Scientology sitting pretty as Trump names Pam Bondi his pick for Attorney General

[Donald Trump and Florida’s former AG, Pam Bondi]

After once and future President Donald Trump named Matt Gaetz, a loyalist, to be his pick for Attorney General in his incoming administration, former top Scientology executive Mike Rinder last week announced at his blog that Scientology would have nothing to worry about from the Department of Justice for the next four years.

Since he left Scientology in 2007 and then later teamed up with former Scientology celebrity Leah Remini for their multiple Emmy-winning A&E series Scientology and the Aftermath, Rinder has been working behind the scenes, trying to get national interest from political figures to launch investigations of Scientology and its abuses.

But now, he says, because of Trump’s close ties to OT 8 Scientologist donors like Grant Cardone and Trish Duggan, that effort will be pointless.

[Trump] will dictate any actions of the Department of Justice — his Attorney General will be a lackey no matter who it is. If he tells them to jump, they will jump — or be replaced with someone who will jump…[Scientology leader David] Miscavige is no doubt dancing in the halls. I’m certain he will be planning to try to utilize this for positive gain beyond just protection from the DOJ.

Although the Gaetz nomination ran into a roadblock because of brewing scandal, Trump’s new pick, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, only makes Rinder’s prediction even more likely.

The readers who were messaging us last night about the announcement certainly remember what we’ve written about Bondi in the past at the Underground Bunker.

Bondi’s ties with Scientology are so tight, she’s one of the very few politicians who have made multiple personal appearances at its most holy site, the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, to tell Scientologists that she, like them, cares about human rights.

Here she is in October 2016, for example, giving a speech about human rights at the Fort Harrison, and then hanging out with big donors like OT Scientologist Jim Mathers.

This was Jim’s gushing description of that event:

Pam Bondi, Florida State Attorney General, is an amazing and productive individual! Sunday’s event at the Fort Harrison was very well attended and I am so impressed with Pam’s accomplishments in helping eradicate problems with the Drug Problem Awareness and curtailment as well as the incredible work she has done with Human Rights, specifically Human Trafficking! Thank you Pam Bondi!

Bondi had made headlines two years earlier when it was revealed that in 2013 she solicited a $25,000 campaign donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation and then decided not to bring fraud charges against Trump University in her state. Trump subsequently paid a $2,500 penalty to the IRS and admitted that the donation to Bondi’s campaign from a charitable foundation was improper.

She then got on our radar that summer, 2014, when she attended a campaign fundraiser held at the home of a couple of wealthy Clearwater Scientologists, Michael and Liz Baybak, and we began hearing that she had made multiple appearances at the Fort Harrison itself, touting her record on fighting for human rights.

Scientology loves to promote “human rights” in order to distract from its own record of child labor and forced abortions, and it was stunning that Florida’s AG would speak at Scientology’s most important site while, for example, it was a defendant in a forced-abortion lawsuit going on in Los Angeles at that time. (Scientology settled that lawsuit, brought by former Sea Org worker Laura DeCrescenzo, just days before it was scheduled to go trial in 2018.)

If Bondi was able to look the other way and promote her agenda at the Fort Harrison back then, she’ll likely have zero interest in having the DOJ investigate Scientology’s abuses when she’s Attorney General of the entire country.

There’s simply no doubt that Trump’s second administration is shaping up to be the friendliest White House that David Miscavige has experienced since Bill Clinton signed off on Scientology’s tax-exempt status in 1993 and then had his State Department chide Germany a few years later.

“Scientology has finally achieved ‘safepointing’ the US government,” Rinder wrote at his blog. “It has been a dream for decades and the closest they have ever come in the past is getting John Travolta and Tom Cruise to canvass the State Dept to condemn Germany for ‘discriminating’ against Scientology in their country.”

Miscavige must be beside himself.

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