Lawsuits Against Pam Bondi: From Trump University to Epstein Files

The lawsuits against Pam Bondi span more than a decade and two offices: as Florida Attorney General she faced ethics complaints over a 2013 Trump Foundation donation and public records litigation that ended in a $700,000 settlement, and as U.S. Attorney General from February 2025 until her ouster in April 2026 her Justice Department became both plaintiff and defendant in a cascade of suits over sanctuary policies, voter rolls, civil rights enforcement, and the Epstein files.

The Trump University Donation and Ethics Complaints

The oldest controversy still attached to Bondi’s name began in September 2013. Her office had told the Orlando Sentinel it was reviewing New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s fraud allegations against Trump University to see whether they applied to Florida consumers.¹ Six days after that statement, the Donald J. Trump Foundation sent a $25,000 check to “And Justice for All,” a political committee supporting Bondi’s reelection.² The Trump Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charity legally barred from making political contributions.

Bondi had personally called Trump to solicit the donation, according to the Associated Press, with her campaign consultant Marc Reichelderfer saying the call came “several weeks” before her office decided whether to join the New York case.³ By mid-October 2013 her office announced it would not pursue Trump University, reasoning that Florida consumers would be made whole if New York prevailed.¹ Internal emails later showed staff narrowing the office’s count of consumer complaints against Trump entities to a single active complaint, after the office had previously acknowledged more than 20.²

Bondi denied any connection. “I was never, nor was my office, investigating him. Never. I would never lie. I would never take money,” she said in June 2016.² Trump Organization officials called the illegal donation a “clerical error.” The IRS imposed a $2,500 penalty on the Trump Foundation, Trump paid it, and he reimbursed the $25,000.⁴

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed formal complaints in July 2016 with the Florida Attorney General’s Inspector General and the state Commission on Ethics, alleging Bondi broke the law by declining to investigate Trump University after receiving the contribution. In September 2016 CREW filed criminal bribery complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice against both Trump and Bondi. No criminal charges followed. Trump announced in December 2016 that he would shut down the Trump Foundation.²

Public Records Lawsuits in Florida

Transparency litigation also shadowed Bondi’s time in Tallahassee. In November 2013 attorney Steven Andrews sued Bondi, Governor Rick Scott, and two state agencies, accusing them of ignoring public records requests. The allegations against Bondi focused on her refusal to release meeting notes stored on her iPad.⁵

The dispute, which had grown out of a land acquisition conflict near the governor’s mansion and expanded into multiple lawsuits about private email use for state business, settled in August 2015 for $700,000. The payment drew from the budgets of the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, and two other agencies, and allowed Scott to avoid a judicial ruling that his administration had broken the law. The governor’s office spent another $100,000 on outside counsel to defend the litigation.⁶

Lobbying Conflicts Raised at Confirmation

After leaving office in 2019, Bondi joined Ballard Partners as a partner and registered lobbyist. Her clients included Amazon, Uber, General Motors, the GEO Group, Carnival Corporation, TikTok, UnitedHealthCare Services, and Trulieve.⁷ She also registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as a lobbyist for the government of Qatar, earning $115,000 per month.⁸

During confirmation, Senate Democrats criticized her for listing only two potential conflicts of interest, the America First Policy Institute and her brother’s law practice, while leaving off Qatar, Ballard Partners, and the GEO Group. Senator Dick Durbin said the omissions showed she did “not take these conflicts seriously.”⁸ Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project warned that her corporate client roster would create conflicts in DOJ enforcement.⁷ Bondi told lawmakers she would “consult with career ethics officials within the Justice Department and make the appropriate decision” on any conflicts.⁹ The Senate confirmed her on February 4, 2025, by a 54-46 vote, with Senator John Fetterman the only Democrat in favor.¹⁰

Lawsuits Her Justice Department Filed

Sanctuary Jurisdictions

Two days after Bondi was confirmed, on February 6, 2025, the DOJ sued Illinois, Cook County, and the city of Chicago in United States of America v. Illinois et al., arguing that local laws such as the TRUST Act and Chicago’s Welcoming City Act were preempted by federal immigration law.¹¹ On February 12, 2025, Bondi announced a civil suit against New York State and Governor Kathy Hochul over the “Green Light Law” restricting the sharing of motor vehicle data for immigration purposes. Hochul called the lawsuit “worthless” and “publicity-driven.”¹²

The department then sued Colorado and Denver in May 2025¹³ and filed a separate challenge in June 2025 to New York’s Protect Our Courts Act, which bars federal immigration arrests at or near courthouses.¹⁴

Voter Roll Demands

On February 26, 2026, the DOJ sued Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New Jersey for refusing to turn over complete voter registration rolls, invoking the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to demand full electronic lists including names, dates of birth, addresses, and identification numbers.¹⁵ Those five filings brought the department’s total to 29 states and the District of Columbia. Multiple states argued the requests exceeded federal authority and compromised voter privacy.¹⁶

Civil Rights and Anti-DEI Suits

In March 2025 Bondi moved to intervene in American Alliance for Equal Rights v. Bennett, a lawsuit challenging an Illinois law requiring nonprofits to publicly disclose the race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity of their officers and directors. The DOJ argued the law violated equal protection and encouraged discrimination “under the guise of diversity.” A federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois granted intervention on March 11, 2025.¹⁷

In February 2025 Bondi directed the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to dismiss existing lawsuits against police and fire departments involving hiring practices and aptitude tests, calling it an effort to “eradicate illegal DEI preferences.”¹⁸ In May 2026 the department sued the University of California, alleging UCLA violated Title VI by showing “deliberate indifference” to harassment of Jewish and Israeli students connected to campus encampments.¹⁹

Lawsuits Filed Against Bondi and the DOJ

Sanctuary Funding Injunctions

A coalition led by San Francisco and other cities sued the Trump administration in City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, challenging DOJ directives that threatened to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions. In April 2025 a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the government from conditioning federal funds on compliance with the directive, and in August 2025 the court extended that injunction to cover Department of Housing and Urban Development grants. A separate coalition of 21 state attorneys general sued in Rhode Island, challenging the tying of more than $1 billion in Victims of Crime Act funds to immigration cooperation.²⁰

Community Relations Service

In Ethical Society of Police v. Bondi, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, plaintiffs challenged the DOJ’s effort to eliminate the Community Relations Service, a unit created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to mediate community conflicts. Internal CRS memoranda, which the DOJ initially omitted from the court record, called the planned reduction in force “legally indefensible and operationally impossible.”²¹ Ninety members of Congress filed a brief supporting a preliminary injunction in December 2025. In January 2026 the DOJ rescinded the reduction-in-force notices and moved to reinstate the 14 affected employees, arguing the case was moot. The case remains active, with the court monitoring whether CRS operations have resumed in substance.²²

Death Row Habeas Challenge

In Bland v. Bondi, filed in September 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, death row prisoners represented by the ACLU challenged the constitutionality of a federal statute that transferred authority over expedited habeas review from courts to the Attorney General. They alleged violations of the separation of powers and the Due Process Clause. Judge Amit Mehta denied a preliminary injunction in October 2025, ruling that the court lacked jurisdiction because the statute assigns exclusive review to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.²³

The Epstein Files Litigation and Bondi’s Ouster

The suits that most damaged Bondi politically concerned the Jeffrey Epstein files. In February 2025 she said on Fox News that information about Epstein was “sitting on my desk right now” and promised the public would see it. The DOJ distributed binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” to conservative commentators, though the contents were largely already public.²⁴

By July 2025 the DOJ reversed course, saying it would not release additional material because of court-sealed records and a lack of evidence to justify new investigations. The reversal triggered multiple suits. The Democracy Forward Foundation filed a FOIA action in August 2025, and Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the DOJ and FBI to speed up their review in November 2025. When the agencies did not produce the records, Democracy Forward filed a second complaint in December 2025 seeking to force disclosure.²⁵ The Democracy Defenders Fund sued in August 2025 to obtain records from Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell investigations that specifically mentioned President Trump and Mar-a-Lago, calling Bondi’s refusal a “betrayal of survivors” and an “abuse of power.”²⁶

Congress then passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, setting a statutory deadline for release. A partial batch released in December 2025 drew criticism from legislators and victims for excessive redactions. A larger release in January 2026 prompted corporate and academic resignations but was criticized for exposing victims’ personal information while redacting the names of Epstein’s correspondents.²⁴

Bondi defended the department’s handling of the files before the House Judiciary Committee in February 2026 but declined to apologize to victims. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed her in March 2026. In a closed-door interview on May 29, 2026, she called the release process “enormously complicated and labor-intensive,” acknowledged “redaction errors,” and said she had delegated oversight of the review to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Committee Democrats reported that she repeatedly deflected questions to Blanche and refused to discuss matters related to Donald Trump. Survivors and their attorneys, including Gloria Allred, accused her of betraying victims.²⁷²⁸

Bondi was ousted as Attorney General in April 2026. Todd Blanche is serving as Acting Attorney General, and the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Epstein file releases is continuing.²⁸

1
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National Freedom of Information Coalition. Rick Scott, Pam Bondi Sued for Public Records Withholding
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Politico. Pam Bondi DOJ Ethics
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ABC 7 New York. Department of Justice Filing Charges Against New York Top Officials
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FAIR. Pam Bondi Sues Colorado, Denver
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The Guardian. DOJ New York Immigration Lawsuit
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Jurist. US Justice Department Sues 5 Additional States
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U.S. Department of Justice. Attorney General Pamela Bondi Intervenes
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U.S. Department of Justice. Attorney General Pam Bondi Dismisses DEI Lawsuits
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U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Sues University of California
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Immigration Policy Tracking Project. DOJ Sanctuary Jurisdictions Directives Memo
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U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democrats. Raskin to Bondi Letter Regarding CRS
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Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Ethical Society of Police v. Bondi
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Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Bland v. Bondi
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WUSF. A Look at How the Epstein Files Dogged Pam Bondi’s Time as Attorney General
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Democracy Forward Foundation. Democracy Forward Foundation v. U.S. Department of Justice
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Democracy Defenders Fund. DDF Files Suit Over Epstein Records
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NPR. Pam Bondi Epstein Congress
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WUSF. Bondi Doubles Down on Her Handling of Epstein Files