Pam Bondi

Quick facts

• Full name: Pamela Jo Bondi
• Born: November 17, 1965, Temple Terrace, Florida
• Education: B.A. in criminal justice, University of Florida (1987); J.D., Stetson University College of Law (1990)
• Background: Fourth-generation Floridian; daughter of Joseph Bondi, a Temple Terrace city council member and later mayor; 18 years as an assistant state attorney in Hillsborough County (Tampa)
• Best known for: Serving as U.S. Attorney General (2025–2026) before being fired by Trump; the 2013 Trump University / Trump Foundation $25,000 donation episode as Florida AG; lobbying for Qatar and corporate clients at Ballard Partners

Key positions

Biography

Pamela Jo Bondi was born November 17, 1965, in Temple Terrace, Florida, into a politically engaged family — her father, Joseph Bondi, served on the city council and later as mayor. She earned a criminal-justice degree from the University of Florida (1987) and a law degree from Stetson University College of Law (1990), then spent more than 18 years as an assistant state attorney in Hillsborough County, trying cases from domestic violence to capital murder. In 2010 she became the first woman elected Attorney General of Florida, and she was re-elected in 2014 with 55% of the vote.

The defining controversy of her Florida tenure came in 2013. After her office received complaints about Trump University and while New York’s attorney general was actively suing the venture for fraud, Bondi personally solicited a campaign donation from Donald Trump. The Trump Foundation — a charity legally barred from making political contributions — sent $25,000 to “And Justice for All,” Bondi’s political committee. Florida did not pursue any action against Trump University. Trump later paid a $2,500 IRS penalty for the illegal contribution. Both Trump and Bondi denied any connection between the donation and the decision; a Florida prosecutor concluded in 2017 there was insufficient evidence to prove bribery under state law (CNN, 2016; PolitiFact, Sept. 2016; Washington Post, Sept. 2016; CREW).

After leaving the Florida AG office in January 2019, Bondi joined Ballard Partners — the lobbying firm founded by Brian Ballard, Trump’s 2016 fundraising chairman — where she chaired the corporate regulatory-compliance practice and reported earning more than $1 million from January 2023 to January 2025. Her clients included the government of Qatar (for which the firm registered under FARA at a reported $115,000 per month, though Bondi disputed that this was her personal compensation), Amazon, Uber, General Motors, and the private-prison operator GEO Group. Between lobbying stints she joined Trump’s White House counsel’s office as a special advisor (2019) and served on his Senate impeachment defense team (2020), where she devoted roughly 30 minutes of argument to the Biden family and Burisma (Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats; Public Citizen; NBC News).

Trump nominated Bondi for Attorney General on November 21, 2024, after Matt Gaetz withdrew; the Senate confirmed her 54–46 on February 4, 2025, and she was sworn in the next day. As AG she shut down the DOJ’s KleptoCapture unit and Foreign Influence Task Force, rescinded Biden-era protections shielding journalists from subpoenas in leak investigations (April 25, 2025), and launched a “Weaponization Working Group” reviewing officials who had investigated Trump. On April 2, 2026, Trump announced via Truth Social that Bondi was out, naming Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — his former personal defense attorney — as acting AG. Her tenure was marked by the collapse of high-profile prosecutions of Trump’s named opponents and by the Epstein-files episode, in which she said in a February 2025 Fox News interview that an Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” after which DOJ asserted no such list existed (NPR, April 2025; CNN, April 2025; Bloomberg, July 2025).

Sources

1. “Pam Bondi | Education, Age, Husband, DOJ, & Facts” — Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pam-Bondi
2. “Pamela Bondi (2025– )” — Miller Center, University of Virginia. https://millercenter.org/pamela-bondi-2025
3. “Pam Bondi sought donation before nixing Trump University fraud case” — CNN Politics, June 10, 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/politics/pam-bondi-donald-trump-donation/index.html
4. “Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and $25K: Was Trump’s donation pay to play?” — PolitiFact, Sept. 21, 2016. https://www.politifact.com/article/2016/sep/21/donald-trump-pam-bondi-and-25k-was-it-pay-play/
5. “Pam Bondi’s Extensive Lobbying For Wealthy Special Interests And Foreign Government Poses Serious Conflict Of Interest” — Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/pam-bondis-extensive-lobbying-for-wealthy-special-interests-and-foreign-government-poses-serious-conflict-of-interest
6. “Justice Department revokes Biden-era protections for reporters in leak investigations” — NPR, April 25, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5377624/pam-bondi-reporters-subpoena-leaks