Senators should closely scrutinize attorney general nominee Pam Bondi

And that’s putting it mildly.

In suggesting that Bondi may not merit confirmation (repeat: “may not,” not yet “does not”), the usual caveat applies. Namely, that an incoming president is due a presumption of some deference to his executive-branch choices, especially if the objections are merely ones of policy (at least within relatively mainstream bounds). Contrarily, the three main legitimate reasons for a senator to vote “no” on a nomination should involve either a conflict of interest, a manifest lack of relevant experience or competence, or, in the words of founder Alexander Hamilton, evidence of “unfit character.”

Bondi clearly is not disqualified by the second consideration because her record as a longtime prosecutor and as attorney general of the nation’s third-largest state provides ample, relevant experience. The other two considerations, though, may apply, to her detriment.

The conflict-of-interest potential relates to her work for the past five years as a lobbyist. Plenty of lobbying work is entirely honorable, and there isn’t anything inherently wrong with her major lobbying work, including that for the Arab nation of Qatar, with its less-than-stellar human rights record. Still, lobbyists rarely go back into major law enforcement roles, and Bondi in particular represented a host of companies that already are “crosswise” with the Justice Department she is nominated to lead. Bondi herself could have spotless integrity and still as attorney general face a host of inherent conflicts related to her former clients and her former firm.

Democrats surely will raise a stink about Bondi’s lobbying, and if past is prologue, they may engage in demagogic overkill that actually boomerangs on them and discredits the very real concerns here. They should be careful to stick to the facts and to appropriate context which, to repeat, is inherently problematic even if Bondi is honest.

Bondi’s integrity, though, the fitness of her character, is indeed likely to come under serious scrutiny. The scrutiny is definitely warranted, especially since the justifiable questions all revolve around her record of servile obedience to the president-elect, Donald Trump, who has nominated her.

The attorney general has two roles. In the first, namely the execution of broad policy preferences, she should indeed carry out the president’s wishes as long as they are lawful. Unlike other Cabinet members, though, the attorney general has a second duty completely separate from her role as a policy implementer. That second role, that of overseeing the administration of equal justice, demands apolitical work from a neutral arbiter beholden to the law rather than any political party or government official, the president included.

Bondi comes disturbingly close to failing that second test.

Her problems here are twofold. The first is of serious but still lesser concern than the second, No decent lawyer, much less one under consideration for the nation’s chief law enforcement office, should ever have pushed the manifestly false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, much less pushed legal action in support of that fiction. It is for good reason that several high-profile lawyers were disbarred or otherwise sanctioned for unethically pushing Trump’s claim. Yet Bondi made extravagant, entirely baseless claims that Wisconsin, Georgia, and especially Pennsylvania had major fraud problems. When even Fox News’s Steve Doocy, hardly a Trump antagonist, expressed skepticism and asked Bondi for evidence, she produced not an iota.

That unethical behavior, though, is nonetheless not even as worrisome as her actions regarding the massively fraudulent Trump University. Without belaboring the well-reported tale of that fraud, suffice it to say that Trump himself flagrantly lied that he had “hand-picked instructors” whom, in fact, he had never met or vetted. A federal judge eventually ordered Trump to pay a $25 million settlement for the major scam.

In 2013, after at least 22 Floridians complained of Trump University’s fraudulence, Bondi’s office eagerly announced it was considering joining a lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman against the “university.” Three days later, the Donald J. Trump Foundation made a $25,000 donation, personally signed by Trump himself, to one of Bondi’s political action committees for her reelection bid. And, wonder of wonders, Bondi then dropped the investigation into Trump.

The IRS later determined that the Trump Foundation was not eligible to donate to political causes, and Trump was ordered to pay $2 million in damages. Bondi herself wasn’t charged with any violation; but a full eight years later, records emerged showing that Bondi’s campaign finance director specifically thanked Trump’s executive assistant for having met with her and for having promised the donation.

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This isn’t firm proof of malfeasance, but it is more than enough evidence of potential corruption to raise serious concerns and to require any honest senator to ask probing questions.

None of this background relies on anonymous smears. All of it involves unambiguous facts that necessitate significant perlustration. Through all of which Bondi deserves the benefit of any reasonable doubts. Only, however, if those doubts do prove reasonable.