Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s nominee for the next U.S. attorney general, repeatedly refused to explicitly state that the president-elect lost the 2020 presidential election while she was grilled under oath during her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
Asked by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin whether she can say whether Trump lost in 2020, Bondi did not say no.
“President Biden is the president of the United States, he was duly sworn in, and he is the president of the United States,” she replied.
She said Trump “left office and he was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.”
Bondi suggested she claims to have seen evidence of fraud in Pennsylvania despite Trump’s own Justice Department, legal counsel and courts across the country finding no such thing to legitimize his narrative of a “stolen” and” rigged” election.
“Do I accept the results? Of course I do,” she said. “No one from either side of the aisle should want there to be any issue with election integrity.”
“I think that question deserved a yes or no,” Durbin replied. “I think the length of your question means you weren’t prepared to say yes.”
Asked again by Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono, Bondi replied: “Joe Biden is the president of the United States.”
Hirono said there is a difference between acknowledging who is president and who won.
“You can’t say who won the 2020 election. It’s disturbing you can’t give voice to that fact,” she said.
Bondi did not respond.
Throughout her testimony, Bondi committed herself to the Constitution and to what she called “back to basics” prosecutions and investigations at the Department of Justice, striking at what she has called the partisan “weaponization” of the agency against perceived political enemies — echoing claims from Trump and his allies who have characterized the federal indictments of the former president has a politically motivated conspiracy.
But she did not explicitly rule out prosecuting Trump’s targets after senators asked her to explain her statements that “prosecutors will be prosecuted” under his administration.
The former Florida attorney general also repeatedly defended Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, who has vowed to dismantle the agency and threatened to “come after” Trump’s perceived enemies.
Asked if she would ever hire someone with an “enemies list,” what critics have called Patel’s self-described “members of the executive branch deep state,” she replied by directly highlighting the accomplishments of the man who could run the federal law enforcement agency under her direction.
“I’ll cut to the chase. You’re clearly talking about Kash Patel,” Bondi said. “I don’t believe he has an enemies list. … I know that Kash Patel has had 60 jury trials as a public defender, as a prosecutor, he has great intel experience … I have known Kash and I believe Kash is the right person, in the right time, for this job.”
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told Bondi that, if she becomes attorney general, “you have to be able to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election” and “you have to be able to say that January 6 insurrectionists who committed violence shouldn’t be pardoned.”
“You have to be able to say that a nominee for FBI director who says he has an enemies list — and that’s just the beginning of what he has said in terms of politicizing, deeply weaponizing the FBI against political opponents — that he shouldn’t be FBI director,” he said.
“No, I don’t,” Bondi fired back.
“I sit up here and speak the truth. I’m not going to say anything I need to say to get confirmed by this body,” she said. “I will answer the questions to the best of my ability, honestly. … If confirmed, he will follow the law … and I don’t believe he would do anything otherwise.”
If confirmed, Bondi could lead a radically reshaped Justice Department built around Trump.
Her deputy attorney general managing the agency’s day-to-day operations could be Trump’s criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche. His deputy could be his law partner Emil Bove, and the deputy handling the civil rights division could be Harmeet Dhillon, who led more than a dozen election challenges on behalf of the Trump campaign
D. John Sauer — who argued in front of federal appeals court judges and the Supreme Court for Trump’s “immunity” from criminal prosecution — was tapped for U.S. solicitor general.
Will Scharf — who is among the former president’s personal attorneys in his federal election interference case and Supreme Court battle for “immunity” from criminal prosecution — was named White House staff secretary.
