WASHINGTON – Attorney General Pam Bondi battled with Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Oct. 7, refusing to answer their questions and launching personal attacks against some of them when they accused her of stonewalling.
She was received very differently by Republicans, who praised Bondi throughout the marathon hearing, saying she’s made good on her – and President Donald Trump’s – pledges to rid the Justice Department of partisan politics, cut crime and help deport immigrants in the country illegally.
“I took office with two main goals; to end the weaponization of justice and return the department to its core mission of fighting violent crime,” Bondi said. “While there is more work to do, I believe in eight short months, we have made tremendous progress towards those ends.”
But Democrats, one by one, accused the nation’s top law enforcement official of doing exactly the opposite. They said the former personal Trump lawyer and Florida attorney general gutted key elements of the Justice Department, including its public corruption unit.
Bondi also launched groundless investigations into Trump’s political foes, they said, and covered up for purported Trump allies accused of criminal wrongdoing including convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and border czar Tom Homan.
“Our nation’s top law enforcement agency has become a shield for the president and his political allies when they engage in misconduct,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the committee’s top Democrat.
In response to Democrats’ questions on a broad range of issues, a combative Bondi often hurled insults and counter-accusations.
She called Sen. Adam Schiff “a failed lawyer” and “a liar.”
Many of the terse exchanges came in response to questions about Epstein, and Bondi’s joint announcement with FBI Director Kash Patel in July that they would not be releasing the so-called Epstein files – or evidence of crimes involving the convicted sex trafficker financier in their possession after repeatedly promising to do so.
“There’s been public reporting that Jeffrey Epstein showed people photos of President Trump with half naked young women,” Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a former federal prosecutor, asked Bondi. “Do you know if the FBI found those photographs in their search of Jeffrey Epstein safe or premises or otherwise?”
“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 shot back. “I believe I could be wrong. Correct me.”
Bondi, in her first appearance before the committee since taking office, accused Durbin of undermining an earlier probe into Epstein. And when he asked her “who gave the order to flag records related to President Trump” in the Epstein files, she replied: “I’m not going to discuss anything about that with you, senator.”
“Eventually you are going to have to answer for your conduct in this,” Durbin said. “You won’t do it today, but eventually you will.”
Bondi accused 77-year-old Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono of consorting with antifa protesters. That accusation came when Hirono asked Bondi if she approved shutting down a bribery investigation into whether Homan took a $50,000 cash bribe − reportedly caught on videotape − from undercover FBI agents before joining the Trump administration.
“You were also on video outside the White House, protesting … where antifa members were,” Bondi said. Later, in response to another question, she told Hirono, “I don’t think a lot of people liked that you were out protesting with antifa.”
And when Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said he was “trying to be positive and constructive” in his questioning about whether Bondi had politicized the department, Bondi interrupted him to say, “I’m not going to get in the gutter with you.”
“I am not going to be lectured,” Bondi added, talking over Blumenthal, “about integrity by someone who lied about being in the military just to be elected a senator.”
A Reuters photographer captured some of Bondi’s preplanned attacks on the inside of a manila folder that Bondi occasionally opened during her testimony.
Afterward, Senate Judiciary Democrats posted a response of their own on X: “Pam Bondi only has Donald Trump’s back—not YOURS.”
“I’ve never seen anything quite like that,” Durbin said. “These are oversight hearings. Some of the questions are pointed and tough, but her reaction was completely out of line, and her refusal to answer the most basic questions about the issues before the department really left a lot of us feeling that she’s not doing the job she was appointed to.”
One former federal prosecutor, Ankush Khardori, wrote in his Politico column “Rules of Law” after watching the hearing that “Bondi has emerged as perhaps the most openly political and partisan attorney general in modern American history.”
Trump supporters, however, praised her performance on social media, sharing video soundbites of Bondi’s exchanges, her facial expressions and her folded-arm body language.
“Savage,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said on X in response to video of Bondi telling Schiff, “Oversight? You want your five minutes of fame.”
The Justice Department was not immediately available for comment on Bondi’s testimony.
