Pam Bondi blasted by Democrats for enabling Trump targeting of rivals at contentious hearing

U.S. Attorney superior general Pam Bondi  intermeshed in combative exchanges with Democrats at a Senate audience in booker taliaferro washington, D.C., on tues, as she defended herself from accusations the Justice Department was being weaponized to serve President Donald Trump and target his political rivals. 

Bondi was making the first appearance at the Senate's judiciary committee since her confirmation. She said the Justice Department was "returning to our core mission of fighting real crime," praising local authorities who have co-operated with the administration's efforts to send National Guard troops into Washington, D.C., and Memphis.

But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee, set the tone early by criticizing Bondi for firing career prosecutors and agents who worked on investigations condemned by Trump and scaling back the department's efforts to combat corruption and white-collar crime. Several officials in the Justice Department and FBI have sued the administration over what they say were unlawful dismissals.

"In eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain on American history," Durbin said. "It will take decades to recover."

Pam Bondi accused of politicizing Justice Department for Trump

Durbin's colleagues accused Bondi of evasiveness.

Bondi told Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and other Democrats she wouldn't reveal whether she had discussed prosecuting James Comey with the president. Comey, the former FBI director who oversaw the opening of an investigation between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russian contacts, is set to appear in court Wednesday to face charges of making false statements and obstruction of Congress.

The indictment of Comey in Virginia followed reports that the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, a Republican, resigned before those charges were filed.

Klobuchar asked Bondi about a Trump social media post on Sept. 20, in which Trump beseeched the attorney general to investigate three persons that Trump sees as political enemies, including Comey. It's not clear if Trump intended for the post to be public or meant it to be a private message.

"I don't think [Trump] said anything he hasn't said for years," Bondi responded.

Bondi and a number of Senate Republicans on the panel evoked what they said was the politicization of the Justice Department during Joe Biden's administration. While those four years did involve two federal prosecutions of Trump, who was a private citizen at the time, the Justice Department also investigated Democrats for corruption, including veteran Sen. Bob Menendez, who is now in prison. 

Why is the U.S. Attacking boats near Venezuela?

During this administration, it was announced last month that Trump's deportations czar, Tom Homan, would not face prosecution in connection with a reported sting operation last year. 

Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse asked Bondi what became of the $50,000 US that was part of that probe, and whether Homan had declared the money in his tax return. Homan has not definitively stated he didn't take the cash, though he has declared he did nothing illegal.

Bondi did not answer Whitehouse's questions, pointing to a previous statement by FBI Director Kash Patel. 

Patel said at the time that the probe "originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing."

When Whitehouse pressed Bondi on his specific questions, the attorney general responded with unspecified allegations regarding the senator's wife and political donations the senator had received from Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman, known to have been friends at one time with Jeffrey Epstein.

The comments, which Whitehouse dismissed as "far-right internet talking points," illustrated Bondi departing from the more circumspect testimony seen by officials like former attorney general Merrick Garland and ex-FBI director Christopher Wray. 

At other points, Bondi blamed Democrats for the current government shutdown and assailed both federal and state Democrats for not co-operating with the administration's attempts to bring federal help to bear to combat crime in various U.S. Cities.

"I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump," she told Durbin, as both he and Illinois officials are opposed to the federal intervention.

Bondi also refused to discuss, in questioning by Delaware Democrat Chris Coons, what legal justification the Justice Department provided to authorize deadly strikes on vessels in the Caribbean over the past several weeks, given that they were not authorized by Congress. CNN reported on Monday that the department's Office of Legal Counsel helped provide a legal context for the strikes.

The administration has argued that drug cartels from Venezuela are an imminent threat to Americans, and Bondi on Tuesday characterized Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro as being a "narco terrorist" who had killed countless Americans through the supply of deadly drugs such as fentanyl.

The Republicans on the panel were animated by a report released a day before the hearing that the FBI in 2023 had analyzed phone records of several Republican lawmakers as part of special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.

"We learned that the FBI tapped my phone!" said Missouri's Josh Hawley.

The data sought included the date and time of phone calls in the days surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. 

Bondi characterized the pursuit of those records "as a historic betrayal of public trust."

"This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people's faith in our law enforcement system," she said.  

---

---