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Pledging Independence, Bondi Spars With Democrats but Echoes Trump [1]
['Glenn Thrush', 'Devlin Barrett', 'Adam Goldman', 'Eileen Sullivan', 'Kate Kelly']
Date: 2025-01-15
Pinned
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for attorney general, occasionally clashed with Democrats during a confirmation hearing. She dodged questions about election denialism, the potential prosecution of Mr. Trump’s political enemies and his overall influence on the department’s actions.
“It will be my job, if confirmed as attorney general, to make those decisions. Politics will not play a part. I’ve demonstrated that my entire career as a prosecutor.” “You joined Mr. Trump in working to overturn the 2020 election. You’ve repeatedly described investigations and prosecutions of Mr. Trump as witch hunts, and you have echoed his calls for investigating and prosecuting his political opponents. This flies in the face of evidence. These are the kinds of anti-democratic efforts that in the past you have defended. And it’s critical that we understand whether you remain supportive of Mr. Trump’s actions.” “What would you do if your career, D.O.J. prosecutors, came to you with a case to prosecute — grounded in the facts and law — but the White House directs you to drop the case?” “Senator, if I thought that would happen, I would not be sitting here today.” “But let’s imagine that once again President-elect Trump issues a directive or order to you or to the F.B.I. director that is outside the boundaries of ethics or law. What will you do?” “Senator, I will never speak on a hypothetical, especially one saying that the president would do something illegal.” “Weaponization of the Justice Department may well occur under your tenure, and we want to make sure that that’s not the case, that you remain independent, that you remain able to and willing to tell the president no when that’s necessary to protect the Constitution and the integrity of the Department.” “I think that is the whole problem with the weaponization that we have seen the last four years and what’s been happening to Donald Trump. 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.” “Who won the 2020 presidential election?” “Joe Biden is the president of the United States.” “Ms. Bondi did you know that there is a difference between acknowledging it? And I can say that Donald Trump won the 2024 election. I may not like it, but I can say it.” “As the Florida attorney general, Ms. Bondi achieved numerous successes. She engaged in key initiatives to fight human trafficking, countered the opioid epidemic and protect consumers and protect the citizens of Florida from violence.” “Will you do everything within your power as attorney general to enforce the laws on the books, including the president’s executive orders, and help do everything you can in the Department of Justice to restore security to our southern border?” “Yes, senator. Absolutely.”
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for attorney general, refused to explicitly say that she would defy Mr. Trump’s pressure during a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, but she offered a blanket promise that “politics will not play a part” in deciding who to investigate.
Both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee predicted that Ms. Bondi, a former attorney general of Florida, would be easily confirmed. Both sides expressed relief that Mr. Trump’s first pick, former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, had stepped aside to give way to Ms. Bondi, who has prosecutorial experience and a more balanced temperament.
But the daylong hearing had its contentious moments as Democrats repeatedly accused her of dodging basic yes-or-no questions about election denialism, the potential prosecution of Mr. Trump’s political enemies — and how she would deal with attempts by Mr. Trump to influence the department’s actions.
“Politics has to be taken out of this system,” said Ms. Bondi, who repeatedly circled back to her argument that the Justice Department had been misused and misdirected under the Biden administration. “This department has been weaponized for years and years and years, and it has to stop.”
Ms. Bondi, 59, sought to project the image of a tough, independent, crime-fighting prosecutor, and she repeatedly expressed loyalty to Mr. Trump and her belief that he had been the victim of politically motivated prosecutions by the Biden administration.
She did not endorse Mr. Trump’s contention that the special counsel who brought two criminal cases against him, Jack Smith, should be thrown out of the country, but said what she had “heard on the news” about his conduct was “horrible.”
When asked if she would investigate Mr. Smith, or anyone else, at Mr. Trump’s behest, she added that she would exercise independent judgment, in accordance with the law.
Image Republicans engaged in friendly questioning and repeatedly expressed their support for Ms. Bondi. Credit... Kenny Holston/The New York Times Image Democrats pressed Ms. Bondi again and again about her independence from the man who picked her for attorney general. Credit... Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Perhaps buoyed by the likelihood of her confirmation, Ms. Bondi was fairly expansive in sharing her thinking on several contentious topics that she would confront in office.
She suggested that whatever pardons Mr. Trump would consider for people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol would be limited to those who did not violently attack law enforcement officials.
“I’m not going to speak for the president, but the president does not like people who abuse police officers either,” she said.
Her answer was not a prediction or a promise, but it touched on one of the big questions about Mr. Trump’s intentions once he is sworn in: Who, exactly, among those charged or convicted of Jan. 6, 2021, crimes, will get a pardon?
At times, the session, which lasted over five hours, seemed to be a prelude to the as-yet unscheduled confirmation hearings for Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s pick to run the F.B.I., which is part of the Justice Department. Ms. Bondi parried attempts to tie her to Mr. Patel, who has promoted an enemies list of people who he might investigate, and who is regarded as an ally by some members of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory movement QAnon.
Asked about Mr. Patel’s position on the group, she replied, “I look forward to hearing his testimony about QAnon in front of this committee.”
Ms. Bondi also brushed aside suggestions that she supported investigating news reporters as Mr. Patel has suggested he would do.
“Going after the media just because they are the media is wrong, of course,” she said.
Ms. Bondi claimed to have never heard about Mr. Patel’s enemies list, despite its centrality to his nomination. It was one of several instances in which she used that tactic to sidestep discussing widely circulated remarks — including Mr. Trump’s infamous call with Georgia election officials about finding more votes after the 2020 election.
Ms. Bondi leaned heavily on her experience as a Florida prosecutor to explain how she would run the Justice Department. She repeatedly declared that the department had lost its way and needed a major course correction.
Image Senator Alex Padilla of California demanded yes-or-no answers to questions about claims that Ms. Bondi had made about the 2020 election. She didn’t provide one-word answers. Credit... Kenny Holston/The New York Times
She tangled several times with Democrats on the committee — particularly with both California’s senators, Alex Padilla and Adam B. Schiff — and at times seemed to revert to her onetime role as a Trump campaign surrogate, lashing out preemptively at her Democratic interrogators.
Mr. Schiff asked her if she saw any factual basis to investigate members of the congressional committee that examined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Ms. Bondi refused to answer, calling the question hypothetical, and when pressed to reply she shot back that he should be more worried about crime rates in California.
Mr. Padilla demanded yes-or-no answers to questions about claims she had made about the 2020 election. Ms. Bondi would not provide one-word answers, instead offering longer responses that Mr. Padilla cut off, prompting her to accuse him of trying to bully her. “I guess you don’t want to hear my answer,” she said.
Ms. Bondi, who represented Mr. Trump during one of his impeachment cases, faced deep skepticism from Democrats about whether she would be able to stand up to any efforts by Mr. Trump to prosecute his political opponents. Republicans on the committee cast Ms. Bondi as a qualified pick who would prioritize border security — one of Mr. Trump’s favored issues — and end political interference in the Justice Department, which they repeatedly asserted was a tool of President Biden’s.
When Democrats asked Ms. Bondi about the possibility that Mr. Trump would try to weaponize the department or drop a case that the White House objected to, she disagreed with the premise. Ms. Bondi told the committee that she would not have accepted the nomination if she thought that could happen.
But it has occurred before under Mr. Trump: During his first administration, he suggested to James B. Comey, then the F.B.I. director, that he drop an investigation of his national security adviser. Mr. Comey did not intervene in the case and was later fired.
She also refused to back down from her past vow in a television interview that “the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones.” Pressed about that statement, Ms. Bondi replied, “none of us are above the law.”
Ms. Bondi also faced questions about her role as a lobbyist from when she joined the firm Ballard Partners, which has close ties to Mr. Trump, in 2019. She registered as a lobbyist for Qatar and represented major corporations, including Amazon, Uber and General Motors, according to records.
Ms. Bondi, who was a Democrat until 2000, emerged from a crowded Republican primary to win the Florida attorney general’s race in 2010. During her eight-year tenure, Ms. Bondi tried unsuccessfully to overturn and weaken the Affordable Care Act, opposed expanding legal protections for the L.G.B.T.Q. community and cultivated a national reputation by supporting anti-human-trafficking efforts.
As the sniping died down, Mr. Schiff — her most aggressive questioner — offered her a soft-spoken warning about the challenges she will face.
“Our concern comes when that loyalty to the president conflicts with your duty,” Mr. Schiff said, insisting such a moment would arise because it happened to her predecessors. “It came to everyone, it will come to you, and what you do in that moment will define your attorney generalship.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/15/us/bondi-confirmation-attorney-general
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