Pam Bondi isn’t just following Donald Trump’s lead in fighting to keep lavish freebies, she’s now at the center of an online frenzy after her gift of cigars sent critics spiraling into unexpected references to Bill Clinton’s most infamous scandal.
In a new report from The New Yorker published on Monday, Bondi is working overtime to hold on to her luxury gifts.
Among the gifts Bondi wants to keep is a FIFA soccer ball that Trump threw her way after a meeting. She also wants to keep a box of cigars given to her by MMA fighter and convicted rapist Conor McGregor.
That’s what a source told The New Yorker.
“Every new administration needs time to adjust to ethics rules that might seem trivial,” the source said. “What wasn’t normal was the amount of pushback that we got.”
Bondi has additionally argued with ethics officials over sitting in President Donald Trump’s box at the FIFA Club World Cup finals at MetLife Stadium, something ethics officials told her could violate basic ethics rules on gifts to federal officials and which are clearly stated on her own agency’s website.
Under DOJ rules on gifts and entertainment, staffers can only accept “gifts of $20 or less per occasion, not to exceed $50 in a year from one source.”
The rules specify that even for gifts that might be allowed, a federal worker should not accept them if they have a “high market value.” But Bondi has already blown that out of the water. Box seat prices for the FIFA World Cup finals cost anywhere between $5,300 to $73,000 each.
Rather shocking and against ethic officials’ advice, Bondi and her husband John Wakefield went ahead and sat with Trump at the FIFA Club World Cup in July. Bondi claimed she “might need to be there to brief the president on security issues,” the source told The New Yorker.
A DOJ official told the publication Bondi and her husband did not remain for the whole game and that she went because she might have needed to brief Trump on security matters, something no other attorney general has ever done.
The push and pull over which gifts Bondi can and can’t keep has her and her staffers locked in an ongoing battle with ethics officials.
Critics say Bondi’s defiance is hardly surprising when her own boss has normalized grifting at the highest level of government. Just last month, MSNBC reported that congressional Republicans blocked efforts to keep a free Qatari plane out of Trump’s hands as part of his post-presidency perks. The luxury jet was estimated to be worth $400 million, with another $900 million or more in tax-payer funded upgrades.
Aside from the $1 billion jet, there are hundreds of instances where his businesses pocketed millions from foreign governments during this presidency alone, according to Citizens for Ethics. Bondi’s stubborn defense of her freebies, critics argue, is simply part of that same culture of entitlement.
Social media reactions poured in.
“I can just imagine her defense. ‘Well, HE’s getting a jet and a whole bunch of other stuff so I should get to keep some stuff too,’” one user quipped on Yahoo in response to the Daily Beast’s coverage.
“When the ‘top dog’ is the least ethical person in his own administration it’s not too difficult to believe that the top person in the legal arm is lacking in moral restraint,” another added.
And one bluntly summarized: “America’s Attorney General is basically saying to our Nation; ‘If Trump can take bribes, why can’t I?’ Most corrupt administration in history!”
“Pam needs to cut back on the cigars. I hear nicotine doesn’t go well with Botox,” X user John Valentine joked.
Others, however, latched onto the fact that Bondi’s “freebies” included boxes of cigars—and the conversation quickly spiraled into references to one of the most infamous scandals of the 1990s.
During the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky saga, salacious details emerged alleging that Lewinsky used a cigar as part of a sexual encounter with Clinton. Though most mainstream outlets avoided reporting it directly, the rumor was immortalized in tabloids and became shorthand for the lurid excesses of the scandal.
A Washington Times columns at the time noted how newspapers were largely staying away from the details of “the President’s cigar, the phallic toy, that Monica is said to have employed in the pantry, to the President’s delighted applause.”
So when Bondi insisted on keeping her cigars, users had a field day drawing parallels.
“Why is Pam Bondi accepting cigars as a gift? Does she have a Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky fetish?” one person asked.
“I wonder what those cigars are for… Monica, you there?” another wrote.
And one commenter cut straight to the point: “She doesn’t smoke. What is she using those cigars for?”
The latest headlines over Bondi’s ethics conflicts certainly are giving the White House a headache. The Trump administration is still under scrutiny for the way it bungled the Epstein files with Bondi at the center of the scandal.
Her troubles began shortly after becoming attorney general earlier this year when in late February she said during a Fox News interview that she had Epstein’s client list.
“It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” she said. “That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.”
The scandal really exploded in early July when the Justice Department said it had closed the case on Jeffrey Epstein, after Trump and many in his inner circle spent years stoking conspiracy theories around the convicted sex trafficker’s death in jail, allegedly by suicide in 2019, and about his famous so called “client list.”
Trump’s supporters went wild after the announcement, attacking Trump and his administration for what they saw as a betrayal and the backtracking on the campaign promise to release the files.
Later in July news reports surfaced alleging Bondi had told Trump twice in May that his name was in the Epstein files and that that was part of the decision to close the case.
The Trump administration has tried to get the grand jury testimony in the case released, but the courts have repeatedly denied the requests.
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