Bondi dodges questions as she clashes with Democrats over claims she’s weaponized Justice Department

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly deflected questions as she sought during a combative congressional hearing on Tuesday to defend herself against growing criticism that she’s turning the law enforcement agency into a weapon to seek vengeance against President Donald Trump’s political opponents.

Democrats sought to use the hearing, coming on the heels of the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, to warn of what they view as the politicization of a department that has long prided itself on remaining independent from the White House.

Bondi brushed aside with seeming disdain questions about her tumultuous tenure, flatly refusing to answer time and again as Democrats pressed her on politically charged investigations, the firings of career prosecutors and other matters. Her refusal to engage on the questions meant little if any fresh insight was offered about her actions and decisions, with Bondi instead opting to respond to Democrats’ attacks by echoing conservative claims that President Joe Biden’s Justice Department — which brought two criminal cases against Trump — was the one that had been weaponized.

“They were playing politics with law enforcement powers and will go down as a historic betrayal of public trust,” Bondi said of the Biden Justice Department. “This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day.”

The hearing split early along deeply partisan lines, with Republicans repeatedly leaping to her defense to highlight the criminal cases against the president that they say show the institution she inherited was deeply politicized. They pointed to revelations from a day earlier that the FBI had analyzed phone records of several Republican lawmakers as part of an investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, a Democrat.

“This is an outrage, an unconstitutional breach and ought to be immediately addressed by you and Director Patel,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the committee, told Bondi, referring to FBI Director Kash Patel.