Pam Bondi’s portrait ends up in the trash - and no one picks it up

Trump fired Pam Bondi on the way to the Supreme Court, in the presidential limousine, with the words I think it is time, and Bondi asked to be allowed to stay until the summer, which was denied, and later she became emotional when speaking with friends and colleagues about her departure, which is understandable, because what followed was not exactly a dignified farewell. On the same day, her portrait disappeared from the walls of the Department of Justice, and photos that circulated shortly afterward showed it not neatly packed or professionally taken down, but face up in a trash can, an image that says more about her 14 months in office than any official statement could.

See also our article: Pam Bondi is fired - and our February 11 reporting now proves correct

Bondi had left the Department of Justice in a state that her staff had not forgotten, an exodus of employees who did not want to work for her, nonpartisan officials who were pushed out, accusations that she and other Trump allies used the department on behalf of the president as a weapon, ignored court orders, endangered national security and weakened anti corruption initiatives, and Devin DeBacker, then acting head of the national security division, was demoted by her, something many inside the department did not forget. A former official of the national security division had said at the time they should better take her picture down, and that is exactly what they did, only more thoroughly than expected.

It has a certain logic, because Bondi herself had at the beginning of her tenure personally taken down the portraits of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Merrick Garland from the walls, proudly reported it on Fox News and said it took her about 30 seconds, while someone explained to her that the custodians were very slow. Her successors probably needed about the same amount of time, except they did not skip the next step.

Bondi, 60 years old, will remain in office until the end of the month before moving to the private sector, about which she provides no details, and she is not the first in this line, less than a month earlier Kristi Noem was fired, whose glamour photos in various service uniforms of the immigration authority were immediately removed from the headquarters of Customs and Border Protection in Washington. It seems to be becoming a kind of tradition.