Journalism Professor Jason Johnson joined MSNBC’s Ari Melber on Thursday’s episode of The Beat to react to President-elect Donald Trump nominating former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to head the Justice Department after former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from the process amid a series of sex scandals. Johnson fretted that Bondi will be “worse than” Gaetz because “she knows what she’s doing” and is therefore “dangerous and effective.”
Given that Bondi was also one of Trump’s lawyers during his first impeachment trial and he has also nominated his criminal defense lawyers for other top DOJ positions, Melber declared, “So, if this were the team and they have to go through vetting and confirmation, but if this were the team, this would be two of the most politically defensive lawyers of the personal capacity of an incoming president we've ever seen running DOJ at the same time.”
Johnson regrettably concurred, “Ari, I completely agree, and quite frankly, my thought is that after Gaetz dropped out it would be essentially from Trump's legal team. It would be like a Jay Sekulow or somebody like that. I assumed that’s where he would get these people from. Unlike William Barr, even going back to when we were all kids and, like, Janet Reno, right, occasionally attorney generals try to behave like they are not the personal lawyer of the president of the United States. That is completely out the window.”
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