Bondi’s DOJ Day 1 directives: Fight weaponization of justice, eliminate cartels, lift death penalty ban

Attorney General Pam Bondi will issue several major directives on her first day leading the Justice Department, including orders to combat the weaponization of the legal system; make prosecutors seek the death penalty when appropriate; and work with the Department of Homeland Security to ‘completely eliminate’ cartels and transnational criminal organizations, Fox News Digital has learned.

Bondi was confirmed by the Senate Tuesday night as attorney general of the United States and was sworn in on Wednesday. 

Fox News Digital exclusively obtained memos outlining Bondi’s first-day directives, which will lay the groundwork for the Justice Department under her leadership. 

Bondi issued a directive regarding ‘zealous advocacy.’ Bondi said DOJ attorneys’ responsibilities include ‘aggressively enforcing criminal laws passed by Congress, but also vigorously defending presidential policies and actions on behalf of the United States against legal challenges.’ 

‘The discretion afforded Justice Department attorneys with respect to those responsibilities does not include latitude to substitute their personal political views or judgments for those that prevailed in the election,’ the memo states. 

‘When Justice Department attorneys refuse to faithfully carry out their role by, for example, refusing to advance good-faith arguments or declining to sign briefs, it undermines the constitutional order and deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers,’ the memo continues. 

Bondi, in the memo, states that ‘any Justice Department attorney who declines to sign a brief, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Trump administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the Justice Department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.’ 

Bondi is set to establish the ‘Weaponization Working Group,’ which will review the activities of all law enforcement agencies over the past four years to identify instances of ‘politicized justice.’ 

The working group’s first reviews will include prosecutions against Trump led by former Special Counsel Jack Smith; Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg; and the civil fraud case brought against Trump and his family by New York Attorney General Letitia James. 

The working group will also review any potential prosecutorial abuse regarding Jan. 6, 2021; the FBI’s targeting of Catholic Americans; the Justice Department’s targeting of parents at school board meetings; and abuses Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE, Act. 

Meanwhile, Bondi also will end the moratorium on federal executions and order that federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice, including U.S. attorney’s offices, seek the death penalty when appropriate —specifically with a focus on violent drug trafficking crimes. 

Bondi also ordered that the Justice Department ‘re-evaluate instances of the prior administration electing not to seek the death penalty.’ 

Bondi also is expected to rescind any DOJ policies that are ‘not sufficiently in line with President Trump’s death penalty executive order.’ 

The move represents a major reversal from the Justice Department’s view of the death penalty under the Biden administration. In 2021, Biden allowed the DOJ to issue a moratorium on federal executions. 

In December 2024, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 criminals on federal death row, which President Donald Trump, in his executive order on the death penalty, described as the ‘most vile and sadistic rapists, child molesters, and murderers on Federal death.’ 

Bondi said she is now also directing the Justice Department to achieve justice for the families of the victims of the 37 murderers that had their death sentences commuted. 

As for cartels, Bondi is directing the Justice Department to work closely with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal partners to ‘completely eliminate’ the threats of cartels and transnational criminal organizations. 

Bondi plans to re-imagine charging priorities relating to those cases in order to ensure that law enforcement resources are focused on dismantling the foundational operational capacity of cartels, as opposed to just picking off low-level offenders. 

Here, the Justice Department is expected to temporarily suspend some ‘bureaucratic approvals and reviews’ in order to prioritize speedy prosecutions and captures of those accused of severe offenses like capital crimes, terrorism, or aiding the operations of cartels. 

Bondi said Joint Task Force Vulcan, which was created to destroy MS-13, and Joint Task Force Alpha, which was created to fight human trafficking, would be ‘further empowered and elevated’ to the Office of the Attorney General. Their missions are expected to expand—specifically Vulcan’s—with a new focus on destroying Tren de Aragua. 

Also on the cartel front, Bondi is directing the DOJ Office of Legal Policy to find legislative reforms to target equipment designed to make fentanyl pills and add Xylazine, a new deadly drug, to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. 

And as for illegal migrants, Bondi has directed the DOJ to pause all federal funding for sanctuary cities. 

Bondi has also directed the DOJ to identify and evaluate all funding agreements with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide support to illegal aliens. 

She is also directing litigating components of the Justice Department to investigate instances of jurisdictions that are impeding law enforcement, and directing they be prosecuted, when necessary. 

Meanwhile, Bondi will also create a new Joint Task Force on October 7 focused on holding Hamas accountable for its crimes against Jews during its terror attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The task force will also ‘achieve justice for victims and fight terrorist-led anti-Semitism.’ 

The task force on Oct. 7 will pursue criminal charges where applicable against Hamas; seek the arrest and extradition of Hamas leadership; and investigate anti-Semitism in the United States. 

Bondi is also directing the FBI to staff the joint task force with personnel ‘significantly experienced in investigating terrorism.’ 

Beyond those directives, Bondi is directing the DOJ to confirm the termination of all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs at the department by March 15. She also is demanding the removal of all references to DEI in training programs—specifically ending the emphasis on race and sex-based criteria and refocusing hiring and promotion guidelines ‘solely on merit.’ 

Bondi will also work with the Department of Education to ensure that educational institutions receiving federal grants are adhering to ‘fair admission practices.’ 

Bondi, a longtime prosecutor and former Florida attorney general, has vowed not to use her position to advance any political agenda, testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee that ‘politics has to be taken out of this system.’ 

Bondi told lawmakers in January that the ‘partisanship, the weaponization’ at the Justice Department ‘will be gone.’ 

‘America will have one tier of justice for all,’ she said. 

Before Bondi was confirmed, Fox News Digital exclusively reported that the Trump Justice Department fired more than a dozen key officials who worked on former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team prosecuting Trump, after Acting Attorney General James McHenry said they could not be trusted in ‘faithfully implementing the president’s agenda.’ 

And Friday, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove issued a memo to the acting FBI director directing him to terminate eight FBI employees and identify all current and former bureau personnel assigned to Jan. 6 and Hamas cases for an internal review. 

After the directive, on Tuesday, a group of nine FBI agents filed a lawsuit seeking to block the public identification of any FBI employees who worked on the Jan. 6 investigations into the U.S. Capitol riots in an attempt to head off what they described as potentially retaliatory efforts against personnel involved in the probe.