American Oversight Is Investigating Impeachment Adviser Pam Bondi’s Communications with State Department Official

Late last year, as the House was heading toward its historic vote to impeach President Donald Trump, the State Department quietly added a new name to its employee directory: Nilda Pedrosa. Pedrosa, now the department’s White House liaison, had previously served as the chief of staff to former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is now on the president’s impeachment defense team.

In early November, the White House added Bondi to its impeachment-related communications operation. Bondi was a familiar name in the Trump orbit — in 2013, while running for re-election as attorney general, Bondi accepted a $25,000 donation from Trump’s nonprofit foundation to her political action committee. The donation, which violated campaign-finance rules, came at a time when her office was considering whether to join a multi-state investigation into fraud by Trump University, which she ultimately decided not to participate in.

But while significant attention was given to Bondi’s hiring when it was reported on Nov. 6, little to nothing has been said about the hiring of her former aide as the State Department’s liaison with the White House. Pedrosa’s name was added to the department’s organizational directory between Nov. 21 and Dec. 19. 

To shed light on how the White House is coordinating its impeachment strategies with agencies like the State Department, American Oversight has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for communications between Pedrosa and Bondi, in both Bondi’s private capacity and in her capacity as a White House official.

Bondi, who presented on the Senate floor on Monday, most recently was a lobbyist for Ballard Partners, a fast-growing firm with extensive Trump administration connections — you can see our requests for records related to Ballard Partners’ influence here.