Content Creator Pam Bondi Happily Does Trump’s Dirty Political Work
INSIDE: Alex Pretti ... Patrick Schiltz ... Thomas Albus
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
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Anna Bower, senior editor at Lawfare
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Performative Politicization
Across two different categories of cases in two different states yesterday, the Trump DOJ engaged in the kind of performative politicization that it experimented with in Trump I but has brought into full bloom in Trump II under Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Bondi is as much content creator as she is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. Her public moves yesterday echoed recent reporting that FBI Director Kash Patel is more concerned about what he can tweet than the underlying investigations themselves. (Patel got himself in trouble again with a tweet, this time causing internal political blowback in Mexico.)
In Minnesota, Bondi showed up in person to tout the arrests of protesters for allegedly assaulting federal agents while still refusing to investigate the shooting deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents. It’s an unmistakeable statement not just about who the current regime favors under the law but about impunity.
While attorneys general routinely tout high profile arrests, Bondi took it a step further: posting on social media photographs of many of the arrested protesters in violation of DOJ guidelines. That move drew a rebuke from a federal judge, as I lay out below.
In Georgia, the FBI executed search warrants on the Fulton County voting center on Wednesday, retrieving ballots and other election administration records from the 2020 election in a Big Lie-fueled move that was as absurd as it was dangerous. More than five years after the election, Trump is still chasing his white whale of election fraud and a host of DOJ and FBI appointees are eager to oblige. The theatrical move checks the box for loyalty, keeps the Big Lie alive, sows doubt about any future Trump loss, and creates the kind of MAGA spectacle that Trump loves.
In the administration of any other president, DOJ would not have let itself get dragged into such obviously politicized shenanigans, let alone lead the charge in fanning the flames of public reprobation against defendants and public suspicion about election administration. But Bondi has to churn out content at an increasingly frenetic pace to stay in the good graces of President Trump and his White House, creating an irreconcilable tension between her own fortunes and the independent administration of justice.
Bondi Rebuked in Minnesota
Swaggering like an Old West marshal, Bondi hailed charges against 16 people accused of “assaulting, resisting, or impeding” federal immigration agents by posting their mug shots on X.
Bondi was quickly rebuked by U.S. Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster during an initial hearing. “This conduct is not something that the court condones,” Foster said in court, describing herself as “deeply disturbed” by the move. But Foster said because the cases were not yet assigned to her, she couldn’t do anything about Bondi’s conduct.
The charges against the protesters arose from chaotic scenes around provocative immigration enforcement actions, including one at Roosevelt High School, and the Justice Department in recents weeks has often failed to win convictions in similar cases in other states.
The Latest on the Pretti Shooting
The two CBP agents who shot Alex Pretti were immediately put on administrative leave, DHS said, claiming that earlier reports that the officers had remained on duty were inaccurate.
The Justice Department continues to insist to reporters that it may conduct its own investigation of the Pretti shooting depending on what the probe by Homeland Security Investigations turns up. Again, this is not typically how DOJ use-of-force civil rights investigations typically proceed.
Videos emerged of an earlier incident between federal agents and Pretti in which he kicked out the tail light of one of their vehicles and they proceeded to rough him up before driving away.
More From Minnesota …
The chief federal judge in Minnesota cancelled a contempt of court hearing after ICE finally abided by his order to release a detainee, meaning the acting ICE director will not have to appear in court personally. U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, who said the detainee could still seek monetary sanctions for his delayed release, blasted ICE for defying 96 court orders in 74 Minnesota cases since Jan. 1: “This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
Another round of resignations by prosecutors in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office could be coming, the NYT reports: “On Tuesday, prosecutors in the office’s criminal division confronted the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, Daniel Rosen, and an aide to Mr. Blanche, over concerns that they were being asked to execute orders that went against the department’s mission and best practices, according to four people briefed on the exchange.”
U.S. District Judge John Tunheim temporarily blocked the Trump administration from arresting or detaining refugees in Minnesota who are seeking permanent status.
FBI Seizes Georgia Voting Records
The FBI seized what the Justice Department had already sued to get: 2020 voting records from Fulton County, Georgia. Trump’s animus about the Georgia result has been focused all along primarily on plurality Black Fulton County, which has the largest Black population in the state.
A few nuggets:
Oddly, the search warrant was obtained by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Thomas Albus. (While many reports still identified him as interim U.S. attorney, he was confirmed to the permanent position by the Senate on a partly line vote in December.) It is not at all clear why a U.S. attorney from outside the jurisdiction is involved or why this particular U.S. attorney.
Nothing about Catherine M. Salinas, the longtime magistrate who signed the search warrant, is particularly notable; if anything, her career history might suggest a more liberal than conservative lean. (Judges are limited in how far they can look outside the four corners of a search warrant application.)
The search warrant identifies two potential criminal violations at the center of the investigation, summarized by the WaPo as: “one regarding the retention and preservation of election records by officials and the other criminalizing efforts to defraud voters from an impartially conducted election.”
Photo of the Day
This neither speaks for itself nor does it make any sense, but it is a photo for the ages:
Important Climate News
The Trump administration has delayed rolling back the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding that greenhouse gases harm public health because of concerns the proposal is “too weak” to withstand a court challenge, the WaPo reports.
U.S. Life Expectancy Reverses Slide
Life expectancy in the United States rebounded from the COVID pandemic and the opioid crisis to reach a new all-time high in 2024, the CDC announced today.
‘We’ll Take Our Stand for This Land’
By his own account, Bruce Springsteen wrote this new song Saturday after the fatal CBP shooting of Alex Pretti and recorded it Tuesday before releasing it Wednesday:
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"The FBI seized what the Justice Department had already sued to get: 2020 voting records from Fulton County, Georgia. Trump’s animus about the Georgia result has been focused all along primarily on plurality Black Fulton County, which has the largest Black population in the state."
I have no idea what they can legally prove through this. By seizing these records, they've broken the chain of custody, and everything they took must now be considered to be legally contaminated and inadmissible in any court of law. I have no doubt they'll trumpet having found amazing corruption and fraud, repeatedly (as is Trump's way), aiming at the court of public opinion rather than the law, and hoping that by doing so they can legitimize trying to take over the midterms.
Bondi is a terrible human being and an absolute disgrace to the office of Attorney General.
This is about 2026. More seizures to come-bank on it.