


Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump‘s attorney general nominee, vowed to senators that she would improve confidence in the Department of Justice on Wednesday during her confirmation hearing.
“Like the president, I believe we are on the cusp of a new golden age where the Department of Justice can and will do better if I am confirmed,” Bondi said in her opening remarks.
Bondi said she wanted to “get back to the basics, gangs, drugs, terrorists, cartels, our border, and our foreign adversaries.” She praised the First Step Act, a sweeping criminal justice reform bill passed in Trump’s first term, and said she planned to do more to expand on it.
“If confirmed, I will do everything in my power, and it will be my great responsibility to make America safe again,” Bondi said.
“I will fight every day to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice and each of its components. The partisanship, the weaponization, will be gone,” Bondi said.

Bondi served as the first female attorney general of Florida, and before that was a county prosecutor for nearly two decades.
She highlighted her work at the state level, saying she wiped out oxycodone dispensers, also known as pill mills, in Florida, fought price gouging during hurricane crises, and prioritized eliminating human trafficking.
Bondi spent weeks preparing for the confirmation hearing, meeting with a team of attorneys and advisers to examine how to improve the DOJ and holding in-depth meetings with nearly every member of the Judiciary Committee, according to a Trump transition team spokesman.
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said during his opening remarks that Bondi would be taking the helm of the DOJ at a “turbulent time.”
“The Justice Department’s infected with political decision-making, while its leaders refuse to acknowledge that reality,” Grassley said.
Bondi is expected to face a grilling from Democrats over their concerns that she will not operate independently from Trump but rather do his bidding by launching investigations into the president-elect’s political nemeses. Bondi has long been a fierce Trump ally, endorsing him in 2016, defending him during his first impeachment trial, and supporting some of his claims about 2020 election fraud.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the committee ranking member, warned Trump’s No. 1 priority is “loyalty” and that he plans to use his DOJ to seek retribution on those who investigated and prosecuted him, judges, election workers, and other government officials.
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“I need to know that you would tell the president ‘no’ if you’re asked to do something that is wrong, illegal, or unconstitutional,” Durbin said to Bondi.
Trump first chose fellow Floridian Matt Gaetz to lead the Department of Justice, but the former Republican congressman dropped out of consideration after receiving a lack of support in the Senate over alleged ethics violations. Bondi is expected to have an easier path to confirmation given her extensive experience and outreach to Democratic senators.