WASHINGTON — Senators questioned President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Justice Department on Wednesday, asking former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi whether she would stand up to a president who had pushed out the two men he previously appointed to be U.S. attorney general.
Bondi, who had initially been involved in legal efforts to overturn Trump's 2020 election loss, refused to say whether she believed the 2020 election was stolen, instead resorting to a common Republican response by simply stating that Joe Biden is the president of the United States. Bondi, who traveled to Philadelphia and held news conferences there in the week after the 2020 election, did not answer when she was posed the yes/no question of whether Biden won Pennsylvania.
Bondi also said that she would fight "weaponization" of the Justice Department, echoing Trump's campaign rhetoric, and that she would "not politicize" the office of attorney general or "target people simply because of their political affiliation."
When Trump announced Bondi as his pick for attorney general, he wrote that while the “partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans — Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”
Bondi echoed the "safe again" slogan several times during her testimony Wednesday.
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Bondi told senators that she would not do something improper if she were asked and said the American people, not Trump, would be her client if she is confirmed, although she said she would give Trump advice as part of her job.
Asked by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., about statements that Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, had made about the QAnon movement, Bondi said senators would have to ask Patel about those statements.
“I look forward to hearing his testimony about QAnon in front of this committee,” Bondi said, drawing chuckles in the hearing room.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who was state attorney general of Connecticut before he became a senator, said he was “really troubled” by Bondi’s answers and non-answers to the questions asking whether she thought she could say no to the president. Bondi pushed back against the suggestion that she was simply saying what she needed to say to get confirmed.
"I sit up here and speak the truth," Bondi said. "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."
Bondi spent eight years as Florida's top law enforcement official and was the first woman to serve in the post, prioritizing issues like curbing drug abuse, advocating against human trafficking and pushing back against the Obama administration's signature health care plan.
She has also been a longtime Trump ally, having served on his opioid and drug abuse task force and later joining the defense team during his first Senate impeachment trial. Bondi also falsely claimed Trump "won Pennsylvania" in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and later worked at a pro-Trump policy firm on legal issues and as a lobbyist.
Now, Trump has picked her to serve in one of the highest-profile roles in the incoming administration, if she's confirmed by the Senate.
Bondi took over as Trump's pick to lead the Justice Department after his first choice, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., withdrew from consideration after his nomination was jeopardized by allegations of sexual misconduct, including having sex with a minor (Gaetz has denied the allegations). After weeks of chaos surrounding Gaetz's nomination, Republicans have greeted Bondi's ascension with praise, and there have been no indications she'll struggle to gain support from GOP senators.
Democrats were expected to zero in on her time at a prominent lobbying firm, with Durbin claiming in recent days that the Judiciary Committee hasn't received a full accounting of her work with foreign clients.
But questions about Bondi's independence as the prospective leader of the Justice Department dominated early parts of the hearing during Democratic questioning. Trump and his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, publicly sparred over Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. And Trump's campaign rhetoric, in which he and allies have warned that political opponents could or should face criminal charges, has raised concerns about whether the Justice Department would follow through on that sentiment.
In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" last month, Trump said he is "not going to instruct her" whether to launch investigations.
