For many Democrats, Bondi’s and Noem’s firings were a key step

While many of the officials ousted by Donald Trump are given some kind of consolation prize (more often than not, an ambassadorship), outgoing Attorney General Pam Bondi will receive no such treat. When the president fired her on Thursday following 14 months of failure, he said she’d move to an unspecified “important new job in the private sector.”

At that point, the Florida Republican might’ve thought that she’d exit public office and wait for history to decide whether she was the worst attorney general in American history or merely among the worst attorneys general in American history.

But on Capitol Hill, some lawmakers aren’t done with Bondi just yet.

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, issued a lengthy and brutal statement about the attorney general’s firing on Thursday afternoon, highlighting the scope and scale of Bondi’s dreadful tenure atop the Justice Department, which included this paragraph:

Pam Bondi used the machinery of federal law enforcement not to pursue justice, but to carry out political vendettas at the direction of the President. Her firing today is long overdue, but it does not erase the damage done and it does not absolve her of accountability. Democrats in Congress will continue to investigate, expose, and hold Pam Bondi and others at DOJ accountable for their serial abuses of power and their betrayals of the Constitution.

This is not an uncommon sentiment. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, similarly said in a statement on Bondi, “She will not escape accountability.”

Indeed, the oversight panel that Garcia helps lead was scheduled to depose Bondi on April 14 as part of Congress’ inquiry into the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and some members still expect her to honor the subpoena she received. Politico reported:

The pressure could keep building on [Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer] to force Bondi’s testimony or hold her in contempt of Congress if she refuses to comply — and it isn’t coming only from Democrats. The vote to subpoena Bondi was shepherded by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who was joined by four other Republican lawmakers and all Oversight Democrats present. After news of the attorney general’s firing, Mace posted a dramatic image of Bondi’s face superimposed on the word ‘FIRED.’

Mace added that, in the aftermath of Trump’s decision, “my subpoena still stands.”

And it’s not just Bondi. The president’s recent decision to force Kristi Noem from her role as secretary of homeland security, although widely celebrated in Congress, has not deterred her critics.

The week after the South Dakota Republican’s ouster, Democratic lawmakers continued to demand answers about Noem’s DHS and its lucrative no-bid contracts. The week after that, the top Democrats on the House and Senate judiciary committees referred Noem to the Justice Department for a possible perjury investigation.

NBC News reported, “Kristi Noem may be out as head of the Department of Homeland Security, but Democrats are still demanding a ‘reckoning.’ Democrats met news of Noem’s ouster … with a cascade of calls for accountability.”

Firing the Cabinet secretaries, in other words, was a major step but not the final step. Watch this space.

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