The White House was rife with internal squabbles about how far to go in pursuing Donald Trump’s perceived enemies, which left Attorney General Pam Bondi unhappy with the pressure coming from all sides.


According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, there are plenty of insiders who are unsure about the Department of Justice pursuing cases that they feel won’t survive in the courts as well as worries about ethical concerns.

Above it all, Donald Trump is blowing off concerns.

As the Journal’s Sadie Gurman, Josh Dawsey and Aruna Viswanatha wrote, Trump “had been hearing from allies that the Justice Department wasn’t moving aggressively against the people,” with the pursuit of former FBI director James Comey at the forefront.

“Senior Justice Department officials told him the evidence against Comey wasn’t a slam dunk, and prosecutors in Virginia didn’t want to bring the case. Other White House officials worried that such a case could end badly,” the report notes before adding that, “Tensions over the case came to a head last week after some administration officials, including Ed Martin, a Justice Department official pursuing cases of interest to Trump, privately told the president that the Justice Department was slow-walking cases against Trump critics.”

That led to demands for the head of U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, however Bondi and Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche defended him, but the president wanted him gone.


According to the Journal, “Bondi expressed frustration with her situation, according to people who spoke with her. Trump had begun complaining about her privately, one official said, but liked her and wanted to defend her publicly.”

That led to the hiring of Trump personal attorney Lindsey Halligan as the new U.S. attorney who was warned about what she was stepping into.“On her first day as U.S. attorney, career prosecutors in the office presented her with a detailed memo outlining that they hadn’t found probable cause to support charging Comey and explained that securing a conviction would be even harder, people familiar with the matter said. They also noted it would raise ethical issues,” the Journal is reporting.


You can read more here