Pam Bondi has argued with ethics staff so she can keep a FIFA soccer ball and cigars from Conor McGregor: report
Source: The Independent
Monday 18 August 2025 22:59 BST
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 Trumps 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 Yorkers source said. What wasnt 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.
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/pam-bondi-justice-gifts-cigars-b2809895.html
Link to The New Yorker article - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/25/pam-bondi-profile

LetMyPeopleVote
(169,760 posts)BumRushDaShow
(160,105 posts)I know we had to take MANDATORY annual "Ethics Training" at my agency and were read the riot act during those sessions about something as mundane as not accepting anything valued more than a $25 (e.g., like a mug, that I think was used as an example, which is often something given to those attending/presenting at training conferences, regulated industry conventions, etc). We also could not accept "meals" (unless included in the registration or only if "everyone" is offered that, which left the conference session planners/providers only offering some coffee/tea/bottled water and pastries during the morning sessions and bottled sodas/water during the afternoon sessions).
NYC Liberal
(20,421 posts)Prairie Gates
(6,266 posts)These people are tacky and gross.
Also, what was going on in that suite? You know none of them were watching the actual match.
groundloop
(13,271 posts)
eppur_se_muova
(40,003 posts)republianmushroom
(21,371 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(104,693 posts)so no wonder a Trump acolyte admires him:
Conor McGregor has lost his civil jury appeal against a finding that he sexually assaulted a woman.
In November, McGregor was ordered to pay £206,000 in damages plus costs to Nikita Hand, who accused him of raping her in a hotel in Dublin in 2018.
...
At the beginning of the process, Ireland's Court of Appeal was told that McGregor had withdrawn an application to have new evidence entered at the appeal.
The proposed evidence was from a couple, Samantha O'Reilly and Steven Cummins, who are former neighbours of Nikita Hand.
A previous preliminary hearing was told that they claimed to have witnessed a row between Ms Hand and her former partner Stephen Redmond in December 2018.
The court heard McGregor believed the new evidence suggested that bruising on Nikita Hand's body could have been caused by her former partner.
In an affidavit, Ms Hand had described the allegations as untrue and lies.
The senior judges said it was "somewhat mysterious" that what they described as an "important and contentious" part of the appeal had been "cast aside".
They awarded Ms Hand costs in relation to this aspect of the case.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6n04xjj1qo
Gardaí have launched a criminal investigation into allegations of perjury against a couple who were to be star witnesses in Conor McGregors failed appeal of Nikita Hands successful civil rape case.
Samantha OReilly and Steven Cummins, from Ballyfermot, were to give new evidence at the mixed martial arts fighters appeal hearing last month but their evidence was dramatically withdrawn on the morning they were due to testify.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-launch-criminal-investigation-into-perjury-allegations-in-conor-mcgregor-rape-case/a1979056946.html
"Political hopeful"? Not in Ireland. They don't like rapists.
The chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Rachel Morrogh, said the meeting between McGregor and Trump was shocking since a jury had recently found that McGregor had committed rape. Human rights lawyer and former head of the Rape Crisis Centre, Noeline Blackwell, said "The other thing that occurred to me, though, was the enormous sense of entitlement that Mr McGregor seems to feel. I was thinking of Nikita Hand with judgment of her peers in the jury that Mr McGregor was civilly liable for the sexual assault on her, and just thinking that that's the reality for an awful lot of people who are victims of sexual abuse that even after a court judgment, even after hearing the level of hurt and harm that Nikita Hand suffered, that she and others like her have to, in some ways, put up with the reality that in the community sometimes the message just isn't getting through to those who are actually found by court of law to be liable along the way." Referring to Trump and McGregor, Ruth Coppinger TD said in Dáil Éireann, "two rapists met each other in the White House". During the meeting, Trump described McGregor as "inspiring" and "fantastic".[274][276][277][278][279]
In an April poll by the Sunday Independent, 7% of those polled said they would vote for McGregor in a presidential election, while 90% said they would not. 69% of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a TD or councillor if they nominated McGregor to run. 78% said Donald Trump disrespected Ireland by inviting McGregor to the White House.[280]
On August 4, 2025, McGregor launched an online petition, hoping to generate enough public support to pressure a change in the current electoral rules. His petition is aimed to circumvent the Irish constitution and allow for a direct popular vote on who can appear on the ballot. Under Ireland's constitution, a presidential candidate must be nominated by least 20 members of the Oireachtas, or by four local authorities.[281]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conor_McGregor#2025_Irish_presidential_run_and_White_House_visit
maxsolomon
(37,356 posts)They're so quaint now.