Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump‘s attorney general nominee, vowed to senators that she would improve confidence in the Department of Justice on Wednesday during her confirmation hearing.
“Like the president, I believe we are on the cusp of a new golden age where the Department of Justice can and will do better if I am confirmed,” Bondi said in her opening remarks.
Bondi said she wanted to “get back to the basics, gangs, drugs, terrorists, cartels, our border, and our foreign adversaries.” She praised the First Step Act, a sweeping criminal justice reform bill passed in Trump’s first term, and said she planned to do more to expand on it.
“If confirmed, I will do everything in my power, and it will be my great responsibility to make America safe again,” Bondi said.
In a nod to Republicans’ concerns about a perceived two-tiered justice system, she added that “the partisanship, the weaponization, will be gone.”
Bondi served as the first female attorney general of Florida, and before that was a county prosecutor for nearly two decades.
She highlighted her work at the state level, saying she wiped out oxycodone dispensers, also known as pill mills, in Florida, fought price gouging during hurricane crises, and prioritized eliminating human trafficking.
Bondi spent weeks preparing for the confirmation hearing, meeting with a team of attorneys and advisers to examine how to improve the DOJ and holding in-depth meetings with nearly every member of the Judiciary Committee, according to a Trump transition team spokesman.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the 91-year-old committee chairman, said during his opening remarks that Bondi would be taking the helm of the DOJ at a “turbulent time.”
“The Justice Department’s infected with political decision-making, while its leaders refuse to acknowledge that reality,” Grassley said.
Bondi was grilled by Democrats over their concerns that she would not operate independently from Trump but rather do his bidding by launching investigations into the president-elect’s political nemeses. Bondi has long been a fierce Trump ally, endorsing him in 2016, defending him during his first impeachment trial, and supporting some of his claims about 2020 election fraud.
Committee ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) warned Trump’s top priority is “loyalty” and that he plans to use his DOJ to seek retribution on those who investigated and prosecuted him, judges, election workers, and other government officials.
“I need to know that you would tell the president ‘no’ if you’re asked to do something that is wrong, illegal, or unconstitutional,” Durbin said to Bondi.
Democrats raised questions about the 2020 election, demanding Bondi assert that Trump lost. They also repeatedly forced her to defend Kash Patel, Trump’s controversial nominee to head the FBI, which is housed under the DOJ.
Durbin broached the QAnon conspiracy theory, claiming Patel has conveyed some support for it. Durbin said QAnon believers think a “satanic cannibalistic child molesters” are embedded within the government to support Trump. Bondi said she did not know what QAnon was and that Patel could speak for himself at his own hearing.
The hearing became heated at times, including when Bondi sparred with both Democratic senators from California, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla. Republicans, at times, admonished their Democratic colleagues for ignoring special counsel Jack Smith’s two criminal cases against Trump and other perceived instances of weaponization of government.
“The focus of these questions today are disturbing,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), a former Missouri attorney general, said at one point, adding that he felt Democrats had “Trump derangement syndrome.”
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Bondi was still facing questions well into the afternoon.
Trump first chose fellow Floridian Matt Gaetz to lead the Department of Justice, but the former Republican congressman dropped out of consideration after seeing a lack of support in the Senate. Gaetz faced alleged ethics violations and had no history of working as a prosecutor. Bondi is expected to have an easier path to confirmation given her extensive experience and outreach to Democratic senators.
