.
On other issues, Bondi said she would not seek to interfere with laws that tolerate abortion despite her personal opposition.
On gun control, she said, “I am an advocate for the Second Amendment but I will enforce the laws of the land.”
She promised a crackdown on anyone taking advantage of the ongoing California wildfires. She mentioned “looters” and “price-gouging” as the problem.
She also said her former job as a lobbyist representing major corporations like Amazon, Uber and General Motors would not create a conflict for her.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Justice Dept. Releases Report Implicating
Trump in Felony Election Interference
Donald Trump would have been convicted of serious felonies for election interference if he had not regained the presidency, a special prosecutor’s report released this week said.
The Justice Department released the report one day after special prosecutor Jack Smith resigned amid threats of criminal prosecution by the incoming Trump administration.
The report describes the investigation that led to Trump being charged with four felony counts of undertaking a "criminal scheme" to overturn the 2020 election as he tried to remain in power. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Justice Department dropped the case against him in November while citing a policy that prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.
"The Department's view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office stands fully behind," the report said. "Indeed, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial."
The investigation was based on interviews with 250 witnesses and 55 grand jury witnesses. Smith’s team concluded the evidence was sufficiently strong to convince a jury Trump committed multiple federal crimes while subverting the election process.
"The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit -- knowingly false claims of election fraud -- and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States' democratic process," the report said.
The Justice Department released the report after wrangling with Trump’s attorneys in federal court.
Election interference was one of two allegations in the report. The other one touched on evidence Trump consciously mishandled highly classified government documents.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Monday the portion of the report on mishandled classified documents could not be released while two of Trump’s co-defendants still are awaiting trial. She said the public disclosure could interfere with Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira’s rights to a fair trial.
Nauta was Trump’s valet at his Mar-A-Lago estate while De Oliveira was the property manager. They are accused of helping to hoard classified documents at Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, home and lying to investigators about how they were concealed from the FBI.
The Justice Department said evidence intended for criminal prosecution of the president-elect involved the people’s right to know.
Trump's lawyers argued the entire Smith report should not be released because the attorney general did not follow proper procedures in appointing him as special prosecutor, meaning he lacked authority as a government official.
They also said a public disclosure would violate presidential immunity and federal law requiring a peaceful transition of power.
The judge’s order raised no objections to release of evidence showing Trump interfered with the 2020 presidential election that gave the victory to Joe Biden.
The case is U.S. v. Nauta et al. in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Supreme Court Justice Alito Refused
To Recuse After Phone Call with Trump
Donald Trump’s criminal sentencing went through as scheduled last week but a controversy it created with a Supreme Court justice continues.
Trump was sentenced to “unconditional discharge” by a New York judge after conviction on charges of falsifying business records to cover up a sexual affair with a porn actor. He will incur no prison times or fines but retain a felony record.
He appealed to the Supreme Court to stop the sentencing but his appeal was denied. The majority opinion included three dissents, one of them from Justice Samuel Alito Jr.
Three days before the sentencing, Trump phoned Alito to discuss a job referral for a Supreme Court law clerk to the incoming presidential administration.
Alito did not recuse himself from Trump’s sentencing appeal. He said his phone call over a job referral did not create a conflict of interest.
"I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me [Tuesday] afternoon," Justice Alito said in a statement. "We did not discuss the emergency application he filed [Wednesday], and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed."
Some Democrats in Congress were unconvinced about his sincerity. They described it as a pattern of self-serving actions by Supreme Court justices.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said Alito’s phone call created an "appearance of impropriety."
He added, "Especially when paired with his troubling past partisan ideological activity in favor of Trump, Justice Alito's decision to have a personal phone call with President Trump — who obviously has an active and deeply personal matter before the court — makes clear that he fundamentally misunderstands the basic requirements of judicial ethics or, more likely, believes himself to be above judicial ethics altogether."
Raskin referred to incidents in which a flag associated with Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement and an upside-down American flag were flown outside Alito’s homes in New Jersey and in suburban Virginia. He blamed the displays on his wife.
Alito’s neighbors in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Fairfax County said the upside-down American flag flew at Alito’s home for several days after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.
After ABC News reported the phone call with Trump on Wednesday, Reps. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and Jasmine Crockett, D-Mo., wrote a letter to Alito saying he must have been aware of a conflict of interest because it was "apparent to anyone following the case" that Trump would seek relief from the Supreme Court from his criminal sentencing.
"You stated that the call was simply a reference check for a potential government employee," the letter says. "But that does not pass the smell test."
Johnson and Crockett added, "Scandal after scandal has led to rock-bottom levels of trust in the Supreme Court. To protect what is left of the integrity of the court, you must recuse yourself from any decisions in the case of Trump v. New York."
The Democrats’ complaint coincides with a move in Congress to fundamentally alter the way the Supreme Court does business. Both Democrats and Republicans have complained the Supreme Court has become overly politicized and sometimes motivated by personal interests of the justices.
The Supreme Court tried to respond to calls for reform by adopting an ethics code just over a year ago. It says the justices should “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities.”
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
D.C. Congresswoman Reintroduces Bill
To Assert Local Control Over Local Laws
A bill reintroduced last week by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., appears to be taking on greater importance for Washington officials as they speculate on what Republican control of Congress and the White House will mean for the autonomy of local government.
Norton’s District of Columbia Legislative Home Rule Act would eliminate the congressional review period for bills passed by the D.C. Council. It would allow the local legislation to take effect immediately.
Currently, federal oversight of D.C. requires a congressional review period for bills passed by the D.C. Council of either 30 or 60 legislative days, depending on the type of bill.
If a congressional resolution disapproving a D.C. bill is signed into law during the review period, the local legislation does not become law.
In 2023, Congress blocked D.C.’s Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022 after complaints it was too easy on crime. The local bill would have eliminated mandatory minimum sentences for many crimes and reduced the maximum penalties for others, such as burglary, carjacking, and robbery.
In 2014, Congress vetoed D.C.’s Initiative 71 by prohibiting taxpayer funds from being used to legalize Schedule 1 drugs like marijuana. Use of small amounts of marijuana remain legal in D.C. but local government is forbidden by the congressional action from using public money to regulate or tax it.
In both cases, Norton and other local officials complained about federal intervention in local decisions. She repeated her concerns when she reintroduced the Legislative Home Rule Act last week.
"Congress generally uses the appropriations process to overturn or block D.C. laws,” Norton said. “Legislative autonomy would eliminate unnecessary and wasteful administrative costs on the D.C. government, Congress, D.C. businesses and D.C. residents.”
Norton’s latest attempt to reassert local government control faces an uncertain future after President-elect Donald Trump said during his second presidential campaign that he would orchestrate a “federal takeover” of the District of Columbia.
He has called the city “filthy and crime-ridden.” In 2020, he tried unsuccessfully to assume control of the D.C. police department.
With no status as a state, Trump and the Republican Congress could exert great influence over D.C.’s affairs.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Justice Dept. Sues Major Landlords
That Use Software for Setting Rents
The Justice Department added six of the nation’s biggest landlords to a lawsuit last week that accuses them of price-fixing to set rental rates.
Some of them, such as Greystar, operate rental units in the Washington, D.C., area.
All of them use a computer program called RealPage that sets rents based on algorithms and data on market conditions.
The Justice Department says the landlords went beyond common use of RealPage to share information that helped them collude in keeping rents high. Maryland’s attorney general made similar allegations in a lawsuit he filed this week.
About half of Americans are spending more than 30 percent of their household income on rent and utilities, an all-time high, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Justice Department says price-fixing by landlords named in its lawsuit is a big part of the reason.
As of January 2025, the average apartment rent in Washington is $2,285 per month, according to Apartments.com. “This is 47 percent higher than the national average rent price of $1,553 per month, making Washington one of the most expensive cities in the U.S.,” the online rental marketplace reported.
Although a decrease in new home construction over the past decade is a factor in the housing shortage that keeps rents high, major landlords are contributing, according to the Justice Department.
Landlords named in the amended lawsuit are Camden, Greystar, Cushman & Wakefield, LivCor, Cortland, and Willow Bridge. They operate in 43 states and the District of Columbia.
Rather than rely only on the software, the landlords also shared private information on rental pricing of their apartments, the number of their residents and ways to change price plans to raise rent but in a way that represents a potential antitrust violation, according to the Justice Department.
RealPage denied that its software was unfairly slanting rents in favor of landlords.
RealPage said “fewer than 10 percent of all rental housing units in the U.S. use RealPage software to suggest rental prices, and our software recommendations are accepted less than half the time.”
In addition to a housing shortage, inflation and inefficient permitting requirements are driving up rents, RealPage says on its website.
The RealPage statement conflicts with a White House report last month that said as many as one in four rentals nationwide use a RealPage pricing algorithm. In some markets, the use rate is higher, the report said.
“We find that anti-competitive pricing costs renters in algorithm-utilizing buildings an average of $70 a month,” the report said. “In total, we estimate the costs to renters in 2023 was $3.8 billion. This estimate is likely a lower bound on the true costs.”
Landlords named in the lawsuit say market conditions should be blamed for high rents, not their business practices.
A Greystar statement said it manages its rental units with the “utmost integrity.”
"At no time did Greystar engage in any anti-competitive practices," the statement says.
The case is U.S. et al. v. RealPage Inc. in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.