Oct. 7 (UPI) — Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, and refused to answer questions on several topics.
Bondi declined to answer questions about the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey regarding her discussions with President Donald Trump as well as the firings of Department of Justice attorneys who worked on Jan. 6 cases and her refusal to prosecute certain cases of Trump’s allies.
Bondi also avoided questions about the files of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Trump’s alleged friendship with him. She responded that the Democrats should explain their own relationships with him, CNN reported.
Sen Richard Blumenthal, D-N.Y., said Bondi’s testimony was a new low for attorneys general.
“Her apparent strategy is to attack and conceal. Frankly, I’ve been through close to 15 of these attorney general accountability hearings, and I have never seen anything close to it in terms of the combativeness, the evasiveness and sometimes deceptiveness,” Blumenthal told reporters after leaving the hearing. “I think it is possibly a new low for attorneys general testifying before the United States Congress, and I just hope my Republican colleagues will demand more accountability than what we have seen so far.”
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., agreed with Blumenthal.
“She was fully prepared for, with specific and personal comebacks, accusing various of my colleagues, of challenging their integrity or challenging their basis for their questions in a way I’ve not ever seen,” Coons said.
The White House has already praised Bondi’s performance.
“She’s doing great,” a White House official told CNN. “Not only is the AG debunking every single bogus Democrat talking point, but she’s highlighting the Democrats’ own hypocrisy and they have no response.”
Bondi, along with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, criticized the judge in the case of Sophie Roske, the woman who planned an attack on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Roske, who called the police on herself before making contact with Kavanaugh, was sentenced to eight years in prison for the plot.
“My prosecutors did an incredible job on that case,” Bondi said. She said the Justice Department would appeal the sentence, which was 22 years below the federal guidelines and the minimum sentence prosecutors wanted. “The judge also would not refer to the defendant by his biological name,” Bondi said. Roske is transgender.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Bondi what conversations she has had with the White House about investigations into Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Comey. Bondi again declined to answer.
“I’m not going to discuss any conversations,” Bondi said to Klobuchar, CBS News reported.
Klobuchar asked her about a Truth Social post by Trump last in which he asked Bondi why she hadn’t brought charges against Comey, Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“President Trump is the most transparent president in American history, and I don’t think he said anything that he hasn’t said for years,” Bondi said.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., pressed her on whether the FBI found any pictures of Trump “with half-naked young women,” saying that Epstein was reported to have shown them around.
“You know, Sen. Whitehouse? You sit here and make salacious remarks, once again, trying to slander President Trump, left and right, when you’re the one who was taking money from one of Epstein’s closest confidants,” Bondi responded, referring to tech entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who has said he regretted his contacts with Epstein, CBS reported.
Since Bondi took over at the Justice Department, she and her team have fired prosecutors who worked on capitol riot cases and pushed out career FBI agents.
The Public Integrity Section is nearly empty now, and more than 70% of the lawyers in the Civil Rights Division are also gone, NPR reported.
In a letter Monday, nearly 300 former Justice Department employees asked the Oversight Committee to closely monitor the department.
“We call on Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities far more vigorously. Members in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle must provide a meaningful check on the abuses we’re witnessing,” the letter said.
The letter also alleged poor treatment of staff.
“As for its treatment of its employees, the current leadership’s behavior has been appalling. … And demonizing, firing, demoting, involuntarily transferring, and directing employees to violate their ethical duties has already caused an exodus of over 5,000 of us — draining the Department of priceless institutional knowledge and expertise, and impairing its historical success in recruiting top talent. We may feel the effects of this for generations.”
Bondi said the DOJ stands by the “many terminations” in the department since Trump took office. “We stand by all of those,” she said.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in an opening statement, “What has taken place since Jan. 20, 2025, would make even President Nixon recoil.”
Durbin said Bondi has left “an enormous stain in American history.”
“It will take decades to recover,” he said.
The hearing is just two weeks after she sought and secured an indictment of Comey at the direction of the president. Democrats have said she’s weaponizing the Department of Justice, breaking with the longstanding tradition of keeping the department independent of political goals.
Comey was indicted on one count each of lying to Congress and obstructing justice for his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020. Before the indictment, U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert refused to indict because of a lack of evidence against Comey. Trump accused him of waiting too long to indict and nearly allowing the statute of limitations to run out. Siebert resigned under pressure from the administration.
Last week, Durbin said the targeting of Trump’s political enemies is “a code-red alarm for the rule of law” in a floor speech, The Washington Post reported.
“Never in the history of our country has a president so brazenly demanded the baseless prosecution of his rivals,” he said. “And he doesn’t even try to hide it.”
But Republicans claim that Bondi’s leadership is necessary after years of what they say was politicized attacks from the Justice Department under the President Joe Biden administration.
“If the facts and the evidence support the finding that Comey lied to Congress and obstructed our work, he ought to be held accountable,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Judiciary Committee.
During her confirmation hearing, Bondi vowed that weaponization of the Justice Department is over.
“I will not politicize that office,” Bondi said at the time. “I will not target people simply because of their political affiliation.”
