Dems needle AG nominee Pam Bondi on Trump loyalty, foreign lobbying disclosures

WASHINGTON (CN) — Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi fielded tough questions from lawmakers on Wednesday as she made her case for why she should lead the Department of Justice under the second Donald Trump administration.

Bondi, who in 2020 was White House special counsel to then-President Trump during his first impeachment trial, leaned heavily on her record as the Sunshine state’s top lawyer even as Democrats questioned whether her loyalty to the president-elect outweighed what they said should be her nonpartisan commitment to the rule of law.

“If confirmed as the next attorney general of the United States, my overriding objective will be to return the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe and vigorously prosecuting criminals,” the nominee told lawmakers Wednesday morning during her nomination hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bondi pointed to her work battling the opioid crisis, price gouging and human trafficking in Florida as key issues that would inform her leadership of the Justice Department. If put in charge of the agency, she said, she would get “back to basics” on federal law enforcement, dialing in on issues such as gangs, drug cartels, border security and foreign crime.

But Democrats were less interested in her record as Florida attorney general and more concerned with her relationship with Trump. Led by Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, Democratic lawmakers tried to get the attorney general nominee to commit to preventing politics from infecting her work.

“I believe, in this nomination hearing, it is not your competence nor your experience that is at issue,” Durbin told Bondi. “At issue is your ability to say no. I need to know that you would tell the president ‘no’ if you are asked to do something that is wrong, illegal or unconstitutional.”

Durbin pointed to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and asked Bondi whether she believed President Joe Biden won that contest.

But the nominee did not answer directly, instead saying that she accepted the election’s results and acknowledging to the Illinois Democrat that Biden is currently the president.

“He was duly sworn in, and he is the president of the United States,” Bondi said. “There was a peaceful transition of power — President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.”

Bondi also demurred on questions about whether she would follow through on Trump’s promise to pardon people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, telling lawmakers that she would “look at each case and advise on a case-by-case basis.”

She shared a few testy moments with Judiciary Committee Democrats who repeatedly grilled her throughout the six-hour hearing on what they framed as her support for election denialism.

Bondi sparred most intensely with the two California Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, who pushed her to provide evidence of fraud in the 2020 election. Amid sharp questioning, the Florida attorney general fired back at the two lawmakers on several occasions, telling Padilla that she would not be “bullied.”

The nominee saved her most biting remarks, though, for Schiff — who under Trump’s first administration was a vocal critic of the White House and was a leading figure in the congressional probe into purported collusion between the then-president and affiliates of the Russian government.

Needling Bondi on Wednesday, Schiff followed up on his Democratic colleagues’ line of questioning, demanding the attorney general nominee assure lawmakers that she will be able to tell “hard truths” to the president, such as the results of the 2020 election.

“Can you say that you have the independence, the gravitas, the stature, the intestinal fortitude, to say: ‘Donald Trump, you lost the 2020 election?’” the California senator asked Bondi.

The nominee accused Schiff of trying to engage her in a “gotcha” question.

“What I can tell you is I will never play politics,” Bondi said. She accused Schiff of making “reckless” comments, citing his controversial 2023 censure by the Republican House over his past statements about evidence of collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

Bondi**** faced further scrutiny about her role as a lobbyist for Washington-based firm Ballard Partners, particularly her work on behalf of the government of Qatar.

In her pre-hearing questionnaire submitted to the Judiciary Committee, Bondi disclosed her lobbying work for Qatar, saying she was registered as a foreign lobbyist under the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 2019 and 2020. But Democrats have raised concerns that she did not list her work for Qatar as a potential conflict of interest and have asked the Justice Department to provide more information about her foreign lobbying activities.

On Wednesday, though, Bondi appeared to defend her work on behalf of Qatar, explaining that she had worked on “anti-human trafficking” efforts in advance of the 2022 FIFA World Cup held there.

“I’m very proud of the work I did,” she said. “It was a short time — and I wish it had been longer.”

Responding to questions about a potential conflict of interest, Bondi told the Judiciary Committee that she would consult with career ethics officials within the Justice Department and “make the appropriate decision.”

Republicans, meanwhile, argued that Bondi would be the right choice to reform a Justice Department which they have long argued is politicized.

“It’s no secret that the DOJ is facing a public trust crisis after Democrats spent years weaponizing the justice system and the entire federal government,” said Florida Senator Rick Scott, who joined the Judiciary Committee to introduce the attorney general nominee. “That will change under Pam Bondi.”

Scott argued that the Justice Department would “actually enforce the law” under Bondi, and that the nominee would lead crackdowns on drugs and violent crime.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham pushed back on complaints from Democrats about the nominee’s relationship to Trump, contending that her previous experience representing him when he was president makes her uniquely qualified to work alongside him now.

“The idea that there’s something wrong with that is absolutely ridiculous,” he said.

Alabama Senator Katie Britt called it “full-on gaslighting” that Democrats would question Bondi’s qualifications.

“The United States of America could only be so fortunate, if you are confirmed, to have someone of your caliber, of your intellect and your experience running a department that unfortunately has been run into the ground,” she told the nominee.

Throughout Wednesday’s hearing, Bondi — who was a board member on Trump-affiliated Make America Great Again Action committee and co-chair of the law and justice division of the America First Policy Institute — repeatedly referred to the president-elect’s “overwhelming” election victory and cited his campaign slogans.

“We have got to work together to make America safe again,” she told lawmakers. “That, in turn, will make America great again — and I don’t know when that phrase became a bad word, because I think it’s a great one.”

Bondi is Trump’s second nominee to lead the Justice Department under his second administration. The president-elect in November tapped Florida Representative Matt Gaetz for the job, but his nomination fell through just weeks later after support for him cratered. Gaetz has since resigned from Congress amid an ethics maelstrom.

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