[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 4, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S583-S590]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Nomination of Pamela Bondi
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, shortly, Senate Republicans will confirm
the nomination of Pam Bondi to serve as Attorney General and lead the
Department of Justice in the new administration.
Yesterday, I came to the Senate floor to discuss the Trump
administration's decision to purge Department of Justice officials and
warned that Ms. Bondi's record suggests that she will aid in this
effort to pack the Department of Justice with loyalists seeking
retribution against President Trump's political rivals.
Since the Watergate era, there has been bipartisan support for the
principle that the Department of Justice investigations and
prosecutions must be independent from the White House. Over the years,
both Republicans and Democrats have asked many individuals seeking the
office of Attorney General one basic question: Will you be willing to
tell the President no?
Given that Ms. Bondi, when speaking about President Trump's criminal
indictments, threatened ``the prosecutors will be prosecuted, and the
investigators will be investigated,'' I have serious doubts about her
willingness to really say no to this President.
This concern is even more pressing because, over the last 16 days,
the Trump administration has purged dozens of senior career law
enforcement officials at the Department of Justice and at the FBI. This
purge has been particularly focused on dedicated, nonpartisan
prosecutors and investigators working in the National Security Division
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On its first day, the Trump administration removed or reassigned as
many as 20 experienced professionals with invaluable national security
expertise, without any comparable replacements, including the veteran
career Deputy Assistant Attorneys General in the National Security
Division. These are men and women we have entrusted with the
responsibility to keep America safe. They were summarily dismissed by
this new President just days into his administration. Those who have
been reassigned are reportedly being put in roles concerning
immigration enforcement, for which they have little expertise.
We had a hearing this morning about fentanyl and talked about some
70,000 Americans each year losing their lives to this terrible drug. We
are all concerned and expressed it at this hearing. But some of the
very people who are working in drug enforcement are going to be removed
and put into mass deportation of immigrants.
We have said over and over again that if the President is setting out
to do what he promised he would do, he
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needs more personnel to get it done or he will have to cut back
invaluable functions of our law enforcement community at the risk of
endangering the families and businesses in America.
Since that warning, dozens more senior officials have been removed.
At the FBI, at least six FBI Executive Assistant Directors, or EADs,
have been removed, including the EADs who oversee the National Security
Branch, Intelligence Branch, and the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and
Services Branch. The Trump administration has also removed special
agents in charge of at least four major field offices and the Assistant
Director of the Washington Field Office.
The Acting Attorney General has also issued a memo firing dozens of
career DOJ prosecutors, stating:
Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I
do not believe that the leadership at the Department can
trust you . . . in implementing the President's agenda
faithfully.
The Trump administration has even asked line attorneys and agents to
retire, resign, or be fired simply for handling tasks linked to the
investigation of President Trump or prosecution of his misconduct.
The Acting FBI Director informed the entire FBI workforce that he was
reviewing the files of ``all current and former FBI personnel assigned
at any time to investigations and/or prosecutions'' relating to January
6 and unrelated terrorism cases.
Mr. President, if you are a student of history, you know that when
the communists took over the Soviet Union, one of the things that they
gloried in doing was rewriting history, trying to make the bad
chapters, the embarrassing chapters, the sad chapters different so that
future generations never were really quite sure what happened. That is
exactly what is going on with January 6, 2021.
Despite the graphic video evidence of what happened on that day when
this insurrectionist mob tried to take control of this Capitol and stop
the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joseph Biden--despite the
clear evidence to the contrary, they continue to believe that this is a
hoax, that somehow these were just tourists coming by the Capitol.
Those of us who were there, those of us who remember the danger that
was brought by these mobsters and thugs, know that is a lie.
Now they are going through the Department of Justice and saying: If
you were involved in prosecuting any of these people who beat up on the
policemen in this building, tore down the structures, broke the
windows; if you were involved in any prosecution involving them, you
are not welcome at the Department of Justice.
They want to rewrite history. They want future generations to believe
the lie that they have perpetrated about what happened on that day.
Those of us who were there will never forget what actually did happen.
The interim U.S. attorney for DC also ordered an internal review of
staff handling cases relating to January 6, moved to dismiss all
pending charges against those defendants, and has already fired dozens
of prosecutors and investigators who worked those cases.
The people who were spared by the pardon of Donald Trump include
individuals who are dangerous. One had a record of 38 convictions for
crimes, and they are now back out on the street.
Over the past weekend, thousands of FBI personnel across the country
were told to complete a questionnaire that asked a series of questions
about their involvement in the prosecution and investigation of January
6.
This shameless partisan retribution is only the beginning. It has
been reported that future FBI Director Kash Patel, if he is chosen by
the Senate, will be guided by an advisory committee composed of solely
partisan political operators, including an associate of Elon Musk's.
Elon Musk. Who elected him? By what authority does he have any voice in
the administration of our government? Why should he or his minions have
access to the private records of American citizens? It is happening.
These actions will cripple FBI field offices and U.S. attorneys
offices across the country by increasing the caseload for the remaining
agents, dramatically slowing down critical investigations and
prosecutions.
The Trump Department of Justice is taking this partisanship beyond
the President's personal grievances, as many as there may be. They are
already dropping criminal investigations against the President's
allies, such as Congressman Andy Ogles. They also have begun
systemically stripping the Department of Justice of vital, substantive
expertise by reducing personnel from the law and policy sections of
various divisions, such as the Environment and Natural Resources
Division, which pursues polluters who poison our communities.
As America faces a heightened threat landscape, these shocking
removals and reassignments of hundreds of employees deprive the
Department of Justice and FBI of experienced leadership and decades of
experience fighting violent crime, espionage, and terrorism.
For years, my Republican colleagues claimed they ``back the blue''
and accused Democrats of being soft on crime. We heard it over and over
and over. But now, as President Trump is gutting our Nation's law
enforcement Agencies and putting our national security at risk, my
Republican colleagues do not complain. They are nowhere to be found.
Instead of condemning these actions, they will likely come to the
Senate floor tonight and confirm an individual to lead the Department
of Justice who is in lockstep with this policy of President Trump and
was chosen for the role specifically because she is loyal. More than
anything else, she is loyal.
I urge my colleagues to consider what a danger President Trump and
Pam Bondi present to this Nation. I will oppose her confirmation and
hope my colleagues will do the same.
I will also say letters went out today asking for further hearings on
Kash Patel. I have been reading his response to the questions for the
record--QFR--and I can tell you, they raise more questions than they
answer. He has an attitude. To think this man will be in charge of
38,000 FBI agents and personnel, 400 field offices across the Nation
and around the world, is going to have the authority to investigate
those whom he chooses, is a frightening thing. His message in politics
is ``get even.''
I read his book. It is called ``Government Gangsters.'' This book, in
specific detail, talks about his view of politics. He has a long list
of grievances, political and personal, and he plans to get even. That
is not the kind of person we need in charge of the FBI. He has no
experience to point to of any significance which qualifies him for this
job.
We have had many Directors of the FBI chosen for long periods of time
because of our change in the law. We now have a 10-year period of
service for the Director of the FBI, and we also do our best to make
sure they are apolitical since they bridge various administrations, not
just one or two. That is part of the law, and that is the reason we did
it.
Now we are going to put a man in that position who has no experience,
no background, and a political chip on his shoulder. I am afraid that
is just a recipe for disaster.
I urge my colleagues to think twice about Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.
This is not what we should expect or want from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and Department of Justice.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I believe that the Attorney General may, in
fact, be the most important position in a President's Cabinet, and if
it is not the most important, it certainly is the most difficult.
Whoever is our Attorney General is a person that serves all of us.
They have two clients. They have the President who appointed her or him
and they have the Constitution.
Let me be clear that I have no objections to any President, including
President Trump, appointing someone that the President is close to.
President Kennedy appointed his brother. I do have a problem with any
President seeing the job of Attorney General to be the person who runs
``my Justice Department,'' and that is how President Trump has
characterized it--``my Justice Department.''
So we have this dilemma with respect to coming to a conclusion on the
use of the responsibility that the Senate as an institution has for the
advice and consent of a Cabinet member.
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I start from the orientation that a President should be able to pick
his team and that we should take up nominations and move on them, vote
on them expeditiously. My orientation is that the President is entitled
to the benefit of the doubt but not to a blank check.
What is also difficult for me with respect to this appointment is
that, in my view, Pam Bondi is accomplished and competent and
qualified. I have great respect for her work as a county prosecutor in
Florida, and I have great respect for her work as attorney general in
the State of Florida. I have great respect for the fact that, as a
woman, she made that decision to run for attorney general and had to
overcome pretty significant odds in order to win that position.
I also remember, Mr. Ranking Member, that she had great testimony
from people whom she worked with, and I think both you and I have a
great deal of respect for folks who have a leadership position and
treat their subordinates with great respect and have their affection
and confidence, and that came through in the testimony of people who
have worked with Ms. Bondi.
My grave concern is really about President Trump and what he is
clearly demanding of the person, whoever it is--and now it is Ms.
Bondi--what the President is demanding, and that clearly is a loyalty
oath to him as opposed to a demand for straightforward, candid advice,
including, if the President is asking something to be done, like the
prosecution of a political adversary, that the answer, Mr. President,
has to be no. That is what the President is demanding. We can argue on
both sides about whether that is the case, but the evidence is
overwhelming.
The question that I have asked a number of nominees, including Mr.
Patel and including Ms. Bondi, is, Who won the 2020 election? It is
pretty clear that the President's team, in preparing folks for that
inevitable question, came up with an acceptable answer. The acceptable
answer is that President Biden was the President; President Biden was
certified. No one could just say the straightforward: President Biden
won.
In the closest election in our history, Bush v. Gore, after the
Supreme Court made its decision, not only did Al Gore accept the
outcome, but Democrats did, Americans did. That was pre-January 6 when
we all relied on the guardrail in the Constitution that there would be
a commitment to a peaceful transfer of power and that there would be
renunciation of violence as a means of persuasion in the outcome of an
election.
January 6 did change that. There was an attack on the Capitol. Many
of us were here. That was inspired by President Trump. He invited
people to come: ``It will be wild.''
It was provoked because the President used the enormous authority he
had and the enormous credibility he had with people who supported him
to begin peddling the ``Stop the Steal'' narrative; the election was
stolen.
President Trump has never, ever given up on that. As far as he is
concerned, he says to every person and every audience: That election is
stolen.
People who were going to work in his administration, in a vetting
process, had to answer that question in the way that was acceptable to
then-duly elected President Trump. That is not acceptable to me. It is
not acceptable.
President Biden won. President Trump won this last election. I didn't
vote for him, but I can say it. I can acknowledge it and do the best I
can as a member of the minority party.
But we now have a President who is now allowing a person to have a
dual loyalty to him, yes, and to the Constitution, to make it clear for
that person who is nominated for a law enforcement position, that they
accept his narrative of what happened in 2020. It is really dangerous,
in my view, for our country.
The President has gone on, much to my regret, intensifying that
concern that many of us have as to whether there will be an adherence
to the rule of law.
In an extraordinary first 2 weeks, the President has gone on--it is
my opinion, but a lot of courts support it--a rampage of illegality. It
is a serious threat to our country.
Let me start with the impoundment--you know, basic civics. The
article I branch--that is the U.S. Senate and U.S. House--has authority
over appropriations and spending. The executive can propose, and we can
consider, an appropriations request. The President can reject an
appropriations bill that Congress passes with a veto. But what the
President can't do is pick and choose where he feels like spending or
just disregarding the appropriations passed by the Congress of the
United States. And he is doing that.
The impoundment is patently illegal, not even close. And what is
clear to me is the President doesn't care if the impoundment causes
enough havoc that affected agencies will either be destroyed or
severely damaged.
Let me give a couple of examples. When that impoundment notice went
out, Wells River Community Health Center in Vermont--it provides
healthcare to really poor Vermonters, and they do an incredible job.
They have a cash balance that allows them to stay in business from 0 to
5 days. That is it. The impoundment notice comes in, literally, they
show up to work, and it says: You shut down. You can't open up
tomorrow.
Those folks running that organization don't have the money to pay the
salaries of anyone: the doctors, the receptionists, the medical
providers.
We see what is happening at USAID: ``We are shutting you down.'' The
doors are locked. People show up for work; they can't get in. That is
illegal and unconstitutional, as I see it.
The administration, the President, has made a clear decision that he
doesn't care. He is not going to worry about the niceties. Things that
restrained Republican and Democratic Presidents before; namely,
adherence to the law and recognition of their responsibility to
preserve a tool that has been a safeguard for our democracy through
both Republican and Democratic administrations, those rules don't apply
to him.
Then we have seen that he has delegated authority to a nonelected
billionaire--Mr. Musk--and told him, basically, to go wild with the
Federal Government; do what you want; go where you want. And in one of
the most astonishing things, they sent over--Musk sent over five kids.
One of them is 19; he can't drink in Vermont--and four early-20-year-
old folks. They marched in and the Treasury Secretary, basically, of
the United States--the successor to Alexander Hamilton--a man I
respect, by the way, Mr. Bessent, and the person who ran the payment
system, and said: ``We are in charge.'' That is basically what they
did.
Then they got access to the computers, which means they have your
Social Security Number and mine. They have information about our taxes.
Every individual in this country, their privacy has now been put in
jeopardy.
Just think if this were the private sector. Let's say you are Jamie
Dimon, and you run a major financial institution, J.P. Morgan, and five
kids show up at your bank. They say: Hey, Mr. Musk sent us. Give us
access to the computers.
And they have access to all the individual information, company
information, of the folks who work with J.P. Morgan. That is what
happened.
It is not really apparent to all the American people what is
happening. It is the folks who are directly impacted by this, the folks
at USAID who don't have a job, the folks at Wells River Clinic who are
operating on the tightest of margins who have suffered and don't know
whether they will be able to keep the lights on. It is the woman, the
mom, who had, finally, after months and months of trying, a dental
appointment through Medicaid--they had it canceled arbitrarily and
abruptly. Those individuals are feeling it, and this is going to ripple
out to more and more Americans seeing what is happening.
We need an Attorney General who will share my shock at a President
acting in such a lawless way.
The fact is, frankly, I don't think President Trump ever in the world
would place a value on having an Attorney General who is willing to
tell him: Mr. President, no, you can't get appointed unless you pass
the test. And the test was on full display both with Mr. Patel and Ms.
Bondi in their inability to answer the basic question: Who won the 2020
election?
My concern is not that they ``get the answer right.'' My concern is
that they
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get that their profound responsibility is, first and foremost, to the
Constitution and the rule of law.
The President is not looking for anyone other than someone who is
going to give him the fealty that he demands when these questions
arise.
What we are seeing with the President in these first 2 weeks of his
term is that there is no restraint. The rule of law is for suckers. He
is going to break things, and whatever damage is done is not his
problem.
The problem is, there are a lot of really innocent good Americans who
are being affected by this: doctors and nurses, moms whose children get
Medicaid help, lawyers who dedicated their career to civil rights or
environmental protection.
There is a cruelty with the way in which the President has acted. It
is almost a casual cruelty that just doesn't matter. So I am looking
for some confidence that the checks and balances that are required,
that we can build up.
Frankly, there is a major question that we face as a U.S. Senator and
each of us as an individual Senator. I believe, at least to exercise
our judgment--we won't agree, necessarily, and we may come to a
different judgment about how best we can do what I think each of us is
required to do, and that is to protect the institutional responsibility
of the U.S. Senate to be an independent, separate branch of government
and to adhere to the importance of the separation of powers, and that
this institution has a fundamental responsibility to the American
people to be a check and balance.
There are 100 of us here, and we may have 100 different opinions as
to when it is that we should say no, but my hope is that every single
one of us will accept that it is our responsibility to make that
judgment and not just passively submit to whatever action the President
is sending our way.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I sit on the Judiciary Committee and
was present for the confirmation hearing of Pam Bondi in her quest to
be Attorney General of the United States.
I have to say that there is a lot to admire. She had been a competent
prosecutor for many years. She was the twice-elected attorney general
of a major State. And she said a lot of the right things about
independence of the Department and rule of law.
What I couldn't get over was how things changed when she got to a
topic that would have been sensitive to Donald Trump--something that
would have gotten Donald Trump all twitchy. When she hit those topics,
it was like, watching the plane fly into the Bermuda Triangle and all
the navs and coms go crazy.
She couldn't say obvious things--things like: Did President Biden win
the 2020 election? That is an easy answer: Yes, he did, sir--or ma'am.
Super simple. When she can't say that, that is a sign.
When she told us that there had been a peaceful transfer of power--a
roomful of Senators who have had to flee this Chamber because of the
violence of January 6 and go and shelter in a secret location, and she
had to tell us that there had been a peaceful transfer of power. Again,
haywire.
No predication, she said. She couldn't say there was no predication
to go after somebody like Liz Cheney or Jack Smith. Predication is the
key to being able to opening a case like that. The predication is
pretty apparent--or its lack is pretty apparent, and she could not
agree that there was no predication to open a case.
Last, she pretended that the candidate for FBI did not have an
enemies list. He had an enemies list. He published his enemies list. He
said that the people on his enemies list were criminals. He said that
now it is time to go on the manhunt for the enemies that he identified
on the enemies list. So when she can't state the obvious, it causes
real concern.
It causes real concern because of the lawlessness this administration
has already demonstrated in the first 2 weeks.
She got a lot of questions about pardons: Would she support violent
offenders in the January 6 attack on the Capitol being pardoned? We
were chastised for having asked such questions by our Republican
colleagues who said: You know, you are asking her ridiculous
hypotheticals. That will never happen. Jim Jordan: Oh, that wouldn't
happen. The President would never do that. Over and over again,
Republicans said: Oh, that would never happen. Well, what happened? He
pardoned the violent offenders.
In fact, some of them are already up to no good again. We have got
some arrested for assaulting police officers. We had some shot in a
violent confrontation with police officers. This is just in the 2 weeks
since their pardons. And, here, soliciting a minor. That is the quality
of people that the President was willing to pardon. So those pardons
are another signal about a very strange and dangerous time that
President Trump is taking us into.
As my colleague from Vermont just mentioned, we have got these little
characters--I call them the muskrats--running around in Treasury,
running around over at USAID, getting into systems where they have no
business, where apparently they are not just able to get into the
payment systems for Social Security and things like that--tax refunds,
whatever--but they can actually manipulate the systems and they can
leave backdoors so that Elon Musk can continue to access that data even
after this raid by his little muskrats is over.
We don't know the details of what they have done, but there are
probably a great number of laws, including privacy laws, that they are
violating by running around without proper authorization through these
enormous accounting databases. And of course the billionaires that
helped bring Trump to office live off data. Now they have access to one
of the biggest datasets in the world. Do you think they are going to be
responsible about that? I sure don't.
Right now in Rhode Island, funds are frozen, and people can't get
straight answers about how they will ever get access to funding that
has been duly appropriated, authorized, and obligated. The freeze of
those funds by the President is now in violation of not one but two
court orders.
So the lawlessness is apparent, whether it is the muskrats running
around in Treasury looking at everybody's files or whether it is court
orders being patently violated or whether it is violent offenders being
pardoned so they can go out and solicit minors again.
I mean, the whole thing really calls for probity and good judgment
and adherence to constitutional norms from an Attorney General, and
when she can't answer as simple a question as ``Did President Biden win
the 2020 election?'' my alarms go off. And they particularly go off
when we get to her FBI Director, Kash Patel. She suggested she would be
able to rein him in. I have my doubts.
He made completely preposterous explanations of how his enemies list
wasn't an enemies list, even though he had called those people
``criminals'' and that there would be a ``manhunt'' for them. He denied
having a role with the J6 Choir, which was a singing group of violent
attackers from January 6, and he had taken credit for producing their
recording but pretended he didn't know that they were January 6 violent
attackers.
He assured us that FBI agents would be protected against political
retribution, which was beginning as he testified and which is going on
at the Department right now--massive, unprecedented political
retribution.
He won't tell us what he told a grand jury in proceedings in which he
pled the Fifth Amendment. Well, if you plead the Fifth and then you go
into a civil proceeding, your having pled the Fifth is something that
the civil attorney can use against you. It is called the adverse
inference. A jury can draw the conclusion that the testimony that you
would have given had you not asserted your Fifth Amendment privilege
would be harmful to your case. They are legally available to reach that
conclusion. A judge will instruct them that they may reach that
conclusion.
Here we are in the Judiciary Committee, and we can't get an answer
from this guy about his grand jury testimony. We know he pled the
Fifth. And, what, are we not supposed to take the adverse inference
that a regular jury would take from pleading the Fifth? It is a mess.
This guy Patel went into a court in Colorado to testify for Trump.
How did
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he do when he went in front of that court and testified? Well, the
presiding judge said that he ``was not a credible witness,'' his
testimony was ``illogical'' and was ``completely devoid of any evidence
in the record.''
OK. So I used to be a U.S. attorney, and we used to take FBI agents
and we would put them into court to make cases. If an FBI agent working
for me had gotten that kind of a response from a Rhode Island district
judge--that he was not credible, that he was giving testimony that was
illogical, that he could not be believed--there would be repercussions.
We would need to see if that was a Giglio disclosure problem for this
person. We would need to understand why this FBI agent couldn't be
trusted by a Federal judge.
This isn't just an agent; this is the guy who wants to run the FBI.
So to trust Pam Bondi to rein in a character like this who has
``virtually no experience that would qualify him'' to lead the FBI,
says former Attorney General Bill Barr; who has ideas that are
ludicrous--``absolutely unqualified for this job,'' ``untrustworthy,''
``an absolute disgrace to . . . even consider him''; a guy who ran on
his website, ``Kash Patel retruthed,'' imagery of him chain-sawing his
enemies list people--this is actually a video clip. We can't play it
here, but it is a video clip of him chain-sawing through his enemies
list, and he thought that was cool to retruth.
That is the kind of person we are dealing with. Pam Bondi is going to
be able to restrain him? Not if she can't even say that Joe Biden won
the 2020 election.
This was his last comment. He said I had misquoted him. To the press:
We are going to come after the people in the media who lied
about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig
presidential elections.
Like he didn't win it.
We are going to come after you. Whether it's criminal or
civilly, we will figure that out. But yeah, we are putting
you all on notice.
That is what is coming to the Department of Justice. The FBI is in
danger of being turned into the political enforcement weapon of this
President, who is already breaking the law over and over again in just
the last 2 weeks. And a woman who cannot say that Joe Biden won the
2020 election I believe is not going to be able to restrain this kind
of misbehavior, let alone the kind of misbehavior we are seeing out of
the Oval Office.
So regretfully--because there was a lot to like about Ms. Bondi--
regretfully, I cannot possibly vote to confirm her.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, in examining all of the President's
Cabinet nominees, I am focused on two things: their fitness and their
qualifications for the positions to which they are nominated, including
their ability and willingness to put loyalty to the Constitution above
loyalty to the President.
This independence is critically important for the Attorney General,
our Nation's highest law enforcement officer. The Attorney General
oversees thousands of career prosecutors in all 50 States, trying cases
based not on politics but on facts.
However, Pam Bondi's record, her statements in her confirmation
hearing, and her responses to questions for the record make clear she
does not have the requisite independence to lead the Department of
Justice.
In her confirmation hearing, Ms. Bondi shows she had trouble
differentiating fact from fiction where her loyalty to President Trump
might come into question.
Rather than attempting to assuage my concerns--concerns shared by
many of my colleagues; you just heard from one of my colleagues just
previous to myself--Ms. Bondi failed to provide clear and convincing
answers to the following questions: whether President Biden won the
2020 election, whether she agreed with the President's characterization
of January 6 felons as ``hostages'' and ``patriots,'' whether she would
make good on her promise to ``prosecute the prosecutors'' and
``investigate the investigators'' by using the DOJ to go after the
President's perceived political enemies.
I also asked her in writing, for the record, how she would resolve a
conflict between a request from President Trump and her duty to the
Constitution. Ms. Bondi provided no response, and she left the answer
blank. This refusal to even try to answer the question told me a lot.
We have already seen in the 2 weeks since President Trump took office
that he does not believe the rule of law applies to him. He issued an
unconstitutional order on birthright citizenship. He put an illegal
hold on all Federal funds. He fired or pushed aside scores of senior
career FBI officials and Federal prosecutors.
Most egregiously, he issued a blanket pardon for more than 1,500
criminals convicted for their roles in the January 6 insurrection. Not
content to stop at pardoning those who assaulted police officers, now
he is compiling lists of FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who did their
jobs by working on January 6 cases to which they were assigned. This
could be thousands of civil servants whom Donald Trump is apparently
planning to punish to exact retribution.
Make no mistake, by focusing DOJ and the FBI inward on themselves
instead of outward on the many threats against our country, President
Trump is making our Nation less safe and sowing fear and chaos in the
DOJ. When we suffer an attack, a hack, or a rise in crime, President
Trump will try to blame everybody else, but he will be responsible.
As Senator Durbin so accurately put it, Donald Trump sees the DOJ as
his personal law firm, but the DOJ and the Attorney General work for
the people, not for the President. Any President but especially this
President needs an Attorney General who will tell him when his actions
break the law. What is more, the American public deserves an Attorney
General who will put the law first and refuse an illegal order from the
President. Ms. Bondi will not be that person. She will be yet another
``yes'' woman doing whatever the President wants her to do. The law,
the Constitution, and our country will suffer the consequences.
For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote no.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, colleagues, I, too, rise today to oppose
President Trump's nomination of Pamela Bondi to serve as Attorney
General of the United States.
And I don't do it lightly.
After evaluating her record, as well as her testimony before the
Judiciary Committee, it has sadly become clear to me that Ms. Bondi is
either unwilling or unable to put her duty to the Constitution of the
United States and her duty to the American people above her loyalty to
President Trump. With a President now in office who has proven his
complete disregard for the rule of law on numerous occasions, Pam Bondi
is simply unfit to serve as our Nation's chief law enforcement officer.
Time and again, we have seen Ms. Bondi more than willing to go on
national television and push President Trump's lies about the results
of a free and fair election. Despite the facts, despite overwhelming
evidence, she has chosen to lie to the American people in defense of
Donald Trump.
Now, as I shared in committee during the confirmation hearing this
very issue, offering her an opportunity to withdraw those statements
that she made back in 2020, reminding my colleagues and anybody
watching that the danger of her refusal isn't just that she is sticking
to some political talking points--in fact, when it comes to the
integrity of our elections, lies have become threats to our democracy,
threats to voters, and threats to election workers who dedicate
themselves to administering our free and fair elections.
To this day, she refuses to state the simple truth that Donald Trump
lost in 2020. Colleagues, consider the fact that these same lies have
led to her associate Rudy Giuliani being disbarred. Think about that
contrast. Rudy Giuliani lied, and he is being disbarred for those
actions. Pam Bondi--same lies--refuses to take them back, and now you
want her to be the top law enforcement officer for the United States of
America?
It is this very behavior that actually endears her to President
Trump, and it
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is the same reason why we cannot trust her to hold him accountable. If
confirmed, Ms. Bondi will no doubt face far more daunting challenges to
shield the Department of Justice and its professional civil servants
from politics.
I mean, just look at President Trump's activities in the first couple
of weeks in office. From his first day on the job--day one of his
second term--he issued around 1,500 pardons for January 6
insurrectionists and commuted the sentences of 14 of his supporters,
including those convicted of violence against police officers.
Let me say it again: The first day in office, Trump freed convicted
violent criminals who pepper-sprayed and beat Capitol Police officers--
so much for ``Back the Blue.''
President Trump's appointees then proceeded to fire career Department
of Justice lawyers involved in investigating and prosecuting him for
his role in the January 6 insurrection and for his improper handling of
classified documents. Now, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of
Columbia has already promised to investigate the prosecutors who helped
put violent insurrectionists behind bars.
None of this comes as a surprise. Before she was even selected,
before the nomination was official, Ms. Bondi had already publicly
promised to investigate the investigators, to prosecute the
prosecutors.
And just this past Sunday, President Trump's Department of Justice
demanded specific FBI staff fill out a questionnaire sharing what
involvement they had in the January 6 cases. This is a tough
environment for any Attorney General to walk into and to act
independently, let alone someone who has already shown blind loyalty to
President Trump over the rule of law.
But these past few weeks, I was struck most by the fact that, despite
her having practiced law for decades, despite the fact that she served
once as the attorney general for the State of Florida, Ms. Bondi was
somehow unfamiliar with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and,
specifically, its citizenship clause.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise. We talked about it in my office
the day before the hearing. I let her know I was going to be asking her
about it during the hearing. And when I gave her an opportunity during
the hearing to discuss it, she simply refused to answer my questions,
and now we know why.
In his very first day back in office, President Trump issued a
blatantly unconstitutional Executive order seeking to strip birthright
citizenship from American citizens--citizens born here in the United
States.
Now, someone who still needs to study birthright citizenship surely
won't be a champion in defending it. And I point that out because that
is what Ms. Bondi said in response to my question that she would
``study'' it.
Think about that, colleagues. The top law enforcement officer in the
United States needed to study the Constitution?
The American people need and deserve to be able to trust that the
Department of Justice is enacting the law fairly, neutrally, and free
from political interference. We need and deserve an Attorney General
who will speak truth to power; push back against illegal, immoral, and
unethical requests; someone who can be a credible messenger to the
American people in a time of crisis; and someone who will defend not
only the American people but the proud public servants who work within
the Department and who are being purged in not a Saturday night
massacre or a Monday massacre but a January massacre by President
Trump.
To my colleagues today, I ask this: Do you believe Ms. Bondi will
fight against retribution or enact it? Do you believe she will stand up
to the administration's chaos or further enable it?
Colleagues, I don't believe Ms. Bondi is up to the task, and for that
reason, I will oppose her nomination, and I urge all of you to join me.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, just over 8 years ago, Donald Trump
assumed the Office of the Presidency for the first time. He began that
administration with at least a few people of independence and stature,
people that had enough of a respect for themselves and the rule of law
that, when they were asked to do things that violated the law, their
oath, or their own sense of decency, they said no or resigned--people
like Defense Secretary Mattis, who wrote in his resignation letter:
My views on treating allies with respect and also being
clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors
are strongly held and informed by over four decades of
immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to
advance an international order that is most conducive to our
security, prosperity, and values, and we are strengthened in
this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.
Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense
whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other
subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my
position.
Treating allies with respect; being clear-eyed about malign actors;
advancing an international order conducive to our national security,
prosperity, and values; the solidarity of our alliances--these didn't
use to be novel ideas. They didn't used to be controversial ideas. What
Secretary Mattis said about an ``international order that is most
conducive to our security, prosperity, and values'' may also be applied
to a domestic order that is respectful of our Agencies and
institutions, our norms and values.
Not everyone in Trump's first administration was like Secretary
Mattis. Some took much longer to realize that the President's demand
for loyalty to him be placed above all else was incompatible with their
own oath of office. Attorney General Bill Barr, once so desperate for a
job in the Trump administration that he wrote a lengthy job application
castigating an investigation he knew little about, found, ultimately,
that there were lines even he could not cross, like lying about the
election.
Others still, like Kash Patel, seemed never to find a demand by the
President too taxing of their own moral code to raise an objection, but
rather viewed any questionable order as a means of advancement.
The question we face with the nomination of Pam Bondi is, What will
she do when, inevitably, she is put to the test by a President who
feels unbound by law or propriety?
Her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee tells us that she
will not pass the test. When asked about whether the President lost the
2020 election, she could not answer. When asked whether she would
preserve evidence gathered in the January 6 investigation, she could
not agree to do so. When asked about potential pardons of violent
criminals who attacked police on January 6, she indignantly assured us
that she would review all pardon cases on a case by case basis--a
promise breached by the President so soon thereafter that her words
seemed still to hang in the air.
If she could not assert her independence now, before Congress, before
taking office, what hope can we have that she will do so when put to
the test by the President?
When asked about this, too, she demurred: That is a hypothetical.
But it wasn't then, and it isn't now. The President has already
pardoned hundreds of violent criminals. He has already issued Executive
orders that violate the law and Constitution.
Would Pam Bondi have objected to the firing of inspectors general? Do
any of us believe that she would?
The President has issued an Executive order attempting to amend the
Constitution. A Federal judge struck down this order as presenting
perhaps the simplest constitutional question he had ever heard. Could
we have expected Pam Bondi to defend it? Sadly, yes.
The President issued an Executive order freezing and illegally
impounding congressionally appropriated funds. Would she have uttered a
word of protest? Certainly not.
Dozens of top prosecutors have already been fired, by the Department
of Justice, who did their lawful duty investigating the rioters who
attacked police. Would she have resigned in protest?
She has witnessed this Saturday night massacre and still wants the
job. So, plainly, the answer is no.
She is no Elliot Richardson. Top-ranking FBI agents have been fired.
Questionnaires have gone out to identify the hundreds--perhaps
thousands--of agents who were involved in the legitimate prosecution of
these felons. Would she have defended these FBI
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agents at the risk of her own job, as one senior FBI leader has done?
Of course not, and let us not pretend otherwise.
Donald Trump only took the oath of office a mere 2 weeks ago--with an
oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, to
faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, to
faithfully execute the laws of this country that Congress passed and
funded. Each day, it seems he has found new ways to bend and break
those laws, to put in power unelected billionaires and political
cronies to dismantle Agencies, take control of payment systems, and
exact political retribution.
One after another, each of his nominees, asked whether they would
oppose such conduct, has claimed that they won't engage in
hypotheticals, claimed that there was simply no way the President would
take these actions, stated that what the President promised to do
during the campaign simply wouldn't happen. But it is happening. It has
happened. His campaign of retribution is happening. His empowering of a
shadow President is happening. His dismantling of congressionally
approved Departments is happening.
We cannot afford an Attorney General who believes their role is to
defend him rather than the American people and the democracy we have
inherited from our Founders--this big, bold, brave, and improbable
experiment in self-governance. We need an Attorney General with a
backbone of steel, with a stature to say no, whose purpose is to
enforce the laws against any lawbreaker, including the President of the
United States. That person is not Pam Bondi.
Senator Rufus Choate, who once walked these halls and served in this
body, reminded us nearly 200 years ago that we have built no temple but
the Capitol, that we consult no common oracle but the Constitution. And
what does that oracle tell us? I think maybe simply this: We have been
given the most brilliant Constitution ever devised to constrain the
worst impulses of human nature, but even that brilliant document will
not protect us if we do not inhabit positions of great responsibility
with people worthy of them, with people who view our system of checks
and balances not as a weakness to overcome or to overrun but as a
source of strength, who view the domestic order they produce, to borrow
Secretary Mattis's words from a different context, as ``most conducive
to our security, prosperity and values.''
We need an Attorney General who will stand strong when the President
seeks to turn this Capitol into a rubberstamp for unconstitutional and
unlawful actions, when the President seeks to empower the likes of Elon
Musk to ignore laws that Congress has passed and Departments that
Congress has funded, when the President ignores our allies and
emboldens our enemies, when the President targets those in government
who did their job to investigate crimes and malfeasance and does so to
exact vengeance. Vengeance. Apart from self-aggrandizement and self-
enrichment, the President's only motivation--vengeance.
Donald Trump is hoping that in the chaos of his Executive orders, of
oligarchs marauding through the Agencies of government, of tariffs that
turn on and off like a blinking light, that we will get lost and in
getting lost, be lost. We must not be.
His actions will get worse. They will. With a congressional majority
that empowers him, with appointees that embolden him, he himself will
only grow more emboldened in return. His unconscionable and
unconstitutional actions will multiply, and when that happens, will Pam
Bondi take up her role, her duty, as the people's lawyer or will she
serve as the President's lawyer as she has done before? Will Pam Bondi
say no to the President's unlawful actions? no to purges of perceived
political enemies? no to investigations of career officials? because if
she will not say no, if she cannot say no, it is up to us today to say
no. No to this nomination. No to Pam Bondi. It is up to us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, as my colleague Senator Schiff from
California has just so powerfully stated, we are in the midst of a
constitutional crisis--a crisis that would have been unimaginable just
weeks ago, a crisis that involves a President disobeying the law.
Now, Presidents in the past have disobeyed the law. They have sought
to test the boundaries of their power, and the courts have blocked
them. But never has a President violated so many significant laws and
the Constitution so rapidly, so repeatedly, that we are, as Senator
Schiff said, lost in the chaos. And it falls to the arbiters of law--
our courts--but it is also incumbent on the enforcers of the law.
Any of us who have served in the Department of Justice--I was U.S.
attorney for Connecticut for 4\1/2\ years--knows that the most
important decisions that any prosecutor, any law enforcer makes is
whether to uphold the rule of law and sometimes say no to an FBI agent
who is too enthusiastic about a case and wants to indict someone who
could not be convicted, a public official who is close personally or
politically and has overstepped their powers or ethics. To be fair,
independent, objective, to be completely impartial, and to uphold the
rule of law is the first duty of anyone in the U.S. Department of
Justice.
I have more than respect, I have reverence for the Department of
Justice, and that is why I am so deeply disappointed that we are here
tonight for the nomination of Pam Bondi.
The Attorney General of the United States of America is supposed to
be the people's lawyer, not the President's. Donald Trump has said he
wants the Attorney General to be his Roy Cohn, his fixer, his personal
attorney.
Well, Ms. Bondi said she would be the people's lawyer, but that claim
is betrayed by almost everything else she said and, most importantly,
what she would not say.
Here is what she would not say. She would not say that she would say
no to the President when he asked her to do something illegal or
immoral. She dodged that question. She would not say that she was wrong
for spreading lies about fraud and cheating in Pennsylvania during the
2020 election. She dodged that question, too. She would not say that
President Biden won the 2020 election or that President Trump lost. She
ducked it.
Now, the issue of whether President Trump asked his Attorney General
to do something illegal or immoral is not a hypothetical. It is not
abstruse or abstract. It is real. We know it is real because every one
of his past Attorneys General ran afoul of Donald Trump because they
would not do something illegal or immoral--our colleague Jeff Sessions,
Bill Barr. No matter how good their intention, nobody can talk Donald
Trump out of what he wants to do, and the law is no concern, nor is the
lawyer. He will get lawyers to do whatever he wants, and Pam Bondi was
reassuring--very reassuring--to one person--Donald Trump--when she
dodged those questions because what he wants is a loyalist, a
sycophant, an acolyte, and he wants a puppet to do his bidding.
The American people need a lawyer at this moment in history, at this
point of constitutional crisis, who will truly speak truth to power. We
use that phrase all the time, ``speak truth to power,'' but in this
instance, it is the essence of what an Attorney General has to do at
this moment in our history. And Donald Trump doesn't want to hear the
truth. As much power as he has, he wants to hear an Attorney General
tell him: Fine to go ahead. You have the green light.
If Pam Bondi thinks she won't face that same dilemma that Bill Barr
and Jeff Sessions did and every other lawyer who has worked for Donald
Trump has faced, she is either delusional or disingenuous--delusional
or disingenuous. For me, both are disqualifying for this job. And she
can't even pass that low bar of saying she could say no. Her answer is:
Oh, well, he would never do anything like that. He is my friend.
As we are here tonight, the Trump Justice Department is reported to
be preparing to purge hundreds or even thousands of FBI agents or other
personnel in the Department of Justice for nothing more than doing
their jobs. These agents were assigned to criminal cases involving
Donald Trump. They didn't leap forward. They didn't volunteer. They
were assigned, and, like FBI agents do, they took the assignment. Now
they will pay a price in their careers unjustly, unfairly, and unwisely
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because it will deter other FBI agents from doing their job when it
comes to drug cases or terrorism cases.
We have heard also that assistant U.S. attorneys are being reassigned
from drug cases and terrorism cases so that they can do immigration. We
are hearing that career civil servants must be loyal to Donald Trump in
this Department of Justice--well, to Donald Trump and to them.
We all know something fundamental in this body--that we swear an
oath. The lowliest private in the U.S. Army or the Navy or the Marine
Corps or the Air Force takes an oath. They raise their right hand, just
as we do. Anybody in the Cabinet takes that oath, and they swear
allegiance, but it isn't to the President, and it isn't to the
government; it is to the Constitution. That is what is at risk here.
That is what Pam Bondi cannot do in good conscience if she is confirmed
because her allegiance will be to Donald Trump.
The purge of agents and the reassignment and retribution of others
not only damages morale, the effectiveness of the Department of
Justice, it undermines the rule of law.
The Attorney General--perhaps chief among Presidential appointees--is
responsible for making good on the constitutional promise that no man
or no woman is above the law, that we have no king in the United
States. We are no longer a monarchy. We can no longer ask a billionaire
to rummage through the files of the Department of Treasury that have
information about the Presiding Officer and every one of us who serves
in this body and almost every American because we all pay taxes; we all
have Social Security; we get tax refunds. Veterans get disability
benefits. Almost anything the U.S. Government does creates a record in
the Treasury Department, and all that information is being read and
scanned and now collected. That is the news of the day.
More bad news about Elon Musk. Who is going to stop Elon Musk when he
is doing something illegal and immoral? It won't be Pam Bondi because
she is Donald Trump's lawyer. That is a real and present danger for
every one of us in this country.
After I was U.S. attorney in Connecticut--I was the attorney general
of my State for 20 years. In that job, also, I took an oath to the
Constitution of the United States as a State official, as well as to
the constitution of the State of Connecticut. It isn't an abstract
notion; it is what we all do. If she is confirmed, maybe Pam Bondi will
be able to raise her right hand and recite after whoever is
administering the oath, but it will not be an oath she is capable of
keeping.
And so on this critically important vote for our country, I don't
think there is a Cabinet officer more important at this moment in our
history. I urge my colleagues to say no to this nomination.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.