Donald Trump’s attorney general pick Pam Bondi in her introductory statement for the Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday took the names of all the people who came with her to witness the hearing travelling a long way. Introducing her mother, husband, daughters, father-in-law and all the other family members, Pam Bondi went on to mention her friends and former co-workers. “If you want to get dirt on me, these women have known me since I was a child. Seriously,” Pam Bondi said.
Then Pam Bondi went on to say what she will do if she gets confirmed. “I will fight every day to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice … The partisanship, the weaponization will be gone. America will have one tier of justice for all.”
“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.”
‘I need to know that you would tell the president no’
Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned whether Pam Bondi’s loyalty to President-elect Donald Trump would interfere with her ability to carry out the responsibilities of attorney general if she is confirmed to the post.
“The importance of the attorney general to our justice system cannot be overstated. As our nation’s chief law enforcement officer, the attorney general oversees the Department of Justice, which is responsible for protecting the civil rights of Americans, economic freedom and opportunity, public safety, and of course national security. In short, the attorney general has real impact on Americans’ everyday lives. It is critical that any nominee for this position be committed first and foremost to the Constitution and the American people — not any president or political agenda,” he said in remarks during her confirmation hearing.
“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 said.
He continued: “You joined Mr. Trump in working to overturn the 2020 election. You have repeatedly described investigations and prosecutions of Mr. Trump as ‘witch hunts,’ and you have echoed his calls for investigating and prosecuting his political opponents.”
