Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, received a warm reception from Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday as she testified about reducing crime and upholding the law.
But the longtime Trump ally, who served as Florida’s attorney general, ducked and dodged key questions posed by Democrats on the panel, including matter-of-fact topics like Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
“Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in, and he is the president of the United States,” Bondi said in response to a question from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “There was a peaceful transition of power. President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.”
Asked again to acknowledge Trump’s loss, Bondi said she accepted the results of the 2020 election before noting that she “saw many things” while working on behalf of Trump’s campaign in Pennsylvania that year, a state where Republicans sought to throw out electoral results based on false claims of widespread fraud.
“I think that question deserved a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and I think the length of your answer is an indication that you weren’t prepared to answer ‘yes,’” Durbin responded.
Later, in another exchange with Durbin, Bondi said she couldn’t comment on the recording of a phone call Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after the 2020 election, in which Trump ordered the official to “find” him enough votes to swing the state into his column, because she hadn’t heard it in full.
Here are four other key questions Bondi declined to answer in her confirmation hearing on Wednesday:
Pardons For Violent Jan. 6 Offenders
Bondi wouldn’t say whether violent rioters who assaulted police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, should be pardoned by Trump, as he has suggested. She told senators she would take a methodological approach to any pardons if confirmed as attorney general.
“Pardons fall, of course, under the president, but if asked to look at those cases, I will look at each case and advise on a case-by-case basis, just as I did my entire career as a prosecutor,” Bondi told Durbin.
Vice President-elect Vance told “Fox News Sunday” last week that people who “committed violence” during the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned, but he left some wiggle room, adding that there is “a little bit of a gray area there.”
Illegal Presidential Orders
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) pressed Bondi on whether she’d be willing to stand up to Trump and maintain the DOJ’s independence in the face of intimidation from the White House.
“Let’s imagine Trump issues a directive or order to you or to the FBI director that is outside the boundaries of ethics or law. What will you do?” Coons asked.
Bondi called the question a hypothetical and declined to answer.
“If I thought that would happen, I would not be sitting here today,” Bondi replied. “That will not happen – will not happen. Every case will be prosecuted based on the facts and the law that is applied in good faith, period.”
But the question is less hypothetical than it seems. During a December 2020 call, Trump pressured then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to falsely declare the 2020 election “illegal” and “corrupt” even after the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud.
“Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R[epublican] Congressmen,” Trump said on the call, according to DOJ documents.
Probes Into Trump’s Opponents
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) pressed Bondi to say whether she’d use her position as attorney general to go after Trump’s political enemies at his direction.
Bondi said she wasn’t familiar with Trump’s statements on the matter, but Hirono drilled down with the names of specific people Trump has publicly threatened and noted that Bondi herself said on Fox News in August that when Republicans win back the White House, the Justice Department will investigate prosecutors who are the “bad ones.”
“Is Jack Smith one of those ‘bad prosecutors’ you will prosecute as attorney general?” Hirono asked, referring to the special counsel who prosecuted Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“How about Liz Cheney? How about Merrick Garland?” Hirono added, referring to the former GOP congresswoman who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the current U.S. attorney general.
“I am not going to answer hypotheticals,” Bondi said. “No one has been prejudged, nor will anyone be prejudged if I am confirmed.”
Kash Patel’s ‘Enemies List’
Bondi told senators that Kash Patel, Trump’s controversial nominee to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, doesn’t have an “enemies list,” even though Patel has been specific about such a list in his book. He wrote that it includes the last three Democratic nominees for president: Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, as well as outgoing FBI Director Chris Wray, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and former National Security Council Chairman John Bolton, among others.
Bondi defended Patel, who would serve under her if they are both confirmed, saying she believes he is “the right person at this time for the job.”
“There will never be an enemies list within the DOJ,” she added.
But she declined to discuss Patel’s specific threats against Trump’s opponents.
“I’m not familiar with all those comments. I’ve not discussed those comments with Patel,” Bondi said.
The Countdown To Trump Is On
Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.
Democrats weren’t satisfied with Bondi’s answers on many of these topics, but they could do little but complain with her path to confirmation seemingly a lock in the GOP-controlled Senate.
“I believe being the people’s lawyer means you have to be able to say ‘no’ to the president of the United States,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Bondi on Wednesday. “You have to speak truth to power. You have to be able to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. You dodged that question when you were asked directly by Senator Durbin. You have to be able to say that January 6 insurrectionists who committed violence should not be pardoned.”