The Senate on Wednesday voted to substantiate Pam Bondi as the subsequent legal professional basic, giving her management of a Justice Division embroiled in controversy.
The vote was 54-46. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joined all Republicans in voting in help of Bondi.
Bondi, a two-term legal professional basic in Florida, has been lauded for her prosecutorial expertise and work battling the opioid epidemic within the Sunshine State.
However she can also be a former legal professional for President Trump who labored on his 2020 election problem and has been extremely essential of the legal investigations into him, even calling for “prosecutors to be prosecuted.”
Her nomination inspired scrutiny from Democrats over whether or not she is going to keep an impartial Justice Division.
“If confirmed, I’ll work to revive confidence and integrity to the Division of Justice — and every of its parts. Underneath my watch, the partisan weaponization of the Division of Justice will finish,” Bondi stated at her affirmation listening to.
Democrats overseeing her nomination had been unconvinced.
“President Trump has stated again and again that he expects the Justice Division to hunt ‘retribution’ on his behalf. With Ms. Bondi, I’m afraid, the president has lastly discovered somebody who passes his loyalty take a look at,” Sen. Dick Durbin (In poor health.), the highest Democrat on the panel, stated throughout a Monday flooring speech.
Bondi refused to answer quite a few questions she dismissed as hypotheticals, sidestepping inquiries about whether or not she would appoint a particular counsel if Trump was accused of doing one thing unlawful. She additionally declined to say whether she would investigate former particular counsel Jack Smith.
She additionally declined to acknowledge that Trump misplaced the 2020 election, as an alternative saying solely that former President Biden, nonetheless in workplace on the time, was the sitting president after a “peaceable transition of energy.”
“President Biden is the president of america. He was duly sworn in, and he’s the president of america. There was a peaceable transition of energy. President Trump left workplace and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024,” Bondi stated.
In a flooring speech Tuesday, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) famous that quite a few Democrats had acknowledged Bondi was certified for the position.
“If my colleagues won’t cross the aisle to vote for this certified nominee, they’ll present that Senate Democrats are intent on opposing President’s Trump’s Cupboard picks for purely partisan causes,” he stated.
Bondi takes the reins of the division at a essential time.
The Justice Division has fired or reassigned a number of career staff, together with dismissing a dozen prosecutors who labored on Smith’s crew.
FBI brokers who labored on Trump’s two legal circumstances had been additionally escorted out of the building final week.
Prosecutors who labored on the greater than 1,500 circumstances of those that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, had been additionally let go from the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in D.C.
And Deputy Legal professional Basic Emil Bove, previously Trump’s legal protection legal professional, has demanded the FBI flip over data on the position 1000’s of FBI brokers performed in these circumstances.
Bondi obtained a letter from Durbin on Tuesday asking whether or not she was conscious of “the elimination, resignation, or reassignment of any profession civil servant” and asking for her communications with the Trump transition crew in addition to present Justice Division management.
Bondi’s affirmation comes as senators are nonetheless weighing the nomination of Kash Patel to guide the FBI, with Bondi going through quite a few questions on how she would take care of any abuse of energy by Patel.
“If he’s confirmed, and if I’m confirmed — he’ll observe the regulation if I’m the legal professional basic of america of America. And I don’t consider he would do something in any other case,” she stated.