Pam Bondi told the Senate Judiciary Committee she would push to return the Justice Department to “its core mission” if confirmed as the next attorney general, vowing during her confirmation hearing Wednesday to tackle gangs, drugs, terrorists and the nation’s foreign adversaries.
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and an ardent Donald Trump supporter who has campaigned for him, told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that she would fight to “restore confidence and integrity” to the Justice Department and its components.
“The partisanship, the weaponization, will be gone. America will have one tier of justice for all,” Bondi said, referencing long-standing grievances from Republican lawmakers and conservatives. “In all this work, I’ll collaborate closely with this committee.”
“If confirmed, I will do everything in my power — and it will be my great responsibility — to make America safe again,” Bondi said.
That goal requires reducing how many prisoners commit another offense after they are released, she said. And she argued that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has suffered from years of mismanagement, lack of funding and low morale.
The confirmation hearing is expected to last most of the day, with panel members getting two rounds of questions for Trump’s pick to lead a department that handles issues such as drug policy, surveillance authorities, national security, violent crime and immigration.
Bondi, who has received strong support from Senate Republicans, likely does not need Democratic support to be confirmed.
Bondi devoted time during her opening statement to outlining her work as a state prosecutor and walking through her work as a Florida attorney general, the first woman to hold that position.
“Nothing has impacted my career more than my experience as a state prosecutor, because I got to know, and still keep in touch with, many victims,” she told senators.
As state attorney general, she worked against human trafficking, filed litigation against opioid manufacturers and helped lead a campaign to get funding to eliminate a backlog of sexual assault kits that had not been tested, according to a questionnaire submitted to the Judiciary Committee.
Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, praised Bondi as “highly qualified” in his opening statement, as he pointed to her years as a prosecutor in Hillsborough County, Fla., and her time as state attorney general.
Grassley said she took a leading role in getting a multibillion-dollar settlement following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and participated in an “aggressive campaign” to eliminate pill mills.
Grassley said Bondi, if confirmed, would take control of the department at a turbulent time for the country and for the department, chiding the DOJ as infected with “political decision-making.”
“The impact of this political infection in our once-storied law enforcement institutions is catastrophic. By every metric, the Biden-Harris Justice Department conduct has failed to live up to our country’s ideals,” he said.
“So, Ms. Bondi, should you be confirmed, the actions you take to change the department’s course must be for accountability, so that the conduct I just described never happens again,” Grassley said.
Meanwhile, her long track record of supporting Trump is shaping up as a focal point for Democrats, who question whether she will be able to run a Justice Department that’s free of political interference from the White House.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the panel, said Trump has vowed to use the department to advance his own political interests and referenced Trump’s past call to prosecute perceived political enemies.
That includes Trump’s calls for the prosecution of members of the now-disbanded House select committee to investigate the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021, including now-Sen. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif.
“I need to know that you would tell the president ‘no’ if you’re asked to do something that’s wrong, illegal or unconstitutional,” Durbin said.
“You have repeatedly described investigations and prosecutions of Mr. Trump as ‘witch hunts,’ and you have echoed his calls for investigating and prosecuting his political opponents,” Durbin said.
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