- Bondi, 59, served as attorney general in Florida between 2011 - 2019
- She arrived to her confirmation hearing with many of her family members
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Pam Bondi battled with Democrats over her ties to Donald Trump during her confirmation hearing Wednesday where she repeatedly batted down questions about the 2020 election.
Bondi, 59, the former two-time attorney general of Florida who Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Justice, arrived at her Senate confirmation hearing with her fiancé and family in tow.
Republicans and Democrats lauded her legal credentials before they began probing her priorities for the department and her thoughts on some of Trump's most controversial claims.
Democrats honed in on Bondi's past work with Trump, who she served briefly during his first impeachment and devised questions that could have put her at odds with the Republican.
They sought to coerce answers out of her pertaining to some of the president-elect's most controversial claims about the 2020 election, and whether she would act independently of Trump if confirmed.
'Are you prepared to say today, under oath, without reservation, that Donald Trump lost the presidential contest to Joe Biden,' the top Democrat on the confirmation panel, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Bondi near the beginning of the session.
Without skipping a beat Bondi took the question head on, avoiding the trap of denying the 2020 election results that Trump has called 'stolen' and 'rigged.'
'Ranking Member, President Joe Biden is the President of the United States,' Bondi retorted. 'He was duly sworn in, and he is the President of the United States.'
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Justice Department as attorney general, appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (L) prepares to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee with her fiancé John Wakefield during her confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney General
Bondi went toe-to-toe with Democrats who tried to grill her on Trump's 2020 election claims
'There was a peaceful transition of power,' she continued, before making sure to add 'President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.'
But that answer did not satisfy Durbin and the Democrats.
So he tried again: 'Do you have any doubts that Joe Biden had the majority of votes, electoral votes necessary to be elected president?'
Again Bondi answered in the affirmative, saying 'of course, that Joe Biden is President of the United States.'
Seizing the moment for herself, the seasoned prosecutor made sure to note how when working with the Trump team in 2020 she discovered many unusual things in Pennsylvania, presumably alluding to voting irregularities in the battleground state.
'I was on the ground in Pennsylvania, and I saw many things there,' she continued while addressing the Illinois Democrat.
'And I saw so much,' she continued, stopping short of saying specifically what.
'No one from either side of the aisle should want there to be any issues with election integrity in our country. We should all want our elections to be free and fair, and the rules and the laws to be followed.'
Bondi poses with Donald Trump on her Instagram in 2024
President Donald Trump (L) watches as Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a meeting with state and local officials on school safety in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on February 22, 2018 in Washington, D.C.
The Democrat didn't like the answer, telling Bondi, 'I think that question deserved a yes or no, and I think the length of your answer is an indication that you weren't prepared to answer yes,' that Biden had the winning amount of electoral votes.
A clip of the interaction between the attorney general nominee and the lawmaker caught the attention of Vice President-elect JD Vance, who posted the remarks and praised Bondi's performance in her confirmation hearing.
'Pam Bondi is crushing it,' Vance wrote.
Throughout the hearing a cast of Democrat senators repeatedly attempted to lure Bondi into saying that Trump lost the 2020 election, as opposed to her routine answer that Biden is president.
Later, Democratic California Sen. Alex Padilla hounded Bondi on her claims regarding the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania.
Padilla asked Bondi to offer evidence of election interference or refute her claims and admit they were false.
When she tried to speak, however, Padilla cut Bondi off, and continued onto his next question, which outraged the attorney general nominee.
'You cut me off when I was speaking,' she charged.
'I'm not going to be bullied by you,' Bondi continued. 'I guess you don't want to hear my answer.'
Sen. Alex Padilla got in a testy exchange with Bondi during the hearing Wednesday
Many of the Democrats' questions were meant to test how Bondi would act independently from Trump should she take office.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., asking whether Donald Trump could run again in 2028 admitted the Republican would not.
'No, senator, not unless they change the Constitution,' Bondi said, clearly aware that the 22nd Amendment restricts presidents from serving more than two terms.
California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and Bondi also had a tense exchange when the lawmaker tried to pressure the nominee into answering whether she would approve blanket pardons for Trump.
The president-elect has said he would pardon those involved with crimes during the January 6 riot on 'day one.'
Schiff, pressing Bondi on how she would act if Trump does so, demanded to know how the 59-year-old nominee will 'be able to review hundreds of cases on day one' to assist Trump in reviewing the pardons.
'Of course you won't,' Schiff answered his own question.
'Can I answer the question?' Bondi responded. 'I will look at every file I am asked to look at.'
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., questioned whether Bondi would prosecute special counsel Jack Smith or Liz Cheney
Schiff began talking over her when the former Florida attorney general snapped at him.
'You were censured by Congress, Senator, for comments just like this and they're so reckless!' Bondi exclaimed, referencing to the House vote in 2023 that condemned Schiff for parroting claims about Trump's ties to Russia that turned out false.
She also slammed Schiff during another moment for allegedly leaking a 2018 memo from the Democrat's old house colleague Devin Nunes which outlined the FBI's abuse of FISA surveillance applications.
'I will never play politics, you are trying to engage me in a gotcha, I won't do it,' she said.
Bondi also shared her vision for the role, including her top priority, which she says is being the reestablishment of a one tiered justice system.
'If confirmed as the next attorney general of the United States, my overriding objective will be to return the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe and vigorously prosecuting criminals and that includes getting back to basics gangs, drugs, terrorist cartels, our border, and our foreign adversaries,' she said during her opening remarks.
'Under my watch, the partisan weaponization of the Department of Justice will end,' she continued. 'America must have one tier of justice for all.'