Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Commits to Strengthening Coordination and Animal Welfare Crimes Enforcement Between Federal Agencies
Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced today a historic plan to combat animal welfare crimes and to strengthen coordination and enforcement efforts between federal agencies, including the Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service, and Homeland Security Investigations.
The plan consists of five parts: (1) A one-week Animal Welfare Summit at the Department’s National Advocacy Center to train federal prosecutors and federal agents from across the country in prosecuting animal welfare crimes; (2) the creation of a multi-agency Animal Welfare Executive Strategy Committee to develop and implement a National Strategy for Combatting Animal Welfare Crimes, to be chaired by Adam Gustafson, who leads the Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division; (3) the creation of a law enforcement “Tiger Team” to participate in and assist with the execution of search warrants and seizures in animal welfare cases; (4) the continued use of the Asset Forfeiture Fund to help pay for the evaluation, care, and feeding of animals seized in the course of animal welfare investigations; and (5) the offering of grants, through the Office of Justice Programs, to animal welfare groups, and state and local law enforcement agencies that are taking action to combat animal cruelty. The plan was announced through a memorandum to all Department of Justice employees.
“Animals are part of our families: we will always fight to protect the pets we love,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “I have fought against animal abuse my entire career and will never stop working to prosecute the sick individuals who prey upon innocent animals. Since taking office, this Department of Justice has already rescued nearly 300 dogs from horrific circumstances. Our work has only just begun, and this cabinet is committed to a whole of government approach to swiftly ending this horrific behavior.”
Attorney General Bondi also announced that the Department will partner with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to strengthen enforcement efforts under the Animal Welfare Act by using all available enforcement options to target the worst offenders and remove chronic violators from the industry. The Attorney General’s announcement was made in conjunction with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (USDA) Brooke L. Rollins.
Updated February 19, 2026
also!!
SF Gate
This week in “What The Hell Is Wrong With These People?” I give you U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Here’s Pam Bondi sitting before Congress to
defend the hire of a Jan. 6 rioter to her Department of Justice (her defense is that President Donald Trump had pardoned the man, so he couldn’t have done anything wrong, you see). Here’s Pam Bondi
refusing to answer a question from California Rep.
Sydney Kamlager-Dove and instead staring down at her papers, as if it might render her invisible to everyone else in the room. Here’s Pam Bondi complaining, “
This is so ridiculous,” when another Democratic congressmember asks her whether Trump and now-deceased child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein ever partied with “underage girls.”
This is a gross person, but you’re
used to me writing about gross people in this space. In the case of Pam Bondi, there’s an origin story to her grossness,
chronicled by Stephanie McCrummen of the Atlantic, that qualifies as “somewhat interesting” compared to the backstories of her fellow MAGA dorks. McCrummen found that Bondi was once a normal Floridian, or as normal as anyone from Florida can be. But while serving as a prosecutor in her home state, Bondi became a TV personality on the side and gradually transformed into a sociopath as a result. This is what usually happens to people who become TV personalities, with Donald Trump being the foremost example. But there’s an early anecdote within McCummen’s piece that suggests Bondi was always vulnerable to such monsterism. Here is that story:
“Another dog she helped was a Saint Bernard named Master Tank. She adopted him from a shelter after he was lost during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, not long after her own Saint Bernard had died. The story has been told but bears repeating. Master Tank belonged to Steve and Dorreen Couture and their grandson, who was 4, recovering from the murder-suicide of his parents and losing his dog during the storm. Bondi said the dog was a ‘walking skeleton’ and ‘dying from heartworms’ when she adopted him. The Coutures eventually tracked down Master Tank, but instead of giving him back, Bondi hired a lawyer, who accused the Coutures of abusing the dog, which Bondi had renamed Noah. ‘She lied,’ Dorreen
told a Palm Beach Post columnist years later. ‘My little grandson begged her to take the dog home, and she refused. She thought she would just wear us down. That we were unstable people and would just quit.’ The case was settled out of court, with Bondi securing visitation rights, but she never did visit. She got another dog.
