Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 7, 2025.
(Vin McNamee/Getty Images))
It was hard to look away from the brutal and threatening ICE crackdown in Chicago, which is pushing the country toward confronting the lawlessness of Donald Trump. But the president's disrespect for the law was also on display Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly ignored attempts by Senate Democrats to ask her basic questions about her office's operations.
Bondi's speech was reminiscent of similar showdowns between Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FBI Director Cash Patel and Senate Democrats – obstructive, nasty, sometimes abusive. But Bondi was the most contemptuous of them all. People grumble about what Democrats should do, but I've seen Judicial Democrats come prepared with good, solid questions and Bondi shut them down with a smile and a sneer.
It all started with the Senate's top Democrat, Dick Durbin, asking Bondi who ordered the FBI to flag any mention of Trump in the Epstein files. “I'm not going to discuss anything about this with you, senator,” she replied. Her nastiest line to Durbin: “I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate Trump.” This set the tone for the day. She used the phrase later while filling in for him in California, mocking California Senator Alex Padilla. She corrected Senator Richard Blumenthal about a long-running “controversy” when he appeared to say he served in Vietnam; although he served during the war, he was never in Vietnam.
When Senator Sheldon Whitehouse pressed her to release Epstein's files, she insisted that Whitehouse received campaign donations from Epstein associate Reed Hoffman. Whitehouse later told CNN: “Her suggestion that I received campaign contributions from this alleged close confidant of Epstein is simply not true. All they had to do was go and look at my public campaign finance reports and see that this person was nowhere to be found on them.” She accused Senator Mazie Hirono of participating in the demonstration of alleged Antifa members. The Hawaii senator laughed at the idea.
Senator Adam Schiff listed 11 questions that Bondi refused to answer: whether border czar Tom Homan kept the $50,000 he allegedly took in an FBI sting operation (she rejected all questions about Homan's behavior), whether Bondi discussed with Trump the filing of charges against former FBI Director James Comey, Trump's outrageous demand from Truth Social to prosecute Comey, Attorney General Letitia James and Schiff himself, and whether she had career prosecutors fired for working on investigations related to the events of January 6th. Bondi was vocal about Schiff, shouting quips like: “Will you apologize to Donald Trump for trying to impeach him now that you now know that Joe Biden tried to cover up Hunter Biden's involvement in Ukraine?”
Bondi tossed her hair, smiled and grinned as Senate Democrats spoke, but was deferential to Senate Republicans. In another era, Bondi's apparent disdain for their committee might have caused some bipartisan upset. But the truth is that Senate Republicans themselves have little power; it all comes from Donald Trump.
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Democrats may be powerless against her for now, but even so, Bondi may have gone too far. Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst posted close-up photos showing Bondi arriving with a folder of social media posts and harsh insults. She has shown herself to be petty, vindictive and quite capable of fulfilling Trump's promise to weaponize government against his enemies. And it's clearly not pretty. Bondi was the least popular member of Trump's Cabinet in public polls until she was overtaken by RFK Jr. last month. Her performance on Tuesday was unlikely to convince skeptics.
