Ogebe compares Tinubu’s nomination of El-Rufai, Bagudu with Trump’s pick for DOJ to do his personal bidding
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
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“That’s letting you know obscure influences that come into play, and you see bizarre things like that happen. If they [the US Department of Justice] can do a deal with a known [money] launderer, why wouldn’t they do a deal for a President-elect who is a felon? That’s the worry” – Ogebe
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Despite the replacement of the nomination of Matt Gaetz as United States Attorney General, the US Department of Justice still faces risk of compromise from Donald Trump, because Gaetz’s replacement, Pam Bondi, is also a MAGA advocate and staunch loyalist of the President-elect, Emmanuel Ogebe has warned.
Gaetz withdrew his nomination last week in the swirl of allegations of his improper sexual liaisons with minors and with grown women, some of whom testified against him before the House of Representatives committee that investigated the sleazes.
Gaetz had resigned his House seat on the eve of the publication of the report of the committee and the lawmakers resolved last week not to release the report, despite pressure from Democrats and other Americans.
Bondi, however, is not without her own controversies.
NBC reports that, long before her nomination by Trump, she had promised to prosecute “bad” prosecutors who indicted Trump, a threat which now sends shockwaves into the ranks of current and former officials of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
ABC News adds that Bondi, Florida’s Attorney General for eight years, “was part of Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial and supported his false claims of fraud following the 2020 election. She has remained in Trump’s orbit since then, continuing to advise him on legal matters.
“Despite the shake-up, Bondi seems easily positioned to pick up the mantle on Trump’s goal of overhauling the Justice Department and his pledge for retribution against political opponents.”
Ogebe, a human rights lawyer, has also stressed on Arise TV that while Trump is still threatening the Justice Department, America’s systems and institutions are being tested by bad actors referencing how the DOJ’s deal to share $200 million Abacha loot with Nigeria’s Budget Minister Abubakar Bagudu shows bizarre compromises already.
“If they did a deal with a [money] launderer, why won’t they do one with a felon?” he wondered.
He said Trump is already imploding prior to inauguration and has not handled his nominations tactfully as President Bola Tinubu did with his own “scandal-plagued nominees” last year.
Below is the transcript of Ogebe’s interview on Arise TV, which he sent to TheNiche:
Charles Aniagolu (Arise TV)
I’m Charles Aniagolu in Abuja. Now to the US where Donald Trump has picked Pam Bondi as Attorney General. The news of Miss Bondi’s nomination came about six hours after Matt Gaetz said he would not seek the high profile cabinet post of Attorney General, following days of debate over whether to release a Congressional report on sexual misconduct allegations against him, announcing his withdrawal.
Mr. Gaetz said the controversy over his potential nomination was unfairly becoming a distraction to the work of the incoming Trump administration.
Well, staying in America, the Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania has conceded the final outstanding race for the US Senate to his Republican opponent Dave McCormick, more than two weeks after the election.
In a video posted on X, Mr. Casey said it had been the honour of his lifetime to have served in the role. With this result, Donald Trump’s Republican Party widens its majority in the next Senate, holding 53 out of 100 seats.
With more on all the political developments coming out of America, I’m joined now on the line from Memphis, Tennessee by The US based international human rights lawyer and pro democracy advocate, Emmanuel Ogebe.
Thank you very much, Emmanuel, for joining us. So what do you think might have forced Matt Gaetz to step down? Did it become apparent that he was not going to get the confirmation votes in Congress to push him through?
Ogebe
Well, yeah, Charles, like you rightly summarised, you know, when we spoke last week, it was really an uphill task. Would there be enough us Republicans who were willing to die on the heel of Matt Gaetz?
And the thing about him is he was very divisive, not just in the US public, but even within his own party. And I guess this just shows us the limits on which, loyalty to an individual can go.
Now, let’s be very clear, the issues surrounding Gaetz were deeply personal. We have a situation where Trump has appointed a lawyer to be the Secretary for Health and Human Services. That’s unheard of anywhere in the world. You have a doctor, a medical professional, Head Health and Human Services under Bush. Twenty years ago, the Deputy Secretary for Health and Human Services was a lawyer, but the Secretary was a doctor.
And so you have something like RFK, a lawyer, being head of Health and Human Services, and nobody is talking about his personal moral character. But with Gaetz, it was completely different, because, the reports against him were so bad that it was disturbing.
The same DOJ had investigated him. In fact, there were allegations of him having paid money for sex, and then child trafficking and all of that kind of nonsense.
Now, let’s be very clear, in the past, we have had an Attorney General nominee who stepped down because there was an allegation that they hired undocumented workers. Okay, that is a far cry from saying that an Attorney General nominee paid multiple times for sex or had sex with an underage child, and was investigated by Department of Justice and by the Congress.
And so I have to say Gaetz imploded under the weight of his own lack of character. And I think that this is actually a huge lesson for Trump. It’s a reality check that he doesn’t have the mandate he thinks that he has
Aniagolu
Right and of course, Trump has now picked the former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to replace Matt Gaetz and lead the Justice Department.
What can you tell us about Miss Bondi? I understand she’s a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, but doesn’t have lots of personal baggage, and she’s seen as someone who can be confirmed.
Ogebe
Well here, let me say that you know the definition of scandal in Washington has always been “a dead girl or a live boy.” And what you can tell from that saying is that standard is usually associated with men. Men are the ones who have this sort of predilections that can get them into trouble.
So Trump did a very smooth 180 degree turn in which he decided to go for someone who would most likely have less garbage, sexual garbage, like Gaetz had. And let me point something out here. Now, the thing about Gaetz is that he has similar baggage to what Trump himself has, paying women for sex.
Remember that Trump’s own convictions were related to hush money payments he made to two sex workers for sex he had with them. So clearly, Trump had in mind somebody who had similar legal issues and problems with him to tackle the DOJ, who would go in and – to use an expression used last week – effectively as a wrecking ball to wreck the Department of Justice.
In fact, I’ll go a step further to say all of the folks that Trump is nominating seem to be his demolition crew, a crew that is coming out to take down Nigeria, the US government, and rebuild it in his own image.
So in that sense, Bondi is also a Trump loyalist. She doesn’t have the qualifications that you would expect. I mean, Kamala Harris, for example, is still way more qualified than her to be Attorney General and head the Department of Justice, but for now, it’s a safer bet for Trump.
One quick illustration I do want to make is, you will remember that last year, Tinubu nominated Bagudu, and many people were concerned because of his ongoing litigations in Washington DC, over $200 million in a Abacha loot. But Tinubu gave strict orders to the Senators that no one should oppose Bagudu’s nomination.
And here’s something that Tinubu did that was interesting when El-Rufai went for confirmation, he simply did not throw his political power or his political mileage or capital behind him, and that was how El-Rufai lost out.
Now Trump, similarly, seems to have done something of that nature, in the sense that he decided, “You know what? maybe I shouldn’t wait till confirmation and risk losing this nominee” and he, I think it’s more likely than not, that he asked Gaetz to fall on his own sword.
I don’t think Gaetz was ready to do that on his own. This is somebody who defended an insurrection against the same Congress that he served in. So someone that loyal to Trump would have gone to the gates of hell, riding that nomination pony. But I think Trump asked him to step down I think that’s why we saw Pam Bondi nomination coming out barely six hours after he stepped down, uh, they were ready to move on.
Aniagolu
We’ll have to see what happens, whether Trump can get all of his nominees through. Because, I mean, you still got controversies surrounding some of the other nominees, including the likes of Robert Kennedy Junior and Tulsi Gabbard [Director of National Intelligence] and even Pete Hegseth [Defence].
But just to explain to us a bit more about the role of Attorney General. We’re running out of time, so we need to keep this fairly brief. Explain to us a bit more about the role of Attorney General. It’s obviously a very important role in itself, but particularly important for Donald Trump.
I mean, what’s your sense of his thinking about how he wants his Attorney General to act over the span of his administration? [There] seem to be these persistent rumours that he wants the Department of Justice almost to be like his personal law firm, to protect him and also to go against his own opponents.
Ogebe
Yeah. So now here’s what’s interesting. The role of Attorney General is one of the few in the world that is constitutionally reserved for the legal profession. So you don’t see any Constitution in the world where the role of Secretary for Health is earmarked for doctors, but for Attorney General, that is basically what you see everywhere, and that’s how important it is – the chief law officer of the nation.
Now, you’re right. Trump has actually appointed his personal attorney in his New York trial as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. So he is turning the Department of Justice into his law firm. And so it’s going to be the Mike Coney 2.0 and it has to be concerning for everyone that people who serve in their personal professional capacities defending the President are now going to be serving that role in the presidency.
And on a final note, the last time he had AG Jeff Sessions there, and he tried to bully Jeff Sessions, and Sessions tried to face up to him, and didn’t survive that battle. So clearly, at this point, you know anyone who’s been nominated to that position knows that he’s there to protect, not the United States of America, but to protect Donald J Trump.
Aniagolu
Nevertheless, Pam Bondi, from what I understand, is not seen as a fire breathing Trumpist, and there isn’t sort of the huge expectation that she’s going to go after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and sort of charge them with crimes.
Ogebe
Well, I have to tell you, the Trump administration has already started imploding before it is sworn in. Usually. I mean, in Trump’s last administration, he was firing people left, right and center. His communications director lasted only 10 days. His AG nominee didn’t last a week.
So if Pam Bondi goes in expecting some kind of job security and not, pursuing vendetta against Trump’s enemies, then she’s going to be very short-lived. Unfortunately, these are the days in which we are in America, we are seeing Trump gone from a Democrat to a dictator, and it’s anyone’s guess how that will work out
Aniagolu
You know these things better than we do, because, I mean, you’re a lawyer there in America. I mean, I understand the Department of Justice is such a massive operation with 1000s of lawyers that I imagine it would be very hard to totally change the ship in a very quick amount of time.
Ogebe
Well, the thing about Washington, DC, unfortunately, is that despite the systems and the time-honoured institutions, we’re seeing them collapse under pressure because they’re being tested by bad actors in ways they never anticipated.
For example, a court is supposed to sentence Trump next week. Now we’re hearing stories that the court is deciding that they may not go through with it because of pressure from the elections, and that’s unheard of. That should never be – no one is about the law, and so the Department of Justice, no matter how professional it hopes to be, will buckle under pressure if they have someone who’s objective is simply to do the will of the master.
And I have to tell you, from my knowledge and experience with the Department of Justice, some of the things they do do not comport with what you would expect. For example, the proposed settlement between the Department of Justice and Bagudu, where they want to return Abacha loot to him, it’s not acceptable.
But again, that’s letting you know obscure influences that come into play, and you see bizarre things like that happen. If they can do a deal with a known [money] launderer, why wouldn’t they do a deal for a President-elect who is a felon? That’s the worry.
Aniagolu
Indeed, I want to thank you very much, Emmanuel. You’re always very good at putting these things in clear perspective so that we understand them better.
Emmanuel Ogebe is a US-based international human rights lawyer and pro-democracy advocate, and he was talking to me on the line there from Memphis, Tennessee.
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