US Attorney General Pam Bondi clashes with critics at key Senate hearing

Democrats connected the Senate sheet grilled her implicit her enactment of the Justice Department. She deed back, with GOP support.

United States Attorney General Pam Bondi faced fierce questioning astatine a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, arsenic Democrats accused her of politicising the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Republicans rallied down her pledge to reconstruct instrumentality enforcement’s halfway mission.

In her archetypal quality earlier the Republican-controlled committee since the indictment of erstwhile FBI Director James Comey, Bondi connected Tuesday defended the department’s absorption nether her leadership, saying she came into bureau determined to extremity the “weaponisation of justice” and refocus connected convulsive crime.

She said the DOJ was present “returning to our halfway ngo of warring existent crime”, pointing to accrued national enactment successful Washington, DC; and Memphis, Tennessee.

Bondi besides defended the deployment of National Guard troops to cities similar Chicago and Portland, saying section governments failed to support citizens. She tied challenges successful enforcing nationalist information to the ongoing authorities shutdown, blaming Democrats for undermining instrumentality enforcement readiness.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee proceeding connected oversight of the Department of Justice, connected Capitol Hill successful Washington, DC, October 7, 2025 [AFP]

One of the captious moments of the proceeding came with Bondi’s justification for prosecuting Comey, a longtime professional of US President Donald Trump. Comey faces charges of mendacious statements and obstruction of Congress related to his 2020 legislature testimony, and is scheduled to look successful tribunal connected Wednesday. Democrats pressed whether the indictment followed from autarkic prosecutorial judgement oregon governmental pressure. Bondi declined to reply questions astir backstage conversations with the White House, calling them “personnel matters”.

The Jeffrey Epstein files were different flashpoint successful the proceeding arsenic Bondi repeatedly refused to explicate her determination to reverse people connected releasing documents. She alternatively accused Democratic senators of having accepted run donations from an affiliate of the late, convicted enactment offender.

Democrats besides quizzed her connected allegations that Trump’s borderline czar, Tom Homan, accepted $50,000 successful currency from undercover agents past year, earlier the existent US medication came into office. Bondi said the determination to driblet the enquiry preceded her tenure and declined to authorities whether the wealth had been recovered.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the apical Democrat connected the panel, repeatedly accused Bondi of utilizing her enactment to assistance weaponise the DOJ. “Our nation’s apical instrumentality enforcement bureau has go a shield for the president and his governmental allies erstwhile they prosecute successful misconduct,” helium said. The Illinois legislator claimed Bondi “fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and near an tremendous stain connected American history”.

“It volition instrumentality decades to recover,” helium added.

Under Bondi’s leadership, cardinal divisions specified arsenic civilian rights person seen wide departures, and vocation prosecutors tied to investigations into Trump oregon the January 6 onslaught connected the US Capitol person been removed oregon reassigned.

A missive by astir 300 erstwhile DOJ employees, released conscionable earlier the hearing, warned that the medication was “taking a sledgehammer to different longstanding work” and urged a instrumentality to organization norms.

Republicans connected the committee mostly defended her actions, echoing claims that the DOJ nether the anterior Biden medication — which brought 2 transgression cases against Trump — was the 1 that had been weaponised. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley commended Bondi for resetting priorities and asserted that instrumentality enforcement needed caller direction.