Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly clashed with Justice Department ethical guidelines regarding the acceptance of gifts while on the job, The New Yorker reported Monday.
According to the magazine, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department brushed up against ethics watchdogs within the agency on a number of issues including a gift of cigars from MMA fighter and political hopeful Conor McGregor. A FIFA soccer ball tossed to her by the president was also among the gifts Bondi argued she should be allowed to keep, according to The New Yorker, which cited a source within the agency as describing an unequal level of pushback from Bondi on the issue compared to her predecessors.
“Every new administration needs time to adjust to ethics rules that might seem trivial,” the New Yorker’s source said. “What wasn’t normal was the amount of pushback that we got.”
Bondi denied resisting department-wide ethical guidelines in a statement through a spokesperson to The New Yorker.
The spokesperson also denied that Bondi stayed for an undue amount of time when she tried to join Trump in his box at the FIFA Club World Cup final in July. There, Bondi gave a truly bold excuse for joining Trump for significant portions of the match in the private suite: the attorney general asserted that she may need to be on site in case the president required a briefing, something attorneys general have never done in the past.
It’s also unclear what issue the Justice Department could possibly need to present an emergency briefing to a U.S. president on a Sunday afternoon while he attended a soccer match. The agency is not the primary source a president would turn to in the event of a national emergency, be it a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other calamity.
She was told she could enter the box to answer questions, but that was the extent of their possible interaction.
But the attorney general’s reasoning for attending a World Cup match wasn’t the only issue, according to The New Yorker. The agency source told the publication that Bondi was told her attendance in the VIP booth could be seen as violating the department’s rules, and that she should stay out of the VIP section unless Trump requested her presence with an official request or question.
She and her husband still joined the president in the box, even after pressing unsuccessfully for their own seats and being denied, according to the publication.
Bondi’s troubles are only the latest headache for an embattled attorney general whom many in the administration blame for her supposed mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein saga.
Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019, sparked numerous conspiracy theories and general speculation around the web after his death was ruled a suicide. Ghislaine Maxwell, his girlfriend and accomplice, remains the only other person charged and convicted in the case.
For years, speculation about Epstein’s connections to a wide range of vastly powerful public figures has led many to question whether those men or others were involved in the New York financier’s crimes.
Bondi and other members of Trump’s team including Vice President J.D. Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel stoked some of the speculation themselves before coming to office this year. But after organizing a “phase one” release of documents from the investigation earlier in 2025, the Justice Department reversed course in July by releasing a memo stating that no further releases would take place. The memo kicked debate over Epstein’s connections and documented friendship with Donald Trump into overdrive, as Bondi declared that the so-called “client list” of men who participated in crimes with the billionaire pedophile did not exist.
At the same time, her team was reportedly clashing with ethics staff at the DOJ, she was involved in damage control on Trump’s behalf. The Justice Department filed a long-shot motion to unseal grand jury transcripts from the Epstein investigation, which was denied, allowing the administration to shift blame and cover for its own refusal to release documents and witness testimony.
Members of Congress in both parties, set to return to the Hill next month, are circulating a bill that would force the Justice Department to release records from the case.
