Bondi Was Putting Out Fires -- The Next AG Needs To Go To War 

Pam Bondi was a personable attorney general placed in a difficult situation, and by most measures, she handled it with grace and loyalty. She navigated numerous crises, beginning with an early misstep involving the Epstein folder. Far more consequential were the relentless and unceasing efforts to block President Trump from advancing his agenda, which she had to confront constantly in the courts, from immigration to DOGE’s access to key departments, and the dismantling of USAID.

But only playing defense, even when done well, will not restore justice to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The problems baked into the DOJ are deep, structural, and decades in the making, and confronting them requires more than a caretaker or a fireman. It requires a field general, someone who arrives on day one with a comprehensive battle plan already drawn, who understands every front of a sprawling and complex war, and who possesses the stamina, attention to detail, and strategic vision to prosecute every challenge simultaneously without pause for the remainder of the administration. This is a task that demands more than competence — it demands mastery.

The Department of Justice is not a single institution but a constellation of them, each with its own culture, priorities, and internal politics. With approximately 115,000 employees and a budget of $42 billion, the DOJ operates as a prosecution machine, an intelligence gatherer, a regulatory enforcer, a national security apparatus, and a defender of federal interests in civil and administrative matters.

It houses the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, the U.S. Marshals, and dozens of specialized divisions and offices covering everything from antitrust to civil rights. Each of these areas contains a dense network of career staff, routines, and workflows shaped over decades by ideological priorities, institutional capture, and entrenched habits. Reforming a single division would be a formidable challenge, yet the task at hand is to reform them all at once while simultaneously pursuing accountability for past abuses and restoring public confidence in the Department’s integrity.