Attorney General Pam Bondi has reportedly relocated from her Washington, D.C., apartment to housing on a nearby military base.
The move was prompted by an increase in threats issued by drug cartels and critics of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The threats were flagged to her staff by federal law enforcement, according to the Times, with one senior official with direct knowledge of the situation explicitly citing an increase in threats aimed at Bondi following the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January.
The move makes Bondi the latest in a growing line of senior Trump officials to move into military housing. The Times notes that while other government officials have occasionally lived on military bases—including former Trump Cabinet members Jim Mattis and Mike Pompeo—former officials and historians are concerned that the second Trump administration appears to be the first to “take such widespread advantage of taxpayer-funded military housing to accommodate political appointees who do not have a direct connection to the military.”
Recently-ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was moved into a home on a military base that belonged to the Coast Guard commandant in August, rent-free, citing fears for her safety, with DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin telling the Washington Post that Noem’s decision to move came after the Daily Mail published photos outside her home.
At the time, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin accused Noem of “living rent-free in the official waterfront residence reserved for the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.”
During her hearing on Capitol Hill earlier this month, however, Noem sought to clarify that she was paying her way, and that she was not in the commandant’s house.
“Let me clarify a couple things,” she told the House Judiciary Committee. “I’m not in the commandant’s house. I’m in a Coast Guard house, but not the commandant’s house. The commandant is in his house.”
“I rent that facility. I rent where I stay and pay personal dollars to do that,” she added. Her recent demotion most likely means she will be required to vacate the housing.
A spokesperson for Bondi did not comment on the financial matters to the Times. The Daily Beast has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
In quick succession in October, top Trump aide Stephen Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth both moved into taxpayer-subsidized military homes.
Miller moved into military housing shortly after his wife, podcaster Katie Miller, was confronted by a woman at their Arlington home.
“To the person who tried to threaten me at my home this morning: We will not back down. We will not be afraid. We will not run scared,” Katie Miller wrote on X at the time. The Millers moved onto the base and listed their home for sale shortly after.
Around the same time, Hegseth moved into a home typically occupied by the Army’s chief of staff at Fort McNair in D.C. after a general promoted to the vice chief position opted to remain on a different base.
A Defense Department official told the New York Times that Hegseth was paying $4,655.70 a month to live in the home, located a few short miles from the Pentagon.
An October report from The Atlantic found that other Trump officials had also moved onto military bases, including State Secretary Marco Rubio, who had joined Hegseth on ‘Generals’ Row’ at Fort McNair.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll shares a home on Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall with another senior political appointee to the Army, and Navy Secretary John Phelan moved onto a base after his home was damaged in a fire last May.
The sheer number of senior Trump officials moving onto military bases prompted questions, including from then-congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“I’m one of those people they call a conspiracy theorist,” Greene said during a November appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher. “When I hear things like that, I’m like, what do they know that I don’t know?”
