Cnn
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The Attorney General Pam Bondi, during some of his first work measures, moves the priorities of national security from the Ministry of Justice far from the initiatives which were a source of irritation for President Donald Trump and his allies.
Bondi limits the criminal application of a law of registration of foreign agents which was used to investigate or prosecute the donors and allies of Trump and dissolve a working group on the interference of the foreign elections which identified the Foreign interference in the American elections, including in favor of Trump.
Bondi signed a flood of directives within hours of office on Wednesday – by reappearing priorities at the Ministry of Justice and helping to carry out a wider push of the Trump administration to direct more resources to the application of immigration.
The Bondi service notes on national security priorities have qualified effort measures “to release resources to combat more urgent priorities and to end a risk of armament and abuse of discretionary power of prosecution ”.
The law on the registration of foreign agents is a law old decades that has trapped Trump partners in recent years, Paul Manafort, the president of the Trump campaign in 2016, and General Mike Flynn, the first National Security Advisor to Trump’s first mandate to Russian agents who allegedly funded pro-Trump media figures in the recent presidential election.
The working group on the influence of foreigners is an outgrowth of the FBI’s response and the American intelligence agencies to the 2016 electoral interference by Russia, which worked to increase the first electoral victory of Trump.
Trump has long since described any suggestion that the interference of the Russian elections helped him win the White House and, in the last campaign, sought to appropriate the term “interference of the elections” to refer to the criminal proceedings to which he is confronted by federal and state prosecutors for its efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 elections.
The practical effect of some of the leap changes is less certain. US officials of law enforcement say that even if the working group is dissolved, investigators will still pursue cases involving illegal attempts by foreigners to influence the US elections.
The Bondi order on Fara’s application could have a more significant impact, according to current and old American officials, because it limits the criminal application of the law “to an alleged conduct similar to a more traditional espionage of actors of the actors of foreign government ”.
The new changes, combined with a separate memo last week from Emil Bove, the assistant prosecutor general general, leading the joint working groups of joint terrorism led by the FBI to focus more on immigration issues, raised Concerns that foreign opponents and terrorist groups could benefit from the reduction in the attention of the Ministry of Justice on national security efforts, according to current and former officials.
“This makes us less safe and makes us more likely to have an international incident on terrorism or a large sabotage attack on the nation state,” said a former senior national security official.
We do not know if, after the Bondi directive, the law could be used as it was to continue the former senator Bob Mendendez, who was sentenced last July for having participated in a program of influence of corruption and foreign . The New Jersey Democrat was found guilty of not having registered as a foreign agent for Egypt and sentenced last month to 11 years in prison.
The Bondi order leads the counter-espionage and export control section of the Ministry of Justice, which includes the Fara unit, to focus on civil application and regulatory initiatives.
Bondi herself previously registered with the Ministry of Justice under Fara for the work she did with the government of Qatar in the Ballard Partners lobbying society.
In her Fara recording in 2020, Bondi said that she “would provide support concerning Qataric relations with US government representatives, US commercial entities and the non -governmental public in the treatment of questions concerning the fight against trafficking in human beings ”.
Certainly, some of the Bondi directives are welcomed in national security circles.
A separate memo establishing a working group focused on the October 7, 2023 attack in Israel, which will seek to continue Hamas and other terrorist groups which were behind the deadly attack.
Some national security prosecutors of the Ministry of Justice in recent months have requested more resources to pursue cases involving people who have helped Hamas’ attack on Israel and other related crimes, according to a former official of national security. The new working group could help amplify these efforts, said the manager.
The memo of the October 7 working group, however, includes an order to investigate and continue “the federal crimes committed by supporters of Hamas in the United States, including on university campuses”. This could encounter first possible amendment problems concerning protests on American campuses.
