# Pam Bondi

Pamela Jo Bondi (born November 17, 1965) is an American attorney, lobbyist, and politician who has served as the 87th United States attorney general since 2025. A member of the Republican Party, she served as Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019, the first woman elected to the office.
In 2020, Bondi was one of President Donald Trump's defense lawyers during his first impeachment trial. By 2024, she led the legal arm of the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. On November 21, 2024, then-President-elect Trump announced she would be nominated for attorney general after former representative Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration. She was confirmed in a 54–46 Senate vote on February 4, 2025, and sworn in the next day.

## Early life and education

Pamela Jo Bondi was born on November 17, 1965. Her hometown is Temple Terrace, Florida. Her father, Joseph Bondi, was a city council member and then mayor of Temple Terrace. She is a graduate of C. Leon King High School in Tampa. Her younger brother, Bradley Bondi, is a lawyer.
Bondi received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in criminal justice from the University of Florida in 1987 and a Juris Doctor from the Stetson University College of Law in 1990. She was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority as an undergraduate student. Bondi was admitted to the Florida Bar on June 24, 1991.

## Early career

Bondi was a prosecutor and spokeswoman in Hillsborough County, Florida, where she was an assistant state attorney. Bondi prosecuted former Major League Baseball player Dwight Gooden in 2006 for violating the terms of his probation and for substance abuse. In 2007, Bondi also prosecuted the defendants in Martin Anderson's death.

## Attorney General of Florida (2011–2019)
### Elections

Bondi ran for Florida attorney general in the 2010 election, facing off against former state representative Holly Benson and lieutenant governor Jeff Kottkamp in the Republican primary. In a competitive field, Bondi notably received the support of former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin. The Palm Beach Post credited her surge in support in the primary to her media-savviness, including regular appearances on Fox News and her public association with Sean Hannity.
Polling conducted by Mason Dixon in August 2010 found her leading both Benson and Kottkamp in the primary. She ultimately won the primary with 37.89% of the vote. In the general election, she faced Democratic nominee Dan Gelber, a former prosecutor who spent 10 years in the state legislature. She ultimately comfortably defeated Gelber to become the state's first female attorney general.
Bondi was re-elected in November 2014, receiving 55% of the vote. Her Democratic challenger George Sheldon, the former acting commissioner of the Administration for Children and Families, received 42%.

### Tenure

Bondi was the lead attorney general in an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare) in Florida et al v. United States Department of Health and Human Services. In the lawsuit the state of Florida and 26 other states argued that the individual mandate provision of the ACA violates the United States Constitution.
Bondi expressed her opposition to medical marijuana.
In 2016, Bondi gave a speech at the Republican National Convention, during which she led "lock her up" chants directed at the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
In 2018, Bondi joined with 19 other Republican-led states in a lawsuit to overturn the ACA's bans on health insurance companies charging people with pre-existing conditions higher premiums or denying them coverage outright.
Bondi defended Amendment 2, a 2008 amendment to the Florida Constitution banning same-sex marriage, against legal challenges on behalf of the state. Bondi said that these actions did not reflect her opinions on same-sex marriage, but were out of respect for the constitution. Following the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting in June 2016, Bondi was interviewed by CNN reporter Anderson Cooper, who said that Bondi's expression of support for the LGBT community was at odds with her past record. Cooper said that Bondi was "either mistaken or not telling the truth," while Bondi accused Cooper of fomenting "anger and hate."
In August 2018, while still serving as Florida attorney general, Bondi co-hosted The Five on Fox News three days in a row while also appearing on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. Fox News claimed that the Florida Commission on Ethics had approved Bondi's appearance on the program; however, the spokeswoman for the commission denied that, telling the Tampa Bay Times that no decision was made by the commission and that the commission's general counsel did not make a determination whether or not Bondi's appearance as a host violated the Florida Code of Ethics. The Tampa Bay Times described it as "unprecedented" for a sitting elected official to host a TV show.
In nominating her to be U.S. attorney general, Trump said that, as Florida's attorney general, she had "worked to stop the trafficking of deadly drugs, and reduce the tragedy of Fentanyl Overdose Deaths, which have destroyed many families across our Country," and that she had done "an incredible job". In fact, however, Florida's age-adjusted rate of "deaths from drug poisoning" nearly doubled during her term, from 13.7 per 100,000 residents in 2011 to 25.1 when she left office in 2019.

### Fundraising controversies

Beginning in 2010, Bondi's association with Scientology and the multiple fundraisers that wealthy Scientologists have organized for Bondi's political campaigns have provoked controversy. Bondi has justified those contacts and her speeches before leading Scientologists by arguing that the group wishes to help her crack down on human trafficking.
In 2011, Bondi also pressured two attorneys to resign who were investigating Lender Processing Services, a financial services company now known as Black Knight, following the robosigning scandal, as part of their work for Florida's Economic Crime Division. After the resignations, Bondi received campaign contributions from Lender Processing Services, though she denied any quid pro quo.
In 2013, Bondi persuaded Governor Rick Scott to postpone a scheduled execution because it conflicted with a fundraising event. After questions were raised in the media, Bondi apologized for moving the execution date.

#### Trump donation to Bondi PAC

In 2013, Bondi also received criticism following a campaign donation from Donald Trump. Prior to the donation, Bondi had received at least 22 fraud complaints regarding Trump University. A spokesperson for Bondi announced that her office was considering joining a lawsuit initiated by Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, regarding tax fraud potential charges against Trump. Four days later And Justice for All, a political action committee established by Bondi to support her re-election, received a $25,000 donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. Bondi subsequently declined to join the lawsuit against Trump University. Both Bondi and Trump have defended the propriety of the donation.
In 2016, after Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service regarding the donation, the Trump Foundation stated that it had been made in error, intending for the donation to go to Bondi's unrelated Kansas non-profit Justice for All. In June 2016, as Bondi was facing renewed criticism over the issue, her spokesman said that Bondi had solicited the donation directly from Trump several weeks before her office announced it was considering joining the lawsuit. On March 14, 2016, Bondi endorsed Trump in the 2016 Florida Republican presidential primary, saying she had been friends with him for many years. In June 2016, a spokesperson for Governor Rick Scott stated that the state's ethics commission was looking into the matter.
In September 2016, the IRS determined that the donation to Bondi's PAC violated laws against political contributions from nonprofit organizations, and ordered Trump to pay a fine for the contribution. Trump was also required to reimburse the foundation for the sum that had been donated to Bondi. Neither Bondi nor her PAC were fined or criminally charged. In November 2019, Trump was ordered by a New York state court to close down the foundation and pay $2 million in damages for misusing it, including the illegal donation to Bondi.
In 2021, The Daily Beast reported that it had obtained records relating to Trump's illegal donation to Bondi that show that Trump's organization knew that the money was being given to a PAC in Florida rather than to a Kansas non-profit. The records include an email in August 2013 from Bondi's campaign finance director Deborah Ramsey Aleksander to Trump's executive assistant, Rhona Graff, identifying the PAC as an Electioneering Communications Organization and thanking Graff for meeting with her and for the promised $25,000 donation. A CREW spokesperson called these documents "a smoking gun" suggesting the allegations were true.

## Return to private life
### Lobbyist work

In 2019, after her final term as Florida attorney general, Bondi was hired by Ballard Partners, a firm with close ties to Trump, and she began working as a registered foreign agent as a lobbyist for the Embassy of the State of Qatar. She registered as a foreign agent for the Embassy of the State of Qatar and as a partner in the lobbyist firm of Ballard Partners under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. She left the Qatari project in 2019 to work in a temporary position for the White House Counsel for President Trump's first impeachment proceedings.
As a partner at Ballard Partners, she also became a lobbyist for KGL KSCC, a company incorporated in Kuwait. The KGL KSCC lobbying activity was, according to the filed federal lobbying report, for "issues related to potential Global Magnitsky Act violations and imprisonment". The Global Magnitsky Act is a law which allows the U.S. government to sanction government officials implicated in human rights abuses or extreme corruption anywhere in the world. Bondi was lobbying for the Kuwait company to help with a case of claimed extortion. She had reported on her federal lobbying forms that she had a member of the 2017 Presidential Transition Team of the first Trump administration. Bondi worked as a lobbyist at Ballard Partners until her confirmation as U.S. Attorney General.

### Trump's first impeachment proceedings

In November 2019, she was hired by the first Trump administration to help the White House during Trump's first impeachment proceedings. Her position was described the following month as being to "attack the process" of the impeachment inquiry. On January 17, 2020, Bondi was named as part of Trump's defense team for the Senate impeachment trial.
During the course of the impeachment trial, Bondi made allegations that former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter were involved in corruption in Ukraine, stemming from the younger Biden's position on board of Burisma Holdings. It was also revealed that Lev Parnas, a businessman with close ties to Rudy Giuliani and Ukraine, had several meetings with Bondi in 2018 while she was the Florida attorney general, and after she left office in 2019. In 2019, Parnas was arrested and accused of illegally funneling foreign money from Ukrainians and Russians to Republican politicians, particularly in Florida, where he lived.

### 2020 presidential election

Bondi spoke in support of Trump at the 2020 Republican National Convention. Bondi became a vocal supporter of Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat. While ballots were being counted in the 2020 United States presidential election, Bondi supported Trump's claims that there was large-scale voter fraud in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
In an appearance on Fox News on November 5, 2020, host Steve Doocy challenged Bondi to provide evidence for her claims of fraud, which she refused to do. Bondi later claimed that Trump had won Pennsylvania, despite votes there still being counted, with his opponent Joe Biden ultimately winning the state.

### Board of Trustees and U.S. political advocacy work

During the following lame-duck session, Trump appointed Bondi to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The Palm Beach Post described the appointment as a reward for her loyalty to Trump.
By 2024, Bondi led the legal arm of the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit that planned policies for a potential second Trump presidency. She worked to file voting lawsuits in battleground states relating to the 2024 presidential election.

## U.S. Attorney General (2025–present)
### Nomination and confirmation

On November 21, 2024, president-elect Trump announced she would be nominated for United States attorney general, after the withdrawal of Matt Gaetz for that position.
There were two hearing at the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, one on January 15, 2025, and the second one on January 16. On the first day of hearings, the committee presented the question of why the above two lobbyist projects, The GEO Group and Qatar, were not reported as potential conflicts of interest. However, Bondi's work as a lobbyist for KGL KSCC, a company incorporated in Kuwait, was not asked of her. Bondi was lobbying for the Kuwaiti company to help with a case of claimed extreme extortion by the investment company as termed a cause for international sanctions by the Global Magnitsky Act.
The second day of hearing had the following witnesses:
* The former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave Aronberg
* Florida statewide prosecutor Nicholas B. Cox
* Former Alachua County sheriff Emery Gainey
* Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert
* Executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center Mary B. McCord
Lisa Gilbert reported on and was asked about Bondi's career as a former lobbyist.
On January 29, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved her nomination in a 12–10 vote, with all Democrats opposing her nomination. She was confirmed in a 54–46 Senate vote on February 4. The only Democratic Senator who voted "aye" was Senator John Fetterman.
In presenting information to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Bondi's work as a lobbyist was not presented to the committee. According to the committee website, Bondi did not present the following issues pertaining to her work as a partner with Ballard Partners:
* Bondi was a lobbyist for The GEO Group, a private prison company. The company is a government contractor for immigration detention facilities. The company has received criticism for safety issues, health care, and management practices.
* Bondi told the committee that she had lobbied Congress in 2019 and 2020 on issues pertaining to anti-human trafficking efforts in advance of the 2022 FIFA World Cup that had been held in Qatar.
Bondi disclosed to the Senate Judiciary committee and the designated ethics official at the U.S. Department of Justice the compensation for her consulting services to Renatus Advisors LLC of Puerto Rico in shares and stock warrants for the merger of Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) and Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), which were in turn converted to shares and warrants of DJT on the day of the merger. The compensation for the consulting services totaled $2,969,563. Bondi stated that she will divest her interests in Trump Media & Technology Group, as soon as practicable but not later than 90 days after her confirmation. She also stated that upon confirmation, she will resign from the lobbyist firm Ballard Partners.

### Tenure

On February 5, 2025, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas swore Bondi into office as the 87th attorney general. On Bondi's first day in office, she:
* Shut down the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force.
* Shut down the DOJ's Task Force KleptoCapture.
* Cut back enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
* Issued orders that directed a select group on the "weaponization" of the federal government to investigate former Special counsel Jack Smith.
* Required the Justice Department to prioritize assisting with President Trump's plan for mass deportations.
* Prohibited DOJ lawyers from refusing to involve themselves in actions they considered to be unethical.
* Reevaluated consent decrees and settlements with the Justice Department to ensure the prevention of "race- or sex-based preferences, diversity hiring targets, or preferential treatment based on DEI- or DEIA-related criteria".
* Ended the moratorium on federal executions and ordered the Justice Department to assist state and local prosecutors in their attempts to secure death sentences.
* Halted DOJ funds to sanctuary cities.
During the beginning of her tenure, Bondi faced criticism for her handling of the release of the "Epstein Files," which were heavily redacted and offered little new information, leading to accusations that the move was a political stunt rather than a genuine effort at transparency. Even right-wing commentators derided the release as "a lot of redacted nothing," further undermining confidence in her approach to high-profile cases.
On March 15, 2025, Bondi criticized district court judge James Boasberg for issuing a 14-day restraining order on the deportation of around 300 Venezuelan nationals.

## Personal life

Bondi is of Italian descent, with roots in Campania. She married Garret Barnes in 1990; the couple divorced after 22 months of marriage. In 1996, Bondi married Scott Fitzgerald; they divorced in 2002. She was engaged to Greg Henderson in 2012. Since 2017, she has been in a relationship with John Wakefield.

## Electoral history

2010 Florida Attorney General election, Republican primary :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Republican | Pam Bondi | 459,022 | 37.89% | N/A |
| | Republican | Jeff Kottkamp | 397,781 | 32.84% | N/A |
| | Republican | Holly Benson | 354,573 | 29.27% | N/A |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 61,241 | 5.05% | N/A |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 1,211,376 | | |
2010 Florida Attorney General election, General election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Republican | Pam Bondi | 2,882,868 | 54.77% | +2.08% |
| | Democratic | Dan Gelber | 2,181,377 | 41.44% | −5.87% |
| | Independent | Jim Lewis | 199,147 | 3.78% | N/A |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 701,491 | 13.33% | +7.95% |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 5,263,392 | | |
2014 Florida Attorney General election, General election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Republican | Pam Bondi | 3,222,524 | 55.09% | +0.32% |
| | Democratic | George Sheldon | 2,457,357 | 42.01% | +0.57% |
| | Libertarian | Bill Wohlsifer | 169,394 | 2.90% | N/A |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 765,207 | 13.08% | −0.25% |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 5,849,235 | | |