WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, senators questioned President-elect Donald Trump’s selection to head the Justice Department. They asked former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi if she would challenge a president who had ousted the two individuals he had previously named to the position of U.S. attorney general.
In a typical Republican answer, Bondi, who had first been involved in legal attempts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss, simply stated that Joe Biden is the president of the United States. Bondi declined to say if she thought the 2020 election was rigged.
Echoing Trump’s campaign rhetoric, Bondi also stated that she would “not politicize” the position of attorney general and that she would not “target people simply because of their political affiliation.” She also indicated that she would oppose the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
“While the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans,” Trump wrote when he introduced Bondi as his choice for attorney general. No more. Pam will bring the DOJ back to its original mission of combating crime and restoring America’s safety.
Throughout her Wednesday testimony, Bondi repeated the phrase “safe again” many times.
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Although she stated that she would advise Trump as part of her position, Bondi assured senators that she would not act improperly if questioned and that, if confirmed, the American people, not Trump, would be her client.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who served as Connecticut’s state attorney general prior to entering the Senate, expressed his deep concern about Bondi’s responses and lack thereof to the issues asked during the hearing, including if she believed she could refuse the president. Bondi disputed the notion that she was only saying what the Senate wanted to hear in order to confirm her.
According to Bondi, “I sit up here and speak the truth,” “I’m not going to say anything that I need to say to get confirmed by this body, I don’t have to say anything.”
As the first woman to hold the position, Bondi served as Florida’s top law enforcement official for eight years, focusing on topics such as combating drug abuse, opposing human trafficking, and opposing the Obama administration’s centerpiece health care plan.
Having been a member of Trump’s opioid and drug misuse task force and later joined the defense team during his first Senate impeachment trial, she has also been a longtime ally of the president. Additionally, Bondi made a false claim that Trump “won Pennsylvania” in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Bondi went on to serve as a lobbyist and on legal matters for a pro-Trump policy group.
Now, assuming the Senate confirms her, Trump has chosen her to hold one of the most prominent positions in the incoming administration.
After his first choice, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., withdrew from consideration after his candidacy was threatened by claims of sexual misconduct, including having sex with a juvenile (which Gaetz has denied), Bondi became Trump’s choice to head the Justice Department. Republicans have praised Bondi’s rise after weeks of turmoil surrounding Gaetz’s nomination, and there are no signs that she will have any trouble winning over GOP senators. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois has claimed in recent days that the Senate Judiciary Committee has not received a complete accounting of her work with foreign clients, setting the stage for Democrats to focus on her tenure at a well-known lobbying company.
However, early in the hearing, Democratic questioning focused on Bondi’s independence as the future head of the Justice Department. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general, publicly criticized Sessions for withdrawing from the probe into claims of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Furthermore, it is unclear if the Justice Department will act on Trump’s campaign rhetoric, in which he and his supporters have threatened that political rivals may or should be charged with crimes.
Trump stated he’s “not going to instruct her” whether to start an inquiry during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month.