There are moments in Washington when the machinery of government grinds slower than molasses in January, and this appears to be one of those moments at the Justice Department.
Sources familiar with internal White House deliberations indicate President Trump is seriously contemplating a leadership change at the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The issue at hand is not personal but professional. Attorney General Pam Bondi, by multiple accounts, remains in the president’s good graces personally, but frustration is mounting over the pace and results of various investigations into political adversaries.
Lee Zeldin, currently serving as the Senate-confirmed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has emerged as the likely successor should the president decide to make a change. The former congressman met with Trump earlier this week, a meeting that has set tongues wagging throughout the capital.
The president himself issued a statement characterizing Bondi as “a wonderful person” who “is doing a good job,” though those familiar with Washington’s ways understand such public praise can sometimes precede a departure rather than prevent one.
The heart of the matter lies in results, or the lack thereof. While the Justice Department under Bondi’s leadership has launched numerous criminal investigations targeting individuals the president views as political opponents, the scoreboard tells a sobering story. Most cases have either faltered, been dismissed, or failed to produce the indictments the White House apparently anticipated.
A federal judge dealt a significant blow to the administration’s efforts last fall, dismissing indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The judge’s reasoning cut to the bone: the U.S. attorney who brought those charges had been unlawfully appointed.
Other investigations have similarly stalled. Probes into Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell, and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook have yet to yield charges. An attempt to investigate Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell saw a federal judge quash the subpoenas. Perhaps most telling, a grand jury unanimously rejected criminal charges against six congressional Democrats who posted a video urging military members to defy unlawful orders.
Sources indicate that efforts to prosecute former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and former CIA Director John Brennan remain in the works. Bondi reportedly summoned Jason Quiñones, the U.S. attorney overseeing the Brennan case from his district in southern Florida, to Washington this week to explain why progress has been sluggish.
Some allies of the current attorney general suggest the real bottleneck may be Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who they claim has not pushed cases aggressively enough, possibly due to concerns about political ramifications and his own career prospects beyond the Justice Department.
The potential appointment of Zeldin raises its own questions. While he served as a military prosecutor in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, his legal experience is limited compared to traditional Justice Department leadership. Such a move could trigger what insiders describe as a crisis of confidence among both career prosecutors and politically appointed officials who expect their leader to have deep prosecutorial credentials.
As of Thursday morning, nothing had been finalized. But in Washington, when smoke starts rising from the Potomac, fire usually follows. The coming days will tell whether this administration opts for continuity or change at the helm of federal law enforcement.
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