Government

AITA: I Fought Hurricane Katrina Victims For Their Dog For 16 Months, Signed Trump AG Pick

Pam & the Pooch.

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Pam Bondi

Florida AG Pam Bondi (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty)

With Matt Gaetz exiting the stage to spend more time contributing to college funds of 17-year-old girls one publicly accessible Venmo transaction at a time, Donald Trump checked between the cushions of his clown car for a new nominee. He’s now lost an AG nominee to serious sex abuse allegations, and he’s already used the wrestling magnate (subject to serious sex abuse allegations) and the Fox News personality (subject to serious sex abuse allegations)… where could he go next?

Maybe someone who engaged in a drawn out litigation to steal a dog away from Hurricane Katrina victims?

Wait a minute, which side was taking the dogs and taking the cats, again? Hey, at least she was trying to keep the dog and not kill it like some of Trump’s cabinet picks.

Anyway, the answer to Trump’s problem turned out to be former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. It’s a blow to the most militant corners of MAGA hoping to elevate someone like Texas Attorney General and plea deal subject Ken Paxton or former Senate aide and advocate of “arming up” against the “Black underclass” Mike Davis who have shown an interest in weaponizing the Justice Department.

Instead, Trump went with the “I’ve seen her be blonde on TV” pick. It’s quite possible that America will be spared the worst excesses of an out-of-control Justice Department solely because all the other possible candidates are bridge trolls that can’t drive ratings.

Bondi also continues the trend of Trump staffing the DOJ leadership with his personal lawyers, suggesting that deep down he’s less interested in using federal law enforcement to pursue Project 2025 wars than in building a tax-funded law firm to handle his personal legal troubles. Bondi represented Trump in his first impeachment and did a bang up job… and by “bang up” we mean “carelessly careening into the wall.”

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CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig says Bondi is “without a question, qualified to be Attorney General.” While Honig has been doing his level best to become CNN’s answer to Jonathan Turley, he’s superficially correct to the extent she’s actually done this job at the state level, placing her streets ahead of Gaetz. She’s also a registered agent of the Qatari government, which doesn’t seem to factor into CNN’s analysis. Probably not a big deal… they don’t have any history of harboring terrorist organization leaders or anything. But “qualified” should involve a deeper inquiry than spot checking line items on a resume. Someone’s legal judgment should probably factor in as well.

Which brings us to Doggiegate. Before working her way to be Florida’s top cop, Pam Bondi engaged in a legal fight over a St. Bernard that she adopted in the aftermath of Katrina. The problem is that the dog belonged to a family that was struggling to get back on their feet after the deadly storm. From the Tampa Bay Times:

Bondi made her way to Clearwater’s Pinellas Humane Society and left with the St. Bernard from New Orleans. She fostered him for 3o days and then adopted him in October.

But at around the same time, the Coutures say, they tracked their dogs to Pinellas County. Bondi had adopted Master Tank, the St. Bernard, and a family in Dunedin had Nila, a shepherd mix.

The Coutures want their dogs back. But getting them has not been easy.

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Animals are overlooked victims of natural disasters and can be left abandoned when their owners are killed or forced into long-term hospital stays by the event. But after Hurricane Katrina, adopting dogs from New Orleans should be handled with more than the usual degree of caution. Especially when the dogs have crossed state lines in the process.

The Couture family — a couple and their two grandchildren — wanted its beloved pet back. Bondi wanted to keep the dog she’d had for a month. You can see how this was a close call that required litigation.

SIXTEEN MONTHS OF LITIGATION.

From another Times article:

Both sides settled the case just before it went to trial. The terms were confidential, but reports at the time said Bondi offered to provide the St. Bernard with food and medication for life and to visit occasionally. The Coutures said they would keep in touch and send photos.

Frankly, after 16 months this is a pretty generous resolution. Dog food and medication for life can get pricey but not like a lawyer billing by the hour.

So that pretty much wraps it up, huh? Oh, my sweet summer child, no it does not.

It seemed like an amicable ending. But three years later, the Coutures have little good to say about their former foe. Moreover, they say, she never kept her promise.

“She was going to take care of him for the rest of his life and supply him with food and medicine,” Dorreen Couture said recently from her rebuilt home in New Orleans. “She did for the first few months. After that, she was supposed to have her first visitation that September and she canceled.”

So Bondi fought hurricane victims for 16 months, settled with them, then skipped out on the settlement? Shouldn’t “honoring the terms of a negotiated litigation settlement” fit into the sort of generalized “respect for the rule of law” that makes an AG — I dunno — qualified?

Or maybe it’s the rule of… paw? Ugh. Sorry.

“I feel for the state of Florida if they elect her,” Dorreen Couture said. “She has no compassion at all.”

It’s the United States now.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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