Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the way President-elect Doanld Trump’s Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, if she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, handles the Department of Justice’s legal fight to keep the Corporate Transparency Act in place will be one of the first “early tests” for Bondi in the role.
Under the Corporate Transparency Act, small businesses that gross less than $5 million in sales must fill out and file beneficial ownership information reports with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or face hefty fines and jail time.
While the deadline for small businesses to file the beneficial ownership information reports was originally January 1, 2025, a legal challenge to the law, Texas Top Cop Shop Inc v. Garland, playing out in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has since halted it from taking effect pending a forthcoming ruling by the court.
Noting how she is likely to be confirmed by the end of January as Attorney General, Pappert said the way Bondi approaches the Department of Justice’s defense of the Corporate Transparency Act will be a “test” to see if Bondi will take on the role as an “institutionalist” or be a defender of the “America First” agenda.
“I think that [the Department of Justice withdrawing from the case] would be the intelligent thing to do. I think that would be the correct thing to do,” Pappert explained on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“I think Pam Bondi will probably do that but this is going to be an early test – just like releasing the Covenant Killer Manifesto and so many other things – to find out if Pam Bondi is an institutionalist who is going to preserve the documents that say the government gets to know who owns your business or if she is going to side with President Trump and America First,” Pappert added.
Considering oral arguments in the case are scheduled for March 25 and the expectation that the Court’s preliminary injunction preventing the law from going into effect will remain in place through at least that date, Pappert said he expects there to be “quick movement” in the case which will set up a “very early and interesting test for Pam Bondi.”
“It really comes down to if the Department of Justice something that operates out of the executive branch…Is the DOJ an executive part of government or does it exist, does the Attorney General exist, just to be a rubber stamp to protect what Congress does,” Pappert said.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
