Pam Bondi Immediately Targeted DEI, ‘Weaponization’ On First Day Leading Trump’s DOJ

Pam Bondi issued over a dozen directives on her first day as attorney general, targeting past weaponization and undoing practices of the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ).

Her first actions include establishing a Weaponization Working Group, issuing instructions to end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and reaffirming the department’s commitment to using the death penalty in appropriate cases.

“I will restore integrity to the Justice Department and I will fight violent crime throughout this country and throughout this world and make America safe again,” Bondi said after she was sworn in on Tuesday.

The Weaponization Working Group will examine activities of “all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States over the last four years,” according to the memo. The group will look into former special counsel Jack Smith’s efforts targeting Trump, as well as cooperation of federal officials with the offices of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

It will also examine unethical prosecutions and improper tactics related to Jan. 6 investigations that diverted resources from targeting dangerous crime in Washington, D.C., which Bondi distinguishes from “goodfaith actions by federal employees simply following orders from superiors.”

Anonymous FBI agents sued on Tuesday after the DOJ directed employees who worked on Jan. 6 investigations to fill out a survey about their role. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove accused the acting FBI director of “insubordination” for resisting efforts to identify the agents in a memo Wednesday, noting that those “who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner” were not at risk, according to the Associated Press.

The group will also look into an FBI memo suggesting traditionalist Catholic practices could be affiliated with extremism, guidance directing the investigation of parents who expressed concern at school board meetings and prosecution of pro-life activists under the FACE Act.

Another order directs the Office of Legal Policy to submit a report on recommendations for enforcing federal civil rights law and “taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including policies relating to DEI and DEIA.” The Civil Rights Division will pursue actions to enforce the Supreme Court’s ruling in its Students for Fair Admissions cases, where they struck down racial preference in college admissions, per the memo.

Other directives target President Biden’s decisions, including commutations of sentences for dangerous criminals and murderers in his final days in office, reversing guidance issued by the prior administration.

Biden’s DOJ issued a moratorium on the death penalty. Biden also commuted sentences for 37 death row inmates, including a child murderer and cop killer.

Bondi affirmed the department would restore the use of the death penalty. In another memo, she instructed U.S. Attorney’s Offices to assist local prosecutors in pursuing state death sentences for those whose sentences Biden commuted and the DOJ to “explore opportunities to provide a public forum for the victims’ families to express how the commutations affected them personally.”

In another memo, Bondi rescinded guidance from the Biden administration prioritizing “environmental justice.”

She also put attorneys who don’t cooperate in defending Trump’s policies on notice.

“When Department of Justice attorneys, for example, refuse to advance good-faith arguments by declining to appear in court or sign briefs, it undermines the constitutional order and deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers,” Bondi wrote in a memo. “It is therefore the policy of the Department of Justice that any attorney who because of their personal political views or judgments declines to sign a brief or appear in court, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the Department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination, consistent with applicable law.”