Trump's AG nominee won't say who won the 2020 election but repeats fraud claims about Pa.: 'I saw so much'

Julia Terruso, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Jan 15, 2025

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Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, repeatedly brought up Pennsylvania as she declined to answer who won the 2020 presidential election in her Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.

“I accept, of course, that Joe Biden is president of the United States,” Bondi said in response to a question from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “But what I can tell you is what I saw firsthand when I went to Pennsylvania, as an advocate for the campaign … I saw many things there,” Bondi said, adding later, “I saw so much.”

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, represented Trump during his first impeachment trial and was part of his legal team in 2020 that helped sow doubt about the results of that year’s presidential election. There was no evidence of widespread election fraud in Pennsylvania, the key battleground that helped seal the presidency for Biden that year.

Bondi’s role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election has emerged as one of the primary points of Democratic opposition to her nomination, but it’s unlikely to prevent confirmation in the GOP-controlled Senate. Over nearly four hours on Wednesday, she fielded questions about defending the Justice Department against partisan influence, potential Jan. 6 pardons, and her comments about the 2020 election

Bondi traveled to Philadelphia for a news conference outside the Convention Center the day after the 2020 election, before a winner had been called in the close race. Flanked by Rudy Giuliani and Lara Trump, she falsely declared: “Trump won Pennsylvania.” Sen. Alex Padilla, D- Calif., asked Bondi about that statement during her hearing.

“At that moment there were at least a million ballots left to be counted in Pennsylvania,” Padilla said, noting Biden went on to win by more than 80,000 votes. “Do you have any evidence of election fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election, yes or no?”

Bondi started to answer but was cut off by Padilla.

“Yes or no? If you have no evidence to offer, will you now retract the previous statement that Donald Trump won Pennsylvania?”

When Padilla cut her off again, she accused him of bullying her. “I guess you didn’t want to hear my answer about Pennsylvania,” she said.

The hearing also focused on whether Bondi would shield the Department of Justice from political influence, specifically whether she would push back should Trump try to prosecute political opponents. Bondi refused to explicitly say she would defy White House pressure, saying she wouldn’t deal in hypotheticals. But she told lawmakers that “politics will not play a part” in her leadership of federal law enforcement.

While Senate Democrats grilled Bondi in an hours-long hearing that included several heated exchanges, several Democrats acknowledged her likely confirmation, including Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who said he “looked forward” to working with her.

The focus on Bondi’s comments about the 2020 election comes the same week as the release of a special counsel report detailing Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

The report chronicles how members of Trump’s legal team considered whether they could simply throw out hundreds of thousands of votes that had been legally cast in Philadelphia to keep Trump in power.

The report quotes Giuliani — then Trump’s personal lawyer — as saying the idea was to “just flat out change the vote, deduct that number of votes … declare those votes, 300,000 votes in Philadelphia, illegal, unlawful.”

As part of the confirmation hearing, Bondi was asked if she saw any factual basis to investigate the report’s author, special counsel Jack Smith, whom Trump has repeatedly attacked on social media.

“I’m sitting here as a nominee, Senator,” Bondi said. “What I’m hearing on the news is horrible — do I know if he’s committed a crime? I’ve not looked at it.”

Bondi, who has represented Trump on and off for more than a decade, said the potential pardoning of defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol was “at the direction” of Trump but committed to reviewing the cases.

Asked by Coons if Trump could run for president again in 2028, Bondi said: “Not unless they change the Constitution.”

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