Attorney General Bondi faces Senate questions over political pressure on Justice Department

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Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing lawmakers at a congressional hearing Tuesday amid growing questions about political influence over a Justice Department that has already criminally charged one of President Donald Trump's longtime foes and is facing intense White House pressure to prosecute others.

Transcript

00:00Attorney General Bondi, this Congress, I've made public one document after another, one

00:22whistleblower disclosure after another, one example of weaponization after another.

00:30So to our average constituent, this is all history, but it's all pointing out the wrong

00:37of government, using the power of government to go after people that are political people

00:47you don't like.

00:49They're pointing this all out because we can't have this repeated in the United States.

00:54We want to end to it right now whether we have Republican or Democrat administrations.

01:01All evidence of your predecessors total failures.

01:04It's time for accountability.

01:06And I look forward to hearing about your success in that regard.

01:10Senator Durbin.

01:11Senator Durbin.

01:12Thanks Chairman Grassley for holding this oversight hearing.

01:15Welcome to my Republican colleagues who claim the previous administration weaponized the

01:20Department of Justice.

01:22President Biden retained President Trump's FBI Director Christopher Wray, who President

01:27Trump then fired.

01:29President Biden never directed the Attorney General to prosecute his political opponents.

01:34President Biden never fired his own political appointees for refusing to prosecute his targets.

01:39What has taken place since January 20th, 2025 would make even President Nixon recoil.

01:45This is your legacy, Attorney General Bondi.

01:48In eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an

01:52enormous stain in American history.

01:55It will take decades to recover.

01:57Do you affirm the testimony you're about to give before this committee?

02:01It will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God, please.

02:09They are a critical reminder of our central mission here at the Department of Justice, protecting

02:15the safety and security of the American people.

02:19That is why, even when the government is otherwise shut down because of the Democrats, the Department's

02:25law enforcement officers and prosecutors are hard at work fighting crime, keeping our streets

02:31safe, and protecting you from the threats foreign and domestic.

02:36ATF has taken more than 23,000 illegal guns off our streets, 3,400.

02:43When I was confirmed as the 87th Attorney General of the United States, I took office

02:48with two main goals, to end the weaponization of justice and return the department to its core

02:54mission of fighting violent crime.

02:57As to ending the weaponization of justice, we learned that former FBI secretly investigated

03:02you and your colleagues.

03:04Why?

03:05They wanted to take President Trump off the playing field.

03:08They were playing politics with law enforcement powers and will go down as a historic betrayal

03:13of public trust.

03:16This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people's faith in our law enforcement

03:21system.

03:22We will work to earn that back every single day.

03:26We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime.

03:31While there is more work to do, I believe in eight short months, we have made tremendous

03:35progress towards those ends.

03:38Our federal surges in Washington, D.C. and Memphis are a perfect example of how my attorneys

03:44have done incredible work advancing President Trump's agenda and protecting the executive

03:49branch from judicial overreach.

03:52We've been sued more than 400 times since January 20th.

03:56Judges have issued more than 90 temporary restraining orders against us, more than the previous

04:02several administrations combined.

04:05Despite the unprecedented degree of activism we've seen from the lower courts, we have

04:09never ignored a court order.

04:11And why would we?

04:12We have secured a historic 22 victories at the Supreme Court alone, with more to come.

04:19Our civil rights attorneys are fighting discrimination and anti-Semitism.

04:23Our criminal attorneys are prosecuting violent criminals and foreign terrorists every single

04:28day.

04:29I look forward to continuing this work at the Department of Justice, and I look forward

04:33to testifying before you today.

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