4 takeaways from Pam Bondi's attorney general confirmation hearing

Kirby Wilson, Tampa Bay Times on Jan 15, 2025

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Pam Bondi, the onetime Florida attorney general, is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Justice.

On Wednesday, she appeared at a confirmation hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats grilled Bondi on her lobbying clients, her relationship with Trump and her legal work to question the results of the 2020 election. Republicans heaped praise on Bondi and prodded her to articulate her plans to help secure the border and keep America safe from foreign threats.

Here are four main takeaways from the hearing.

No one questioned Bondi’s experience

Republicans were giddy when discussing the prospect of Bondi overseeing the Department of Justice. At one point, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas called Bondi’s testimony “music to my ears.”

That was to be expected. Perhaps less expected: The Democrats on the committee also said Bondi had the requisite experience to be attorney general.

“At issue, I believe in this nomination hearing, is not your competence nor your experience,” Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois said at the beginning of his questioning time.

“Your experience as a prosecutor is the kind of thing we would expect to see as the nominee for attorney general,” said Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.

Bondi faced questions about her lobbying

For much of the five years between her time as Florida’s attorney general and her nomination to be America’s attorney general, Bondi was a lobbyist for Ballard Partners, one of the most prominent firms in Washington.

Among her clients were Amazon, GM, Uber and Major League Baseball — all of whom could face scrutiny by the Justice Department, which represents the United States in legal matters. Amazon is currently the subject of federal litigation.

Durbin asked Bondi about her time lobbying. In particular, he questioned her work for the GEO Group, a private prison company that contracts with the federal government for immigration detention facilities. Given that Trump has promised to crack down on illegal immigration, that firm could be in for a windfall under his administration, Durbin noted.

Bondi promised to consult ethics professionals at the Department of Justice over potential conflicts.

“If there are any conflicts with anyone I represented in private practice, I would consult with the career ethics officials within the department and make the appropriate decision,” Bondi said.

The 2020 election loomed large

At least two Democrats asked Bondi who won the 2020 election. In both cases, Bondi declined to answer directly. Both times, in response, she stated that Joe Biden is the current president.

In November 2020, Bondi worked for the Trump campaign to sow doubt about the vote counting in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.

“We’ve won Pennsylvania, and we want every vote to be counted in a fair way,” Bondi said at the time.

Bondi filed a legal complaint at the time of the 2020 vote counting alleging that the Trump campaign was not allowed to stand close enough to ballot tabulators in Pennsylvania. She won on that point in court, and Trump campaign officials were allowed to stand six feet from the counting.

At the time, Bondi said voter fraud could happen if campaign officials weren’t allowed to supervise the count closely. In a November 2020 interview on Fox News, She called late-arriving mail-in-ballots, which leaned heavily Democratic, “fake ballots.”

In the end, there was no evidence of thousands of “fake ballots” being counted by Pennsylvania elected officials. Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes.

But more than four years later, Bondi would not admit that Trump lost.

“It’s disturbing that you can’t give voice to that fact,” said Hirono, the Democratic senator.

Republicans still chafe at the Trump prosecutions

Essentially every Republican senator had the same question for Bondi: What will she do to rid the Department of Justice of its partisan slant against Republicans?

Under Biden, the Department of Justice opened multiple investigations into Trump’s conduct. One related to his handling of classified documents. (Biden himself was subject to a similar investigation.) Another had to do with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

To Republicans, these investigations were an affront.

“We have seen over the last four years, a Department of Justice that systematically targeted the political opponents of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and that systematically protected his friends and allies,” said Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Bondi promised to keep politics out of the department as attorney general.

“My overriding objective will be to return the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe and vigorously prosecuting criminals,” Bondi said. “That includes getting back to basics: gang, drugs cartels, our border and our foreign adversary.”