AG Nominee Bondi Clashes with Democratic Senators in Confirmation Hearing
By: Fred Lucas | January 15, 2025
Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/01/15/ag-nominee-bondi-clashes-with-democratic-senators-confirmation-hearing/
Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi vowed Wednesday that her focus, if confirmed, would be on restoring integrity to a politicized Justice Department and to “make America safe again,” as she fended off criticism from Democratic senators.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a confirmation hearing for Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general. While Republicans on the panel talked about the weaponization of the Justice Department that has occurred in recent years, Democrats warned that Trump might seek to prosecute opponents.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said that Bondi must be willing to say “no” to Trump if the president-to-be were to order her to target political opponents.
“You have to be able to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. You dodged that question. You have to be able to say the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who committed violence shouldn’t be pardoned,” Blumenthal said. “You have to be able to say that a nominee to be FBI director who says he has an enemies list … shouldn’t be FBI director.”
Bondi responded that she didn’t “have” to say anything.
“I need to clarify something that you said, that I have to sit up here and say these things,” Bondi told Blumenthal. “No, I don’t. I sit up here and speak the truth. I’m not going to sit up here and say anything that I need to say to get confirmed by this body. I don’t have to say anything. I will answer the questions to the best of my ability and honestly.”
She also challenged the characterization of several Democratic senators that Trump’s nominee to be FBI director, Kash Patel, had an “enemies list.”
During the hearing, Bondi told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., “There will never be an enemies list in the Department of Justice.”
Whitehouse asked whether Justice Department prosecutors—presumably referring to those who investigated Trump—will be prosecuted during the incoming Trump administration.
“Will everyone be held to an equal, fair system of justice? Absolutely. And no one is above the law,” Bondi said, adding, “You find the facts of the case, apply the law in good faith, and treat everyone fairly.”
Whitehouse responded, “It would not be appropriate for a prosecutor to start with a name and look for a crime. It’s a prosecutor’s job to look for a crime and start with a name. Would you agree?”
“Senator, I think that is the whole problem of the weaponization we have seen the last four years and what has happened to Donald Trump. They targeted Donald Trump. They went after him. Back in 2016, they targeted his campaign.”
In another exchange, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said, “I’m asking you, sitting here today, whether you are aware of any predicate to investigate Liz Cheney?”
Bondi replied, “Senator, no one has asked me to investigate Liz Cheney,” a Republican former member of Congress from Wyoming.
Schiff, who as a House member participated on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol uprising alongside Cheney, shot back, “But the president has called for it.”
“You are so worried about Liz Cheney, senator,” Bondi replied. “Do you know what we should worry about? The crime rate in California right now is through the roof. Your robberies are 87% higher than the national average. That’s what I want to be focused on, Senator, as attorney general.”
Despite some of the drama, toward the end of the hearing, Schiff’s fellow California Democrat, Sen. Alex Padilla, suggested it was clear that Bondi would be confirmed for the job by the full Senate.
“I know how to count and know how to read tea leaves,” Padilla said. “It seems to me you are very likely to be confirmed. … And I look forward to working with you.”
Bondi, the Florida state attorney general from 2011 to 2019, was Trump’s second choice for attorney general, after it became clear that then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., lacked support in the Senate. Before her election to state office, Bondi was a state prosecutor in Hillsborough County, Florida. Bondi has been an ally of Trump, and was on his legal team for the first Senate impeachment trial as a lawyer for the White House counsel.
Early in the hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, talked about “the rot infecting” the Justice Department, which he described as “catastrophic.” Grassley noted that current Attorney General Merrick Garland did not respond to the Iowa senator’s letters of oversight inquiry.
“In short, Ms. Bondi is highly qualified, and of course as we all know, a change is desperately needed,” Grassley said. “The Justice Department is infected with political decision making, while its leaders refuse to acknowledge that reality.”
Bondi told Grassley that transparency to Congress will be key to reforms. Unlike Garland, Bondi said she would respond to congressional oversight of the Justice Department, including Grassley’s letters.
“Senator, either I or my top staff will personally review the letters and do everything we can to respond to you,” the nominee said.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., raised the issue of attacks on religious freedom under the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice Department; specifically, an FBI field office seeking to investigate traditional Catholic churches.
“This memo that calls for repeatedly targeting Catholic parishes repeatedly refers to an expert source as a group called the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Hawley noted. “The Southern Poverty Law Center has a long history as an anti-religious group that has repeatedly gone after conservative and religious organizations calling them ‘hate groups,’ called ‘terrorist groups.’ … Will you put a stop to the use of the SPLC as an official source for any Department of Justice memorandum or finding?”
Bondi replied, “That will be one of the first things we look at, Senator, and report back to you and the committee.”
Also during the hearing, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., praised Bondi for the goal of restoring credibility to the Justice Department, but said the department shouldn’t launch its own lawfare.
“There will be those who say, ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right, but it does make it even,’” Kennedy said. “Resist that temptation. Help us restore legitimacy to the Department of Justice.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, similarly noted it’s ironic that Democrats on the committee seemed worried about a weaponized Justice Department.
“I don’t want a Republican Department of Justice. I don’t want a Democratic Department of Justice. I want a Department of Justice that enforces the damned law,” Cruz said.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., brough up the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act, law that the Justice Department regularly uses to prosecute pro-life protesters at abortion clinics.
“Will you commit to continuing to enforce the FACE Act to address violence and threats against those providing reproductive health care?” Klobuchar asked.
Bondi responded that the law also protects pregnancy centers that don’t focus on abortion.
“Senator, the FACE Act not only protects abortion clinics, but it protects pregnancy centers and people going for counseling,” Bondi said. “The law should be applied evenhandedly.”
Several Democrats noted that Bondi also worked for Trump during the post-2020 election litigation.
“Joe Biden is the president of the United States,” Bondi answered on several occasions.
In response to a question from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill, the committee’s ranking member, Bondi said: “Do I accept the results? Of course,” adding: “No one from either side of the aisle should want any issue with election integrity.”
Bondi added: “We should all want our elections to be free and fair.”
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., asked if she becomes attorney general, whose lawyer would she be?
“My oath would be to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. My client would be the people of America. I would advise the president,” Bondi replied.
Coons followed with an unusual question: “Is President Trump eligible to run for another term in 2028?”
Bondi replied, “No, Senator, not unless they change the Constitution.”
Coons followed by asking what would happen if Trump asked her not to investigate a criminal defendant, or to do something illegal.
“If I thought that would happen, I would not be sitting here today,” Bondi said. “Every case will be prosecuted, and the law will be applied in good faith. … Politics has played a role for years and years and years, and it has to stop.”
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