Pam Bondi’s Shameless Message to Democrats

It has been hard to look away from the violent, menacing ICE crackdown in Chicago, which is hastening the nation to a showdown with Donald Trump’s lawlessness. But the president’s contempt for the law also played out in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, where Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly defied Senate Democrats’ attempts to ask her basic questions about the operations of her office.

Bondi’s performance was of a piece with similar showdowns between Health and Human Services director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FBI director Kash Patel and Senate Democrats—obstructive, obnoxious, at times insulting. But Bondi was the most contemptuous of all. People kvetch about what the Democrats should be doing, but I saw Judiciary Democrats prepared with good solid questions, and Bondi shutting them down with a smile and a sneer.

It started with the very first Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, who asked Bondi who had ordered the FBI to flag any mentions of Trump in the Epstein files. “I’m not going to discuss anything about that with you, senator,” she replied. Her most obnoxious line to Durbin: “I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate Trump.” That set the tone of the day. She used the line later, subbing in California, while taunting California Senator Alex Padilla. She tweaked Senator Richard Blumenthal about a long-ago “controversy” where he seemed to say he served in Vietnam; although he served during the war, he was never in Vietnam.

When Senator Sheldon Whitehouse pressed her on releasing the Epstein files, she insisted Whitehouse had gotten campaign contributions from an Epstein associate, Reid Hoffman. Whitehouse later told CNN: “Her suggestion that I had received campaign contributions from this alleged Epstein close confidante simply isn’t true. All they had to do was go and look at my public campaign finance reports and see that this individual appears on them nowhere.” She accused Senator Mazie Hirono of attending a demonstration with alleged “antifa” members. The Hawaii senator laughed at the notion.

Senator Adam Schiff listed 11 questions that Bondi had refused to answer, from whether border czar Tom Homan kept the $50,000 he allegedly nabbed in an FBI sting operation (she deflected all questions about Homan’s behavior), whether Bondi discussed indicting former FBI director James Comey with Trump, Trump’s outrageous demand on Truth Social that she prosecute Comey, Attorney General Letitia James, and Schiff himself, and whether she fired career prosecutors for working on investigations related to January 6. Bondi loudly talked over Schiff, yelling zingers like “Will you apologize to Donald Trump for trying to impeach him after you now know that Joe Biden tried to cover up Hunter Biden’s involvement with Ukraine?”

Bondi tossed her hair, smiled, and smirked as Senate Democrats spoke, but was deferential toward Senate Republicans. In another era, there might have been some bipartisan chagrin at Bondi’s obvious contempt for their committee. But the truth is, Senate Republicans have little power themselves; it all derives from Donald Trump.

Democrats may be powerless against her for now, but even so, Bondi might have gone too far. Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst released close-up photos showing that Bondi came prepared with a folder of social media posts and bullet-pointed insults. She came off as petty, vindictive and entirely capable of enacting Trump’s promise to weaponize the government against his enemies. And that’s clearly not a good look. Bondi had been the least popular Trump cabinet member in public polls, until she was overtaken last month by RFK Jr. Her performance on Tuesday didn’t likely win over any skeptics.