Our attorney general is Tom Hagen
Tom Hagen, played with wonderful brio by Robert Duvall in The Godfather, when asked about his law practice, famously says: I have a special practice. I handle one client.
By tradition, the Attorney General of the United States is independent from the President who appoints him or her. They are supposed to represent the People of the United States, not the occupant of the White House.
Of course, this is another one of our "gentlemen's agreements". Presidents have tried to suborn this. From Richard Nixon trying to force his attorney general Elliot Richardson to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, to George W. Bush placing nonentity Alberto Gonzalez into the position, Republican presidents have always sought their own "Roy Cohn", someone completely loyal to them and not to the nation.
What we have now in this country as attorney general is Pam Bondi. And make no mistake: She is not representing the United States. She has a special practice, and she handles one client.
Compare her to her predecessor, Merrick Garland. I know, he gets dumped on for this reason or that. Primarily the reason he gets dumped on is that, unlike his predecessor William Barr, he took his independence as attorney general seriously. Many would argue that was a weakness in these our latter days. I would argue that it was exactly what he should have done. He was not President Joe Biden's lawyer. He was the lawyer for the citizens of the United States.
The problem Garland faced was that partisanship has infected everything. And let's be clear where the blame lies: With Republicans. Democratic attorneys general operate as they should, impartially, not being toadies to their presidents. Their Republican counterparts have no such aversion. When they get into office, they, to varying degrees, serve as their president's consigliere. They pursue a partisan line. They are there to serve the president and the party, the country be damned.
Even so, no GOP attorney general has gone to the lengths that Pam Bondi has. Even Jeff Sessions, Trump's first attorney general, recused himself from the Russia probe, and appointed Robert Mueller III as special counsel. (When Barr replaced Sessions, his first corrupt act was to cut off Mueller's investigation.) And even Barr balked at helping Trump illegally stay in office in 2020. In Bondi, Trump has finally found his Roy Cohn.
However, the saving grace is that Trump has surrounded himself with complete incompetents. Pam Bondi is no different. However, she's an incompetent at the head of the most powerful legal apparatus in the West. She will destroy much before she is ushered out.
I should amend my original premise: Pam Bondi is no Tom Hagen. Hagen had perspicacity. Bondi wouldn't even know what that word means. She will do whatever she has to do to protect her one client, but with no subtlety or strategy. And that will be the cause of all of their downfalls.