WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly deflected questions as she sought during a combative congressional hearing on Tuesday to defend herself against growing criticism that she’s turning the law enforcement agency into a weapon to seek vengeance against President Donald Trump’s political opponents.
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, ERIC TUCKER and STEPHEN GROVES
Democrats sought to use the hearing, coming on the heels of the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, to warn of what they view as the politicization of a department that has long prided itself on remaining independent from the White House.
Bondi brushed aside with seeming disdain questions about her tumultuous tenure, flatly refusing to answer time and again as Democrats pressed her on politically charged investigations, the firings of career prosecutors and other matters. Her refusal to engage on the questions meant little if any fresh insight was offered about her actions and decisions, with Bondi instead opting to respond to Democrats’ attacks by echoing conservative claims that President Joe Biden’s Justice Department — which brought two criminal cases against Trump — was the one that had been weaponized.
“They were playing politics with law enforcement powers and will go down as a historic betrayal of public trust,” Bondi said of the Biden Justice Department. “This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day.”
The hearing split early along deeply partisan lines, with Republicans repeatedly leaping to her defense to highlight the criminal cases against the president that they say show the institution she inherited was deeply politicized. They pointed to revelations from a day earlier that the FBI had analyzed phone records of several Republican lawmakers as part of an investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, a Democrat.
“This is an outrage, an unconstitutional breach and ought to be immediately addressed by you and Director Patel,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the committee, told Bondi, referring to FBI Director Kash Patel.
Democrats, meanwhile, accused Bondi of destroying the department’s credibility and eroding its longstanding independence from the White House as the Republican president publicly calls for the prosecution of his political foes.
“What has taken place since January 20th, 2025, would make even President Nixon recoil,” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee, said of the president who resigned to avoid being impeached in connection with the Watergate scandal. “This is your legacy, Attorney General Bondi. In eight short months, you fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain in American history. It will take decades to recover.”
Democrats press Bondi on her pledge not to play politics
The hearing marked Bondi’s first before the panel since her confirmation hearing last January, when she pledged to not play politics with the Justice Department — a promise Democrats pounced on as they pressed the attorney general on whether she can withstand political pressure from the White House.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, reminded Bondi of that commitment and asked her if she thought she had upheld it. Bondi replied that she believed she absolutely had.
“I pledged that I would end the weaponization also of the Justice Department and that America would once again have a one tier system of justice for all,” Bondi said. “And that is what we are doing.”
Bondi set the tone for the hearing at the outset, repeatedly snapping with a raised voice at Durbin and deflecting questions from him by pointing to the murder rate in Chicago and asserting that lawmakers from his party were responsible for shutting the government down.
“You’re sitting here grilling me, and they’re on their way to Chicago to keep your state safe,” Bondi said, referring to Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
“Madam Attorney General,” Durbin replied, “it’s my job to grill you.”
Bondi refuses to answer questions about Comey and other matters
She refused repeatedly to discuss matters, including a bribery investigation into Trump border czar Tom Homan that was shuttered under the Trump administration. That drew the ire of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, who accused Bondi of responding with “far-right internet talking points.”
She also declined to say whether she talked to the president about the case against Comey, who was charged last month with lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he said he had not authorized anyone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about a particular investigation. His indictment came just days after Trump appeared to publicly implore her on social media to take that action against him and other perceived political enemies.
“This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious answer to serious questions about the coverup of corruption, about the prosecution of the president’s enemies,” Sen. Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat from California, said as Bondi repeatedly interrupted him. “And when will it be that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis demand answers to those questions and refuse to accept personal slander as an answer to those questions?”
Comey is set to make his first court appearance on Wednesday in the case, which was brought despite career prosecutors’ reservations about the strength of evidence, after the Trump administration raced install a new prosecutor to secure the charges following the resignation under pressure of the experienced leader of that office.
The Justice Department under Bondi has opened criminal investigations into other vocal critics of the president, including Schiff on accusations of mortgage fraud, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor and current mayoral candidate. They have all denied wrongdoing, as has Comey, and have slammed the investigations as politically motivated.
