Pam Bondi

In the reporting: Former attorney general who had been listed on a Qatar lobbying contract in 2019, cleared the Qatari jet in 2025 and, with Todd Blanche, asked Switzerland to avoid criminal charges or prison for the Venezuelan billionaire Alejandro Betancourt, according to The Washington Post.

Last updated Nov. 6, 2026

This page collects what Letters of Junius has published about this person’s public role, and grows as the reporting does. Inclusion is not an allegation of wrongdoing. Where someone has denied or answered a claim, the response appears with it. Each entry links to the original source and to the article it appears in.

Position

Confirmed
Pam Bondi was attorney general until Trump fired her on April 2, 2026.
Source: PBS NewsHour.

Qatar: the lobbying contract, the jet and the Footlik inquiry

Reported
In 2019, Bondi was listed as key personnel on the lobbying firm Ballard Partners' contract to represent Qatar's embassy. Qatar has spent nearly $250 million on 88 registered lobbying firms in Washington since 2016, according to the Quincy Institute.
Source: Quincy Institute. From: The Sheikhs on Every Side of the Table.
Reported
In May 2025, while Trump was in Doha, the Qatari emir's government offered the president a Boeing 747-8 to fly as Air Force One, and the Pentagon took it on May 21. The legal green light came from Pam Bondi, then the attorney general.
Source: CNN, via Yahoo News. From: The Sheikhs on Every Side of the Table.
Reported
In early July 2025, the Justice Department called off a planned inquiry into the American lobbyist Jay Footlik that it had coordinated with Israeli police, i24 News reported. The Israelis were never told why. It came two months after Bondi cleared the Qatari jet, and five months after her first-day memo told prosecutors to stop bringing criminal charges against unregistered foreign agents unless the case resembled espionage.
Source: i24 News, via The Times of Israel. From: The Sheikhs on Every Side of the Table.

The Betancourt case

Reported
Pam Bondi, then the attorney general, and Todd Blanche, then her deputy, asked Switzerland to avoid criminal charges or prison for the Venezuelan billionaire Alejandro Betancourt, according to The Washington Post. Swiss prosecutors have been investigating Betancourt since 2019; he has never been charged and denies wrongdoing. In May 2026, Switzerland withdrew its request to extradite him from Britain. In August 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an oil agreement with him, ProPublica reported.
Source: The Washington Post; Swissinfo; ProPublica. From: The Same Deal, Made Eight Times.

Where this person appears

October 24, 2026

The Sheikhs on Every Side of the Table

Four days before the inauguration, a buyer tied to the UAE’s spy chief paid $500 million for half of the Trump and Witkoff families’ crypto company. In the months that followed, Washington approved the Emirates’ access to America’s most guarded AI chips three times and cleared the family business to enter the U.S. banking system.

October 20, 2026

The Same Deal, Made Eight Times

Since returning to office, Trump has made the same foreign deal at least eight times. Washington uses a ceasefire, sanctions relief or military force to take a cut of a country’s oil, mines or money, while the private side of the deal goes to the president’s donors, his envoys’ partners and the Abu Dhabi sheikh…

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Photo: U.S. Department of Justice, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

All Key Players