Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, offered limited assurances on Wednesday that she would maintain the justice department’s traditional independence from the White House at her confirmation hearing before the Senate judiciary committee.
The consensus across the committee was that Bondi, the former Florida attorney general and longtime state prosecutor, was sufficiently qualified and experienced to lead the department in Trump’s second term.
But she walked a fine line between casting herself as a nonpolitical prosecutor and as a Trump loyalist, which was viewed with alarm by Democrats concerned that she will find it challenging to resist political pressure exerted by the president.
Bondi insisted that she would ensure the justice department would remain independent by continuing the policy that restricts the interactions with the White House and would not allow the FBI to pursue Trump’s perceived enemies, as identified by FBI director nominee Kash Patel.
“I will meet with the White House counsel and appropriate officials and follow the contacts policy,” Bondi said, adding later that there would “never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice”.
At the same time, Bondi expressly avoided saying that Trump lost the 2020 election, delivering the boilerplate response that Joe Biden became the president. And she dodged trickier hypotheticals like what she would do if Trump asked her to use the justice department for his own ends.
“I wouldn’t be attorney general if anyone asked me to do something improper and I felt I had to carry that out,” Bondi said, when asked if she would resign if Trump asked her to do something illegal.
Pressed on her own remarks on TV about her interest in “prosecuting the prosecutors” – comments widely seen as being aimed at the prosecutors who indicted Trump – Bondi pivoted to complain about a prosecutor who had doctored an application for a warrant during the Russia investigation.
The hearing was unlikely to allay concerns held by Democrats that she would be able to resist political interference by Trump given her personal loyalty to him, including when she supported Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims and joined his legal defense team at his first impeachment trial.
That loyalty to Trump has also raised hackles at the justice department, which prides itself on its independence from White House pressure and recalls with a deep fear how Trump in his first term ousted top officials when they stopped acquiescing to his demands.
Trump replaced his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, after he recused himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia and, later, soured on his last attorney general, William Barr, after he refused to endorse Trump’s false 2020 election claims.
Bondi also faced questions from Democrats about possible conflicts of interest arising from her most recent work for the major corporate lobbying firm Ballard Partners, especially on behalf of government contractors like the Geo Group, a Bureau of Prisons contractor accused of mismanagement.
As the chair of Ballard’s corporate regulatory compliance practice, Bondi has also lobbied for major companies that have battled the justice department she will be tasked with leading, including in various antitrust and fraud lawsuits.
If she were presented with an instance of possible conflict of interest, “I will consult with the career ethics officials within the Department of Justice and make the appropriate decision”, Bondi said. She declined to say upfront whether she would recuse herself.
Bondi graduated in 1987 from the University of Florida and earned her law degree in 1990 from Stetson University. She was a county prosecutor in Florida before successfully running for Florida attorney general in 2010 in part due to regular appearances on Fox News.
During Bondi’s tenure as Florida attorney general, in 2013 her office received nearly two-dozen complaints about Trump University and her aides have said she once considered joining a multi-state lawsuit brought on behalf of students who claimed they had been cheated.
As she was weighing the lawsuit, Bondi’s political action committee received a $25,000 contribution from a non-profit funded by Trump. While Trump and Bondi both deny a quid pro quo, Bondi never joined the lawsuit and Trump had to pay a $2,500 fine for violating tax laws to make the donation.