Trump Nominates Former Florida AG Bondi as Second U.S. Attorney General Choice

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement last week that he has chosen former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi as his nominee for U.S. attorney general is giving Democrats jitters over what she might do to the Justice Department.

Trump announced the choice of Bondi hours after former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew himself from consideration for the job amid allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use.

Bondi has echoed Trump’s allegations that the Justice Department was “weaponized” against him.

She also assisted as a senior adviser on Trump’s defense team the first time he was impeached by Congress.

If Trump makes good on his promise to purge the Justice Department of attorneys disloyal to him, Bondi would be the one who carries it out if she wins Senate approval.

Republicans who hold the majority in the Senate said they have no objections to Bondi’s nomination. Bondi was Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019.

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans – Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again. I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!“ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Bondi showed up to support Trump at his criminal trial in New York that ended in May with convictions on 34 felony counts.

She said during a recent radio appearance that Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and his assistants who are prosecuting Trump for election interference in the 2020 election are “horrible” people who are “weaponizing our legal system.”

She became Trump’s second nominee for attorney general after Gaetz met with some of the senators who would have overseen his confirmation hearing. At least four Republican senators said they would not vote to confirm him amid mounting evidence of scandals.

The evidence is part of a House Ethics Committee report that includes testimony from a woman who says she was 17 years old when Gaetz had sex with her.

It also contains testimony from a former girlfriend of Gaetz who says the Florida congressman was present at a party where illegal drugs were being consumed. The girlfriend said she knew about Gaetz's sexual relationship with the then teenage girl.

If he had been confirmed by the Senate, he would have overseen the same division of the Justice Department that participated in investigating him. The Justice Department investigation of Gaetz ended last year without charges but the years-long Ethics Committee investigation continued.

Gaetz denies wrongdoing. He responded to Ethics Committee questions in September before posting his responses on social media.

"Your correspondence of September 4 asks whether I have engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer to this question is unequivocally NO. You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum," Gaetz wrote on social media.

The Ethics Committee reportedly obtained records of Venmo payments by Gaetz to women with whom he had sex.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.

Justice Dept. Argues for Breakup of Google’s Search Engine Control

The Justice Department's request last week to a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to force Google to sell either its Chrome search engine or Android mobile operating system threatens to reshape how the internet is operated.

Google controls about two-thirds of the world market for search engines.

Android is the world's most widely used operating system for smartphones and tablets with 45 percent of the market.

If the judge grants the request, it would be the biggest corporate breakup since AT&T in the 1980s. It also would serve notice to other tech giants, like Apple and Samsung, that they could be next.

The Justice Department already won the first round in the dispute when U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled in August that Google’s control over general internet searches and the accompanying ads represented an illegal monopoly.

He wrote that Google’s distribution agreements with computer manufacturers “impair rivals’ opportunities to compete.”

The ruling left open how Google should be restructured, which the Justice Department focused on in a court filing last week.

"To address these challenges, Google must divest Chrome. . . so that rivals may pursue distribution partnerships…” the Justice Department said.

The court filing also said Google should be "prohibited from owning or acquiring any interests in search rivals, potential entrants, and rival search or search ads-related AI products."

In a filing last month in the same case, Justice Department attorneys wrote, “These markets are indispensable to the lives of all Americans, whether as individuals or as business owners, and the importance of effectively unfettering these markets and restoring competition cannot be overstated.”

Google said the Justice Department’s recommendations would ruin both Chrome and possibly Android.

One likely result would be an inability of competitors to protect the privacy of users, leading to scams and hacking attacks, the company argues. It also says it would weaken its ability to innovate.

"DOJ's approach would result in unprecedented government overreach that would harm American consumers, developers, and small businesses — and jeopardize America's global economic and technological leadership at precisely the moment it's needed most," Google said in a statement.

The judge has less drastic options, such as restricting profit-sharing agreements that make Google's search engine the default on desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones.?

Google has paid billions of dollars to computer manufacturers like Apple and Samsung to install Chrome as the default search engine when consumers purchase their devices. The agreements also block Google’s competitors.

A related issue is Google’s increasing use of artificial intelligence.

Google uses artificial intelligence to mine data from users and to create individualized profiles of their preferences. The company then uses the data to send ads designed to appeal specifically to each of them.

The case against Google is one of the biggest that seeks to fulfill a pledge by President Joe Biden shortly after he took office in 2021 to protect consumers by reining in the market control of large corporations.

The case is U.S. et al. v. Google LLC in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.

U.S. Families of Gaza War Victims Sue Iran for Alleged Help to Hamas?

Families of American victims of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack against Israel and its ongoing war in Gaza are suing Iran for allegedly supporting the violence.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., also names Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian paramilitary groups as defendants.

The evidence against them includes records of requests from Hamas leaders to Iran’s military a year before the attack for an additional $7 million a month to fund what the documents code name “the big project.”

The records were seized by the Israeli military in Gaza and published in the news media.

The lawsuit says the Islamic Republic of Iran is encouraging, supplying and funding military efforts to destroy Israel.

The result for the 256 families and dozens of individuals who filed the lawsuit is that they say their relatives were killed in the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust.

The Oct. 7 attack led by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups killed 1,139 people in the Gaza Strip. They included 695 Israeli civilians, including 38 children; 71 foreign nationals, 46 of them American; and 373 members of the Israeli security forces.

Another 30 Americans have died fighting in the Gaza war, according to the U.S. State Department.

More than half the civilians killed Oct. 7 were attending a music festival. Most of the others were residents of nearby villages.

Wall Street Journal and New York Times reports accused Iran of being behind the attack. The Iranian government denies the allegation.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia uses some of the same evidence mentioned in the media.

It also claims to have original documentation of a secret planning meeting of a small group of Hamas’s political and military leaders in December 2022. Former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar reportedly suggested asking the Islamic Revolutionary Guard for additional funding during the meeting.

Sinwar was killed Oct. 16, 2024, during a firefight with the Israeli military.

“Hard, incontrovertible evidence of who funded Hamas is now becoming available in the form of documents, bank records, and the like, and we intend to hold those parties accountable, in the courts of the United States or elsewhere, for however long it takes,” lawyers representing the plaintiffs said in a statement.

Media reports that contributed evidence for the lawsuit were based partly on recordings of Hamas leaders planning the Oct. 7 attack. The recordings were seized by the Israelis in January from a computer in a Hamas command center in southern Gaza.

At one point, the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, Khalil al-Hayya, reportedly told a senior Iranian commander that Hamas planned to strike sensitive Israeli sites in “the first hour” of the assault.?

The Iranian commander responded that Iran supported the attack in principle but more time was needed “to prepare the environment,” according to the media reports.

The recordings indicated Hamas hoped to interfere with normalizing relations between the Israelis and Saudis. Hamas leaders also stressed the importance of striking promptly before Israel completed development of a laser missile defense system.

Sinwar suggested using deceit to conceal the attack plans by creating a public image Gaza was focused on economic growth but avoiding any military action.?

He also wanted to start a larger regional war that would lead to Israel’s “collapse,” according to the recordings.

The lawsuit appears to be largely ceremonial based on the inability of other plaintiffs to force Iran to pay them compensation after they sued in U.S. federal courts.

In one example, the families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack in the United States won a court judgment against Iran, Hezbollah, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Iran never tried to defend against the lawsuit and the plaintiffs never collected the compensation they sought.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.

Environmental Activists Sentenced for Vandalism at National Archives and Smithsonian Museum

Two environmental activists were sentenced to prison this month after vandalizing Washington, D.C., museums in a protest intended to draw attention to climate change.

Both were charged with felony destruction of government property after they dumped a fine red powder over the display case for the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives.

Last year, Donald Zepeda, 35, and his supporters smeared red and black paint on the case around Edgar Degas’s “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” sculpture in the National Gallery of Art. He and fellow activist Jackson Green, 27, also wrote “Honor Them” in red paint near a National Gallery of Art mural of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.

Zepeda is a leader of an environmental group called Declare Emergency, which tries to raise awareness of climate change through sometimes offensive behavior, according to prosecutors.

The red powder they spilled over the U.S. Constitution display took workers four days to clean up after some of it lodged between layers of glass and the bronze casing. It caused an estimated $50,000 in damage and closed the Archives Rotunda during the cleanup.

Zepeda was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to two years in prison. Green received an 18-month sentence.

Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan asked in a statement to the court for U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to give Zepeda and Green maximum sentences to send “a strong message” against attacking the “temple of our history.”

She said a strong deterrence was needed because cultural heritage sites are increasingly being targeted by “those who want to make a political statement without engaging in the hard work it takes to effect social change.”

Zepeda said he sought to evoke strong emotions to rally people against climate change. He likened his actions to protests against racial apartheid in South Africa and demonstrations to expand voting rights to women in the United States.

Jackson said Zepeda’s vandalism was misguided.

“You just gave one more reason to those who resist science to think, ‘This is a bunch of crackpots,’” Jackson said. “Eco-vandalism is not a good idea. It is just plain old vandalism.”

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.

Former D.C. Homeland Security Commissioner Pleads Guilty to Fraud with Pandemic Funds

A former District of Columbia Homeland Security commissioner is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to fraud in obtaining $844,000 in pandemic Paycheck Protection Program funds.

Wendy Nicole Villatoro, 40, pleaded guilty after making "materially false statements" on applications for the money that was supposed to help businesses survive the economic downturn associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Justice Department.

Villatoro worked for the District of Columbia Homeland Security Commission, which the D.C. Council established in 2006 to recommend improvements in security and preparedness for the nation’s capital. She recently has been working as a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee.

Prosecutors said Villatoro submitted eight PPP loan applications to federal agencies such as the Small Business Administration.

Not only did Villatoro use names of fake businesses in the applications, she also listed non-existent employees, monthly payroll and gross revenue figures, the Justice Department reported.

She applied for PPP funds that could have netted her $5.5 million if they all were granted. Most of the applications were denied but she still received more than $844,000, prosecutors said.

"Villatoro used the funds to pay off her student loans, pay off the car loan on a BMW SUV and buy luxury items," a Justice Department statement said.

The plea agreement requires Villatoro to repay more than $844,000 to the federal government and to forfeit the items she purchased with the money. They include about 70 pieces of designer clothing, jewelry and her BMW.

She is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in February. Villatoro faces a possibility of as much as 30 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine.

The case is U.S. v. Villatoro in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.