Opinion | Would Pam Bondi Stand Up to Trump as Attorney General?

Donald Trump’s selection of Pam Bondi to be the next attorney general merits caution but not panic.She is amply qualified, on paper, to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement official.

But Ms.Bondi’s recent public statements, including her false claims about 2020 election fraud and her vow to prosecute Mr.

Trump’s perceived political enemies, raise pressing concerns about whether she possesses the independence and credibility necessary to lead the Department of Justice.If confirmed, Ms.Bondi will wield extraordinary power.

In 1940, the attorney general, Robert Jackson, cautioned that prosecutors have “more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in America.” As a supervisor explained it to me years ago when I first became a federal prosecutor: “We’re giving you the power to destroy people’s lives.Don’t screw it up.”As attorney general, Ms.

Bondi would oversee 94 regional U.S.attorney’s offices staffed by over 6,000 federal prosecutors, plus the F.B.I.; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S.

Marshals Service; and Bureau of Prisons, with an annual budget over $37 billion.By any objective measure, she is qualified for the job — far more so than Mr.Trump’s first pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, who was never a prosecutor and only briefly practiced law.

She spent 18 years as a local prosecutor in Florida and served as the state’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019, focusing especially on shutting down pill mills and prosecuting human traffickers.Dave Aronberg, a Democrat who recently completed his tenure as state attorney for Palm Beach County, publicly said Ms.

Bondi is “no political hack” and “believes in the rule of law.”If anything, Ms.Bondi’s résumé most resembles that of Janet Reno, who spent 15 years as the state attorney for Miami-Dade County (called Dade County at the time) before serving as the U.S.

attorney general from 1993 to...