President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi, on Wednesday advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a strict party-line vote, setting the stage for a vote on the Senate floor.
The panel voted 12-10 to clear her from committee, advancing her nomination to serve as attorney general over objections from Democrats over her ability to exercise independence from the president.
“The president has repeatedly threatened to weaponize the justice system against those he feels have wronged him, and that’s a long list. It includes career prosecutors, military officials and his own former political appointees. Unfortunately, we are seeing these threats emerge in real time,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the panel, said during the meeting.
“She is one of four personal lawyers President Trump has already selected for top positions at the Department of Justice, and she has echoed President Trump’s calls for exacting revenge on political opponents. Ms. Bondi undermined our democracy by joining President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. It appears she does not reject that decision.”
Democrats argued their concerns were not hypothetical, pointing to a string of events following Bondi’s hearing.
The Trump Justice Department has reassigned a wave of career prosecutors, placing them in divisions unrelated to their prior work.
The acting attorney general also fired all prosecutors who had worked on the criminal prosecutions into Trump, citing their work on the cases and calling them part of a broader political campaign.
“I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully,” acting Attorney General James McHenry wrote.
And Trump also pardoned or commuted the sentences of all 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants.
Republicans and Democrats alike noted Bondi’s qualification for the role as a longtime prosecutor and former Florida attorney general.
But they also quibbled over her role in working on Trump’s team to challenge the 2020 election results.
Bondi in her hearing refused to say that Trump lost the election, instead saying President Biden was currently president.
“On multiple occasions during her hearing, Ms. Bondi stated that President Biden was the president, and that she quote, unquote, accepted the results. As I said during the hearing, questioning the results of an election does not make one an election denier,” Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa said).
“Some of my colleagues also suggest that Miss Bondi’s loyalty to President Trump is somehow disqualifying. It is not persuasive in any way. There’s nothing wrong with President Trump appointing someone who seriously defended him to a high position. Ms. Bondi publicly supported President Trump, just like 77 million Americans who voted him back into office in November. So this too is not a disqualifying attribute.”
