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Attorney General Pam Bondi applauds during a 2025 cabinet meeting with President Trump.<\/span>Yuri Gripas\/CNP\/Pool\/ZUMA<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n President Donald Trump\u2019s dumping<\/span> of Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday was the kind of shrewd personnel change one might expect from an executive who made a name for himself by firing<\/a> people<\/a>. Bondi presided over the unraveling of the Department of Justice. Under her leadership, the DOJ has lost the respect of judges and juries, its ranks have been decimated by lawyers fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, and it racked up embarrassing losses at an unheard of clip. Almost impressively, Bondi has turned the Justice Department from an august symbol of the rule of law into a limping, corrupt enterprise.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Bondi wasn\u2019t ousted for her disastrous leadership. Her incompetence, magnified in her<\/a> handling<\/a> of the Epstein files, in which she managed to make sure a bad story for her boss wouldn\u2019t go away, contributed to Trump\u2019s growing frustration. But Trump reportedly<\/a> soured on Bondi because she failed to failed to lock up his political enemies. The irony of the situation, of course, is that Trump\u2019s own involvement is what doomed not just those sham prosecutions, but ultimately the DOJ itself.<\/p>\n Trump spent his first term pining for a Justice Department that would protect him, and an attorney general who would serve like his personal attorney\u2014or hit man. In his second term, Bondi willingly tried to fill that role. But her tenure is living proof of a problem whose origin ultimately lies with the rightwing push for a so-called unitary executive<\/a> who controls every inch of the executive branch: that sort of presidential power breeds<\/a> distrust<\/a>, corruption<\/a>, and ultimately failure<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before Trump returned to the White House, the Supreme Court granted him criminal immunity for official acts. That instantly infamous opinion<\/a>, Trump v. United States<\/em>, also emphasized<\/a> that the Justice Department was the president\u2019s personal playground. The attorney general was no longer the nation\u2019s chief law enforcement official but, in the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, \u201cacts as the President\u2019s \u2018chief law enforcement officer.\u2019\u201d Trump could direct investigations and prosecutions; he could even utilize the department\u2019s prosecutorial powers in furtherance of crimes, including politically motivated investigation and charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n This Supreme Court constructed<\/a> an all-powerful presidency on the premise that such power would breed both decisive leadership and democracy accountability. In Trump<\/em>, Roberts wrote<\/a> that the Constitution\u2019s framers \u201cdeemed an energetic executive essential to\u2026\u2018the steady administration of the laws.\u2019\u201d And in a 2021 case that acted as a stepping stone to the immunity decision, Roberts assured<\/a> the public that a unitary executive would create the most politically responsive government. The executive power \u201cacquires its legitimacy and accountability to the public through \u2018a clear and effective chain of command\u2019 down from the President, on whom all the people vote,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Bondi was the first attorney general to operate<\/a> unencumbered by any loyalty to the rule of law, or any pretense of independence. Instead, she was liberated to act, unabashedly, as an appendage of the president. Not long ago, political interference at the Justice Department cost<\/a> an attorney general his job. For Bondi, that sort of thing was all in a day\u2019s work<\/a>. In multiple congressional hearings, she demonstrated<\/a>\u2014through pre-planned zingers hurled at Democratic lawmakers, combatively refusing to answer questions, and praising Trump in terms that would make Stalin blush\u2014that she had no respect for the idea of democratic accountability. <\/p>\n