A combative Bondi clashes with senators on Epstein, cases against Trump foes
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly deflected questions as she sought during a combative congressional hearing on Tuesday to defend herself against growing criticism that she's turning the law enforcement agency into a weapon to seek vengeance against President Donald Trump’s political opponents.
Democrats sought to use the hearing, coming on the heels of the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, to warn of what they view as the politicization of a department that has long prided itself on remaining independent from the White House.
Bondi brushed aside with seeming disdain questions about her tumultuous tenure, flatly refusing to answer time and again as Democrats pressed her on politically charged investigations, the firings of career prosecutors and other matters. Her refusal to engage on the questions meant little if any fresh insight was offered about her actions and decisions, with Bondi instead opting to respond to Democrats' attacks by echoing conservative claims that President Joe Biden's Justice Department — which brought two criminal cases against Trump — was the one that had been weaponized.
“They were playing politics with law enforcement powers and will go down as a historic betrayal of public trust,” Bondi said of the Biden Justice Department. “This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day.”
She repeatedly dodged questions on pressing issues — such as the department’s decision to prosecute former FBI Director James B. Comey, its review of its case files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and a now shuttered FBI bribery investigation into Trump’s border czar Tom Homan.
And again and again through almost five hours of exchanges, she lashed out at committee Democrats, responding to their questions with personalized, non sequitur attacks.
“Don’t you ever challenge my integrity,” Bondi responded to questions over whether she had improperly let Trump influence the department’s decisions. “I have abided by every ethical standard. Do not question my ability to be fair and impartial as attorney general.”
Bondi’s combative exchanges, excerpted and shared on social media in real time by administration officials, appeared designed to appeal to a president who has consistently prized partisan pugnaciousness in his Cabinet officials. They could also counter criticism Bondi has received from some corners of Trump’s base who have called for her to more aggressively target his perceived foes.
She accused Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) of lying about his military record to win elections, insinuated Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) supported antifa and questioned campaign donations Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) received which Republicans have since sought to link to a donor tied to Epstein.
At one point, she angrily dismissed Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) when he asked whether Trump had consulted with her before his deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago, a city Durbin represents.
“I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” Bondi shot back. “If you’re not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will.”
Democrats expressed alarm about what they described as the swift erosion of the Justice Department’s credibility and Bondi’s willingness to accede to Trump’s growing influence over the agency — including his demands last month that she move quickly to prosecute those he considers political enemies, such as Comey.
Such levels of White House interference would “make even President Nixon recoil,” Durbin, the committee’s top Democrat, remarked. “This is your legacy, Attorney General Bondi. In eight short months, you fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain in American history. It will take decades to recover.”
Hirono expressed her concern more bluntly. “What was once the Department of Justice has become the Department of Revenge and Corruption,” she said. “Rather than pursuing cases without fear or favor, this DOJ seeks to favor the president’s friends and instill fear in his alleged enemies.”
The hearing split early along deeply partisan lines, with Republicans repeatedly leaping to her defense to highlight the criminal cases against the president that they say show the institution she inherited was deeply politicized. They pointed to revelations from a day earlier that the FBI had analyzed phone records of several Republican lawmakers, including some of the Judiciary Committee’s members such as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). as part of its investigation into Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“This is an outrage, an unconstitutional breach and ought to be immediately addressed by you and Director Patel,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the committee, told Bondi, referring to FBI Director Kash Patel.
Grassley on Monday released records indicating that the FBI, under Biden, had analyzed phone records of several GOP lawmakers -
Those records were obtained through a grand jury investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith and showed only the numbers those lawmakers called and the duration of the calls, not their content. Smith had previously disclosed steps taken by his team to investigate whether lawmakers had been involved in Trump’s alleged efforts.
Grassley on Tuesday called those actions by Smith “an outrage” and an “unconstitutional breach.” He and several Republican members of the committee pressed Bondi to open an investigation of the matter and potentially pursue criminal prosecution.
Democrats, meanwhile, accused Bondi of destroying the department's credibility and eroding its longstanding independence from the White House as the Republican president publicly calls for the prosecution of his political foes.
The hearing marked Bondi's first before the panel since her confirmation hearing last January, when she pledged to not play politics with the Justice Department — a promise Democrats pounced on as they pressed the attorney general on whether she can withstand political pressure from the White House.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, reminded Bondi of that commitment and asked her if she thought she had upheld it. Bondi replied that she believed she absolutely had.
“I pledged that I would end the weaponization also of the Justice Department and that America would once again have a one tier system of justice for all,” Bondi said. “And that is what we are doing.”
Bondi set the tone for the hearing at the outset, repeatedly snapping with a raised voice at Durbin and deflecting questions from him by pointing to the murder rate in Chicago and asserting that lawmakers from his party were responsible for shutting the government down.
“You’re sitting here grilling me, and they’re on their way to Chicago to keep your state safe,” Bondi said, referring to Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
“Madam Attorney General,” Durbin replied, “it’s my job to grill you.”
She refused repeatedly to discuss matters, including a bribery investigation into Trump border czar Tom Homan that was shuttered under the Trump administration. That drew the ire of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, who accused Bondi of responding with “far-right internet talking points.”
She also declined to say whether she talked to the president about the case against Comey, who was charged last month with lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he said he had not authorized anyone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about a particular investigation. His indictment came just days after Trump appeared to publicly implore her on social media to take that action against him and other perceived political enemies.
“This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious answer to serious questions about the cover-up of corruption, about the prosecution of the president’s enemies,” Sen. Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat from California, said as Bondi repeatedly interrupted him. “And when will it be that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis demand answers to those questions and refuse to accept personal slander as an answer to those questions?”
Comey is set to make his first court appearance on Wednesday in the case, which was brought despite career prosecutors' reservations about the strength of evidence, after the Trump administration raced install a new prosecutor to secure the charges following the resignation under pressure of the experienced leader of that office.
The Justice Department under Bondi has opened criminal investigations into other vocal critics of the president, including Schiff on accusations of mortgage fraud, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor and current mayoral candidate. They have all denied wrongdoing, as has Comey, and have slammed the investigations as politically motivated.
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• The Washington Post contributed.