Pam Bondi has argued with ethics staff so she can keep a FIFA soccer ball and cigars from Conor McGregor: report [View all]

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 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.

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/pam-bondi-justice-gifts-cigars-b2809895.html