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Pam Bondi's performance before the Judiciary Committee made a compelling case for her removal as Attorney General. Her tone was shrill, and her style resembled that of a gangster's moll at an interrogation rather than that of the highest legal officer of the United States. Perhaps she is rehearsing for a melodrama; if Donald Trump thinks he is being well served, he is mistaken.
What was more, Bondi's testimony was bedeviling because she not only violated rules and decorum but also appeared silly. Jamie Raskin apparently got under her skin by pointing out the rules of the House of Representatives. But Bondi was unperturbed, answering clear questions with pronunciations of infallibility. At one point, she screamed at Raskin, "You are a washed-up loser lawyer, you are not even a lawyer." Sorry, Madam Attorney General, Raskin graduated from Harvard, and to top it all off, was the editor of the law review.
Perhaps Bondi was amazed that the Republican chairpersons of the Committee rarely came to her aid. William Barr did a much better job during Trump's first term with a professional style and a low-key approach. Bondi went further with an angry attitude at one point, "You don't tell me what to do," forgetting she is a servant of the people of the United States. If shooting herself in the foot were an Olympic medal, she would have earned a solid gold prize, and no doubt she would immediately have gifted it to her boss.
Add the botched raid in Fulton County, Georgia, and you see signs of a person out of their depth. As my grandmother would say, "She just doesn't know." She managed to supersede Kristi Noem, her colleague at Homeland Security, in her antics.
Speaking of Noem, she busied herself entertaining herself at public expense. With her aide Corey Lewandowski, according to the Wall Street Journal, threw a fit and fired a Coast Guard pilot for allegedly losing Noem's favorite blanket, oh my. Later, they found it on another plane, and what makes it rich is that they had to rehire the pilot because no one else was available. Moreover, Noem seems obsessed with competing with Tom Homan for media attention. The fact that the Wall Street Journal obtained detailed information leads to the conclusion that the White House may be displeased with Noem and company.
Trump should be ruffled and wondering why people he had every confidence in proved so incompetent, and he cannot draw any comparisons with Richard Nixon's problems. John Mitchell was a highly competent Attorney General who cracked at the end. Elliot Richardson was outstanding and courageously resigned when Nixon asked him to do unconstitutional actions. Jeff Sessions learned to his regret that Trump regards his Attorney General as his personal attorney.
The movement resembles an apologist for billionaires.
Trump has underwritten "public servants" who have enforced his edicts with Neolithic incompetence.
He needs to return to his first term, when he had people with savvy and other assets besides their blind loyalty.
Careerism is not loyalty; it is insincere fealty.