Pam Bondi’s DOJ Is Sabotaging The Trump Coalition

Authored by John Velleco, Executive Vice President Gun Owners of America,

In November 2024, the American people decisively elected President Trump to a second term in office. After four intolerable years of controlled national demolition under the Biden autopen, the newly elected 47th President was poised to keep his promises and fulfill his mandate.

President Trump had the opportunity to stop the federal government’s leftward push, steer the government back in the right direction, and make significant and lasting progress in that new direction. That third point is the most critical. Indeed, without permanent change, President Trump’s historic election – and this nation’s generational opportunity to course-correct – will turn out to have been nothing more than a momentary pause in America’s long-term decline.

Yet inexplicably, the Trump Administration has failed to take even basic steps to effect permanent change. For example, the Administration often has taken the easy path of using temporary Executive Orders rather than insisting on permanent legislation. Of course, Executive Orders are temporary, and can be undone by any future President with the stroke of a pen.

The same dynamic exists in the world of litigation, where Pam Bondi’s DOJ has chosen the temporary fix over the permanent solution. In addition to having repeatedly bungled implementation of President Trump’s agenda, Bondi’s DOJ has deliberately avoided letting cases reach final judgment.

For example, DOJ has repeatedly attempted to moot litigation involving Biden-era policies, even after a judge seems on the verge of striking down those bad policies through a precedent-setting decision. Yet all this tactic does is ensure that a future Democrat administration will be able to put these Biden policies right back into effect.

But why would the Bondi DOJ work so hard to prevent lasting victories in court for Trump Coalition interests? Indeed, with DOJ friends like that, who needs enemies? If the Bondi DOJ’s hostility to the groups that made up the Trump Coalition in 2024 continues, it will seriously damage any chance of success in the 2026 midterms. This article will examine the Bondi DOJ’s infuriating pattern of obstruction, sabotage, and outright friendly fire against the Trump Coalition and ask one simple question: Why?

DOJ’s Failure to Implement the President’s Mandate

But first, let’s examine what DOJ could have done in service of the American people during this past year. As it turns out, DOJ has a number of legal tools available that it inexplicably has declined to use.

Consider the role litigation plays in shaping domestic policy. A court order can bind the government to a certain legal interpretation or specific course of conduct, and generally will survive a change in administrations. Thus, if the federal government is a party to a lawsuit, a court order against it can codify policy – good or bad.

So what happens when a new administration inherits an ongoing lawsuit that was originally brought by its political allies against the prior administration? Well, in the past, DOJ often has simply settled cases, either privately or via court-enforceable consent judgment. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, this tactic has been a favorite of Democrat administrations.   The Biden DOJ’s handling of a prior Trump-era lawsuit illustrates the point.

When Biden took office in 2021, his DOJ inherited a pending ACLU-led lawsuit against the first Trump Administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration enforcement policy. Rather than litigate the case any further, the Biden DOJ settled with its friends at the ACLU, barring the federal government “from reenacting the zero-tolerance policy” until 2031, and agreeing to pay the ACLU some $6 million in attorneys’ fees to boot.

In addition to settling cases, DOJ also can (and has) let its friends’ lawsuits play out. For example, if a judge appears poised to rule in favor of an outcome the administration wants, DOJ can simply wait for that ruling. Then, not only will the federal government be bound by that ruling, but also it will generate favorable legal precedent for use in future cases.

The same options would be available if new lawsuits were to be filed during the administration – settle with allies when they are right, or let the courts issue decisions on the merits. But we are not talking about using the Democrat tactic often dubbed “sue and settle.” Democrat administrations have abused this tactic to “compel government action that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve.”

In fact, During the Obama years, many of the administration’s environmental regulations came about from these sorts of “sue and settle” pre-arranged consent decrees. Although we are not urging the use of such sham lawsuits, it’s worth noting that this is the tactic the Democrats use to get what they want.

In stark contrast to the Democrats’ underhanded “sue and settle” tactics, Pam Bondi’s DOJ has refused to allow Trump Coalition victories even in legitimate litigation that has been ongoing for years. Instead, Pam Bondi’s DOJ has fought tooth and nail to make suits filed by Trump Coalition groups simply go away.

Gun Rights

We at Gun Owners of America (GOA) have experienced DOJ’s inexplicable resistance firsthand. Although our Second Amendment lawsuits are by no means the only Trump Coalition causes torpedoed by Pam Bondi’s Justice Department, they are quintessential examples of this worrying trend.

During both his 2024 election campaign and when taking office in January of 2025, President Trump made a number of promises to gun owners, a massive contingent of his voters. First, President Trump promised that Biden-era ATF regulations – what he called “disasters” for gun owners – would be “ripped up and torn out” his “first week … in office.”

GOA applauded this news, since we were the only Second Amendment advocacy group to have challenged every one of Biden’s anti-gun rules in court. But we knew that merely rolling back existing infringements would do little to regain the miles of ground lost during the left’s decades-long war of attrition against the Second Amendment.

And so, much to his credit, President Trump went on offense, announcing a comprehensive Department of Justice-wide initiative to review all federal actions for consistency with the Second Amendment. Once again, GOA applauded this historic undertaking, and looked forward to working with DOJ to end unconstitutional gun restrictions for good. Key words – for good.

But sadly, DOJ has taken precisely the opposite approach. At almost at every turn, elements within the Bondi DOJ have resisted permanent victories in GOA’s cases. And without something permanent like a settlement, consent judgment, or a court order on the merits, any future leftist administration can simply reimplement Biden’s infringements at will.

Take GOA’s challenge to the Biden ATF’s “Engaged in the Business” rule. After Democrats promulgated this rule to criminalize all private gun sales, GOA secured a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the rule. But after taking power, rather than allow the district court to finalize its preliminary pro-gun ruling into a permanent one, the Bondi DOJ worked to undermine our pro-gun victory. For more than a year, DOJ stalled progress in our litigation, both in the district court and on appeal. Thankfully, the Fifth Circuit recently denied DOJ’s most recent request to stall the case even further.

DOJ also aggressively sought to moot GOA’s challenge to ATF’s 2020 refusal to allow Michigan Concealed Pistol Licensees to avoid redundant federal background checks. DOJ could have allowed GOA to obtain a binding ruling in court.   Instead, DOJ had ATF simply rescind its policy, and then immediately sought dismissal of GOA’s case as moot. By taking this “nothing to see here” approach, and avoiding a permanent judicial ruling or settlement, DOJ’s actions have ensured that a future Democrat administration is free to simply reimplement ATF’s old policy.

The same is true for GOA’s challenges to ATF’s Biden-era “zero tolerance” license revocation policy for gun dealers. As the Trump White House acknowledged, this policy “undermine[d] the Second Amendment” by “shut[ting] down small businesses across the Nation” over inadvertent and inconsequential paperwork errors. But rather than recognizing the need to permanently block “zero tolerance” now and in the future, DOJ just rescinded the policy and moved to dismiss. Again, this leaves a future Democrat administration free to reimplement this Biden policy at will.

But what about GOA’s challenge to the federal ban on mailing pistols using the U.S. Postal Service?   After GOA moved for summary judgment in December 2025, DOJ actually agreed in an Office of Legal Counsel memorandum that the statute violates the Second Amendment.

So, DOJ settled with GOA, right?

Wrong.

Instead, DOJ once again moved to dismiss, on the curious theory that its brand-new OLC memo meant that GOA lacked standing to challenge the statute’s constitutionality in the first place. Of course, all this tactic does is reserve the right of a future Democrat DOJ to reverse course. OLC memos are not set in stone, and many have been reversed by subsequent administrations. And left without any permanent victory, when (not if) a future Democrat administration simply rescinds OLC’s memo, GOA will have to challenge the statute all over again.

DOJ’s pattern is clear:

• First – avoid siding with gun owners even when they are clearly right.
• Second – delay, deny, and avoid pro-gun rulings.
• Third – don’t settle meritorious cases – in fact, work to prevent pro-gun decisions by mooting challenges so that gun owners can’t get permanent relief, thus preventing lasting victory for gun owners.

This begs the question: Who is the Bondi DOJ working for? It’s doesn’t appear to be the current President, and it certainly isn’t the tens of millions of gun owners who elected him. Rather, it must be the “swamp,” the “deep state,” or Permanent D.C. – whatever you want to call it.

Under Pam Bondi’s DOJ, it is the interests of the federal government – not the people – that are being protected at all costs.

That would explain why DOJ even sought to moot GOA’s First Amendment appeal of an unprecedented Biden-era gag order blocking GOA’s First Amendment right to print the news – with DOJ “intentionally” breaking the law in the process.   And it may also explain why GOA can’t even get a fraction of the attorney’s fees that Biden’s DOJ was thrilled to award its friends at the ACLU – in a case we won fair and square.

Speaking privately with GOA in recent months, the Attorneys General of two deep red states – as pro-Trump as they come – have told us that they have observed a similar pattern of Bondi DOJ resistance to litigation brought by their states and other Republican Attorneys General.

So it is not just pro-gun cases that this Bondi DOJ has resisted tooth and nail. Rather, her DOJ is actively opposing many of the groups that formed the Trump Coalition that elected her boss.   The following examples are only illustrative of the broader problems that have been shared with us, in matters where GOA does not lobby.

Undermining Trump Coalition Causes

Just last month, DOJ sought to pause the State of Louisiana’s challenge to Biden-era regulatory rollbacks on mifepristone, an abortion drug. Rather than agree with Louisiana that this abortion drug should not be accessible via mail order, DOJ sought to wait for the FDA to reverse itself, which DOJ claims will make Louisiana’s requested relief “unnecessary” and moot the case. Once again, DOJ is hoping to undermine a challenge by the President’s political allies, reserving the right of future Democrats to reverse and reimplement.

The same is true for another lawsuit led by Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri against the telehealth prescription of this same drug. In May 2025, DOJ sought to deprive plaintiffs of access to a judge who previously had ruled against the pro-choice cause. In that case, DOJ attorneys “stayed the legal course charted by [the] Biden administration,” arguing that the deep red states should sue in other, less favorable jurisdictions.

DOJ also has undermined the President’s energy agenda, defending a pretextual Biden-era national-monument designation that blocked uranium mining in Arizona. Rather than come to the aid of Republican plaintiffs challenging Biden’s designation, DOJ has argued they lack standing to sue.

Making matters worse, DOJ allowed Democrats to take a victory lap against President Trump’s order to freeze approvals of costly and unreliable wind energy projects.   When a district court ruled the President’s wind order “unlawful,” vacating it nationwide, left-wing Attorneys General from states like Connecticut and Washington celebrated.   DOJ never appealed this final ruling, allowing the Democrats to continue implementing their anti-energy agenda.

Conclusion

The pattern is clear. And it appears that gun owners are not the only group from the 2024 Trump Presidential Coalition that Pam Bondi’s DOJ has been working to undermine in court. In fact, the Bondi DOJ is resisting litigation by Trump Coalition groups almost as much as the Biden DOJ did.

This is no way for Pam Bondi’s DOJ to treat the voters who elected the same President who appointed her to office. And something needs to change.   Like a ratchet gear and pawl, this country for decades has moved to the left. By preventing rightward movement, this DOJ appears to be the pawl.

The hour grows late for President Trump to deliver on the promises he made to voters. So long as Pam Bondi’s DOJ continues to actively undermine litigation by Trump Coalition groups nationwide, there will be no permanent victories to cement the President’s agenda.  And all the next Democrat administration will have to do is reimplement old policies.  On many fronts, Bondi’s DOJ is fighting hard to empower the next Democrat to do just that.