Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday in a hearing focused on oversight of the Justice Department—her first appearance before the panel since being confirmed to the role.
Throughout the session, Bondi avoided giving direct answers to several questions raised by Democratic senators, particularly those concerning any communications she may have had with the White House about investigations targeting President Trump’s political opponents. Among those inquiries was whether she discussed possible charges against former FBI Director James Comey, 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. That prosecution effort reportedly caused internal turmoil within the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and ultimately led President Trump to appoint a White House aide to lead the office.
Bondi also sidestepped questions about her office’s management of materials connected to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died while in federal custody in 2019; responded that the Democrats should explain their own relationships with him (per CNN). Earlier this year, the Justice Department announced that no additional information from the Epstein case would be released, a decision that frustrated lawmakers and prompted new congressional attempts to obtain the documents.
During the hearing, Bondi defended the Trump administration’s record on law enforcement and immigration, emphasizing its commitment to reducing crime. She clashed early on with Sen. Dick Durbin, the committee’s top Democrat, over the administration’s deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago. “If you’re not going to protect your citizens,” Bondi told him, “President Trump will.”
Sen Richard Blumenthal, D-N.Y., told reporters after leaving the hearing that 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. 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.”
The White House praised Bondi after the hearing, stating: “She’s doing great. 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.”
For more key moments and notable exchanges from Bondi’s hearing on Tuesday, head HERE.
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