Jacob Ogles
Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi is promising an end to political prosecutions from the Justice Department.
“There will never be an enemies’ list within the Department of Justice,” Bondi said during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The frequently contentious hearing revolved largely around the topic of weaponization of the Justice Department, something Republicans allege happened frequently under President Joe Biden and often with President-elect Donald Trump as the target.
But Senate Democrats during the hearing voiced fears that political attacks from the agency may reach new heights in Trump’s second term based on the incoming President’s frequent threats to jail his political rivals.
U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat, pressed Bondi on whether she would consider charges against former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, Vice Chair of the Jan. 6 Committee, or against Special Counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor who brought two federal cases against Trump. The incoming President has publicly accused both of crimes.
“I am not going to answer hypotheticals,” Bondi said. “No one has been prejudged or not, nor will anyone be prejudged if I am confirmed.”
Hirono raised comments Bondi made on Fox News that bad actors will be prosecuted.
“You have an incoming President who said, ‘I have the absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,’” Hirono said. “And in fact, President-elect Trump considers the DOJ to be his law firm.”
Bondi for her part stressed through much of the hearing that she would not allow the Justice Department to be used to prosecute crimes against political enemies, as she said occurred under Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“That is the whole problem with the weaponization that we have seen the last four years and what’s been happening to Donald Trump,” Bondi said.
“They targeted Donald Trump. They went after him. Actually, starting back in 2016, they targeted his campaign. They have launched countless investigations against him. That will not be the case. If I am Attorney General. I will not politicize that office. I will not target people simply because of their political affiliation. Justice will be administered even-handedly throughout this country. … We’ve got to move forward, or we’re going to lose our country.”
But many times when Bondi declined to answer specific actions, she refused to speculate. Many Democrats said she needed to give more firm responses.
“Bluntly to me, refusing to answer a hypothetical when there is clear and concrete previous history raises some concerns for me,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat.
He advised that if Bondi truly wants the Justice Department to remain apolitical, she must be prepared to tell the President when he demands it take action at his whim.
On her record, multiple Democrats took issue with statements by Bondi supporting Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Several times, Democrats asked her specifically who won the 2020 election.
“Joe Biden is the President of the United States,” Bondi said.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said that response wasn’t strong enough. The same goes, he said, for her refusal to discuss if Trump should pardon those convicted of crimes stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riots that sought to stop certification of Biden’s victory.
“You have to be able to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. You dodged that question when you were asked directly,” he said. “You have to be able to say that Jan. 6 insurrectionists who committed violence shouldn’t be pardoned.”
But Republicans on the panel voiced strong support for Bondi, precisely because they believed she would reduce the politicization of prosecutions.
“Miss Bondi will take the helm at a very turbulent time for this country and for that department,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican. “The Justice Department is infected with political decision-making, while its leaders refuse to acknowledge that reality.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said if anything, Bondi’s challenge will be changing the culture at the Justice Department to once again make decisions independent of politics.
“Perhaps the most tragic legacy of the Biden-Harris administration has been the politicization and the weaponization of the United States Department of Justice,” he said.
Bondi stressed to Senators from both sides of the aisle that the agency will maintain independence.
“My oath would be to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America,” she said. “The people of America would be my client.”
An array of other issues came up at the confirmation hearing, from whether she would consider federal red flag laws to her willingness to enforce a TikTok ban. She also discussed working to enforce immigration laws and execute mass deportation policies promised by Trump.
She criticized the Biden administration for its handling of immigration issues.
“There is nothing humane happening at that border, and so many women and children are being trafficked coming into this country,” she said.
She did, however, refuse to adopt some of Trump’s more extreme language, including his assertion that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Asked if she agreed with that statement, she cited her own family history.
“My great grandparents came here, immigrated to this country from Sicily, recently went and found each of their birth certificates,” she said. “We are a nation made up of immigrants. Do I believe immigrants are poisoning our country? No.”
Earlier Wednesday
Bondi promised a return to prosecuting dangerous crimes if she becomes U.S. Attorney General as she spoke to Senators at her confirmation hearing.
“If confirmed, I will fight every day to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice and each of its components,” Bondi said. “The partisans in the organization will be gone. America will have one tier of justice for all.”
Bondi delivered opening remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee as Senators considered her nomination as Attorney General by Trump.
Before taking questions from Senators, she stressed that her background as a prosecutor in Florida was a formative experience.
“Nothing has impacted my career more than my experience as a state prosecutor, because I got to know and still keep in touch with many victims and their families from when I was a prosecutor,” Bondi said.
She also looked back Wednesday at eight years she spent as Florida Attorney General.
“I proudly served for two terms. I was term-limited. I would probably still be there right now, had I not been kicked out of office by term limits. I loved being Attorney General. I did my best to keep Florida safe.”
Specifically, Bondi cited work fighting the opioid crisis, including shutting down pill mills and stripping licenses from doctors distributing painkillers. She recalled a fight with many Republicans in government when she wanted fentanyl scheduled as a narcotic as many officials still saw the drug as something used primarily for medical purposes.
“At that time, people thought it was something you merely got in the hospital on a patch after surgery,” she said. “I will do everything I can to fight that with the agencies that fall under the Department of Justice.”
Bondi pointed to a record of working on a bipartisan basis with other state Attorneys General on class action cases. She also fought price gouging and worked on hurricane relief.
Bondi on Wednesday made a strong pitch for criminal justice reform, noting she supported the First Step Act during Trump’s first administration.
“We have to fix the Bureau of Prisons, and I am looking on both sides of the aisle,” Bondi said. “The Bureau has suffered from years of mismanagement, lack of funding and low morale.”
18 comments
Victoria A Olson
January 15, 2025 at 12:18 pm
She will put Millionaires & Billionaires ABOVE the Law. When she was attorney general of Fl. she was the ONLY state that did not prosecute Trump for scamming Trump University student. In 2013, the Trump Foundation made an illegal donation to a political group supporting Bondi’s attorney general reelection campaign in Florida. At the time, Bondi was considering whether to investigate Trump University for alleged fraud.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is denying that a $25,000 donation from Donald Trump is in any way connected to her office’s decision not to pursue action against Trump University, despite dozens of complaints in Florida, her spokesman said.
The donation came from one of Trump’s charities six days after Bondi’s then-spokeswoman told a reporter their office was “currently reviewing the allegations” against Trump University in a class action lawsuit in New York, according to internal emails that were among more than 8,000 pages of documents originally requested by The Orlando Sentinel and also obtained by CNN.
Florida never pursued any investigation or action against Trump or his university.
“While there was never an investigation, staff, doing due diligence, reviewed the complaints and the New York litigation and made the proper determination that the New York litigation would provide relief to aggrieved consumers nationwide,” Bondi spokesman Whitney Ray told CNN. In a follow-up statement Bondi said her office has “made public every document on this issue, which shows no one in my office ever opened an investigation on Trump University nor was there a basis for doing so. Any news story that suggests otherwise is completely false.” Don’t make me laugh Bondi Liar, Liar.
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January 15, 2025 at 2:59 pm
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It's Complicated
January 15, 2025 at 4:59 pm
The Merrick Garland USDOJ is as weaponized as it’s ever been. Started in earnest when Eric Holder was AG, and ramped up under AG Loretta Lynch. I heard Holder give a speech about the strategy to fill the career service ranks of the USDOJ with leftist attorneys, and brag about how it would be ‘nearly impossible’ to reverse it by future AGs. Subsequent GOP AGs, Sessions and Barr, failed miserably to recognize the infection and took little initiative to the make necessary personnel changes. Hard to imagine it “reaching new heights” – that’s leftist hyperbole. Purging ‘lawfare attorneys’ from the ranks of the USDOJ is NOT weaponizing. Bondi will make the necessary changes.
Yuvana Trump
January 15, 2025 at 10:28 pm
The connection between your brain and reality is complicated.
MH/Duuuval
January 16, 2025 at 3:21 pm
What is complicating things is you playing fast and loose with facts: “I heard Holder give a speech about the strategy to fill the career service ranks of the USDOJ with leftist attorneys, and brag about how it would be ‘nearly impossible’ to reverse it by future AGs.”
Really, you heard that? Where? (In some MAGA silo is my guess.)
TJC
January 18, 2025 at 1:04 pm
Nothing you said here is complicated, it’s just bullshit.
ScienceBLVR
January 15, 2025 at 8:48 pm
Shooting or stealing dogs should not a cabinet member make…
Just say No
To Bondi and Noem
Yuvana Trump
January 15, 2025 at 10:25 pm
Classic Trump lady appointee: bottle blonde, prettyish but less so on closer inspection, sordid marital past, absolute sycophant, total b*tch under questioning. Will get zero buy/in from any actual DOJ lawyers with a backbone. Weird pick, way less concerned about this crazy Karen than the others that actually impact national security.
MH/Duuuval
January 16, 2025 at 3:26 pm
One major problem is Kash Patel and Blondi may be working closely together. Old-timers will remember how J. Edgar Hoover dominated federal law enforcement for 50 years. And both Patel and Blondi have promised retribution for the “ordeal” of DJT.
LexT
January 16, 2025 at 8:01 am
We should be going after some of these attorneys’ bar licenses. Trump has been terribly persecuted, but I don’t think he’s the only Republican who has been unfairly persecuted. We need to do something to punish the lawfare or it will return. Game theory says if you don’t punish bad behavior, you’ll only get more of that bad behavior.
MH/Duuuval
January 16, 2025 at 3:27 pm
No empathy for Hunter Biden, then?
TJC
January 18, 2025 at 1:03 pm
Bullshit.
Tjb
January 16, 2025 at 11:31 am
She is a liar, just like the trump Supreme Court appointments….we will not overturn Roe vs Wade.
Cindy
January 16, 2025 at 6:30 pm
The latest news:musk and others have the right to trott themselves
While fires rage in las Angeles Donald and weirdo wingman musk plus others disreputable characters@extended universe are doing things to make life worse..
The cherry on the sundae.Alec Jones. The unhinged nutball ,, posted on x these fires were
caused by the globelist as part of a plot .
This gibberish should prompt the people in the white coats to catch them in a net …Take them away.
Earl Pitts American
January 16, 2025 at 7:39 pm
Just a quick obversation Leftist Americans,
Like Hamas rushing to free hostages after Trump was elected I, Earl Pitts American, have noticed with Leftys that I, Earl Pitts American, have had a dramatic drop in CHASTIZEMENTS issued to you Lefties.
Those two facts are related so THANK YOU LEFTIES,
Earl Pitts American
Cindy
January 16, 2025 at 7:54 pm
One has to ask it is a target list.or a get you back list..either way fraud is fraudulent. But if that’s what America wants or that’s all they can get.. don’t loose your gift horses.. anyways
Latest news conspiracy Alex is back with the globelist setting houses a blaze in las Angeles.
( Tell me is he room for the baker act)
SuzyQ
January 17, 2025 at 5:48 am
Could it be the end of lawfare, i.e., the Democrats’ weaponization of the government against conservatives and other American patriots? Where will authoritarian Democrats go? Havana? Beijing? Mexico City?
TJC
January 19, 2025 at 1:35 pm
Bullshit.
Comments are closed.