The Senate on Wednesday voted to substantiate Pam Bondi as the subsequent legal professional normal, giving her management of a Justice Division embroiled in controversy.
The vote was 54-46. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joined all Republicans in voting in help of Bondi.
Bondi, a two-term legal professional normal in Florida, has been lauded for her prosecutorial expertise and work battling the opioid epidemic within the sunshine state.
However she can also be a former legal professional for President Trump who labored on his 2020 election problem and has been extremely vital of the prison investigations into him, even calling for “prosecutors to be prosecuted.”
Her nomination impressed scrutiny from Democrats over whether or not she’s going to preserve an impartial Justice Division.
“If confirmed, I will work to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice — and each of its components. Under my watch, the partisan weaponization of the Department of Justice will end,” Bondi stated at her affirmation listening to.
Democrats overseeing her nomination have been unconvinced.
“President Trump has said time and again that he expects the Justice Department to seek ‘retribution’ on his behalf. With Ms. Bondi, I’m afraid, the President has finally found someone who passes his loyalty test,” Sen. Dick Durbin (Unwell.), the highest Democrat on the panel, stated throughout a Monday ground speech.
Bondi refused to reply a variety of questions she dismissed as hypotheticals, sidestepping inquiries about whether or not she would appoint a particular counsel if Trump was accused of doing one thing unlawful. She additionally declined to say whether or not she would examine particular counsel Jack Smith.
She additionally declined to acknowledge that Trump misplaced the 2020 election, as an alternative saying solely that President Biden, nonetheless in workplace on the time, was the sitting president after a “peaceful transition of power.”
“President Biden is the President of the United States. He was duly sworn in, and he is the President of the United States. There was a peaceful transition of power. President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024,” Bondi stated.
In a ground speech Tuesday, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) famous that quite a few Democrats had famous Bondi was certified for the position.
“If my colleagues will not cross the aisle to vote for this qualified nominee, they’ll show that Senate Democrats are intent on opposing President’s Trump’s Cabinet picks for purely partisan reasons,” he stated.
Bondi takes the reins of the division at a vital time.
The Justice Division has fired or reassigned a variety of profession employees, together with dismissing a dozen prosecutors that labored on Smith’s staff.
FBI brokers that labored on Trump’s two prison instances have been additionally escorted out of the constructing final week.
Prosecutors who labored on the greater than 1,500 instances of people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 have been additionally let go from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in D.C.
And Deputy Lawyer Common Emil Bove, previously Trump’s prison protection legal professional, has demanded the FBI flip over info on the position 1000’s of FBI brokers performed in these instances.
Bondi obtained a letter from Durbin Tuesday asking whether or not she was conscious of “the removal, resignation, or reassignment of any career civil servant” and asking for her communications with the Trump transition staff in addition to present DOJ management.
Bondi’s affirmation comes as senators are nonetheless weighing the nomination of Kash Patel to guide the FBI, with Bondi going through quite a few questions on how she would cope with any abuse of energy by Patel.
“If he is confirmed, and if I am confirmed — he will follow the law if I am the attorney general of the United States of America. And I don’t believe he would do anything otherwise,” she stated.
