WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s choice for attorney general, Pam Bondi, vowed on Wednesday not to use the U.S. Justice Department to target people based on their politics, seeking to allay concerns the president-elect will use law enforcement to go after his opponents.
“There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice,” Bondi told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I will not politicize that office. I will not target people simply because of their political affiliation.”
Bondi, 59, served as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019, and helped defend Trump during his 2019 impeachment trial which ended in his acquittal on charges of pressuring Ukraine to investigate his rival, now-President Joe Biden.
Bondi criticized past investigations and prosecutions of Trump by the Justice Department, suggesting they were evidence of partisan “weaponization.”
The Justice Department in Biden’s Democratic administration brought two criminal cases against the Republican Trump over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and retaining classified documents. Both cases, brought by a special counsel designed to give a degree of independence, have since been dropped.
Trump has threatened to use the U.S. justice system to seek revenge against his political enemies when he returns to power.
“The concern is that weaponization of the Justice Department may well occur under your tenure,” Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse told Bondi. “We want to make sure that’s not the case, that you remain independent.”
The Republican-majority Senate is evaluating a wave of cabinet picks, some controversial, ahead of Trump’s return to office on Monday. Lawmakers held a fiery hearing with Trump’s choice for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Tuesday, and are due on Thursday to hear from his choice for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent.
Under questioning from Democrats, Bondi declined to say directly how she would respond if the White House sought to influence criminal investigations.
“If I thought that would happen, I would not be sitting here today,” she said.
Bondi said she accepted Biden’s 2020 election win, but suggested she saw evidence of irregularities while serving as an advocate for Trump’s campaign.
Following Trump’s 2020 election defeat, she appeared at press conferences and on television shows where she echoed some of Trump’s false claims about election fraud.
Bondi said she would evaluate potential pardons for those accused of taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol on a “case-by-case” basis if asked.
Trump has vowed to pardon at least some of the roughly 1,600 people criminally charged with taking part in the riot, but has suggested that those who were violent may not get a reprieve.
Bondi won praise from Republicans for promising to prioritize prosecuting violent crime, gangs, child sex abusers and drug traffickers, protecting the country from “terrorists and other foreign threats” and addressing “the overwhelming crisis at the border.”
She added that she also will focus on protecting free speech, religious freedom and “the right to bear arms,” and work to fix the Federal Bureau of Prisons which she said has suffered from “years of mismanagement, lack of funding, and low morale.”
Several Republican senators aired long-running grievances about the Justice Department’s handling of investigations involving Trump and practices they said targeted conservatives.
“Help us restore legitimacy to the Department of Justice,” Republican Senator John Kennedy told Bondi, urging her to “find out who the bad guys are” and “get rid of them.”
PAST, LOBBYING IN SPOTLIGHT
In 2013, while serving as Florida attorney general, Bondi declined to join with other states to investigate Trump University shortly after a political action committee supporting her campaign received a $25,000 donation from the Trump Foundation.
That for-profit Trump venture closed and in 2018 a federal judge signed off on a $25 million settlement to close lawsuits brought by former students claiming they were lured by false promises.
Bondi denied any connection between the donation and her decision not to investigate Trump University.
Bondi has also worked as a lobbyist for Ballard Partners since 2019.
Federal ethics rules generally require government employees to recuse themselves from participating in matters that could have a direct financial impact on them and for a period of time to recuse themselves from working on cases involving parties with whom they have personal or business relationships.
Bondi’s current or former lobbying clients include foreign governments and companies that have come under recent Justice Department scrutiny, including Uber Technologies Inc, Amazon.com, Carnival North America LLC, and General Motors.
The GEO Group, a private prison company, has some outstanding contracts with the Justice Department, federal spending records show.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone, Daniel Wallis and Howard Goller)
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