In the summer of 2023, Pam Bondi appeared on Fox News and voiced enthusiastic support for a provocative idea. Four years removed from the Republican’s tenure as Florida’s attorney general, Bondi looked forward to 2025 and the possibility of investigating investigators.
“When Republicans take back the White House — and we will be back in there — in 18 months or less, you know what’s gonna happen? The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones, the investigators will be investigated,” she said. “Because the deep state … they were hiding in the shadows [during Donald Trump’s first term]. But now they have a spotlight on them. And they can all be investigated, and the house needs to be cleaned out.”
In other words, a year and a half ago, Bondi’s focus was on Republicans taking control and targeting Trump’s perceived foes. That, of course, was before the Floridian was the prospective nominee for U.S. attorney general. Is she still equally eager to launch these kinds of investigations 18 months later? As NBC News noted, Bondi no longer wants to talk about it.
After questions by Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, about whether Bondi would ever prosecute former special counsel Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland or former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, Bondi answered, “I am not going to answer hypotheticals.”
It would’ve been quite easy for the prospective Justice Department nominee to say, “Of course I will never allow for politically motivated prosecutions,” but she instead demurred, as if the question itself lacked legitimacy.
Pam Bondi refuses to answer if she would prosecute Jack Smith, Liz Cheney, or Merrick Garland……
— Freedom Writers Collaborative (@fwcollaborative.bsky.social) 2025-01-15T19:23:58.833Z
Later, at the same hearing, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, similarly asked, “[Trump] has said Jack Smith should go to jail. Will you investigate Jack Smith?” Bondi replied, “Senator, I haven’t seen the file.”
The exchanges were relevant for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the ongoing discussion about whether President Joe Biden, whose term ends in just five days, will issue preemptive pardons to protect those who might face political retribution from his Republican successor.
As recently as last week, the retiring Democrat acknowledged on the record in a USA Today interview that he is, in fact, considering such a move before exiting the White House, though Biden didn’t go into any details about his plans, saying only that he was thinking about protections for “certain people.” None of this has escaped the attention of Trump’s potential targets, including Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee — a panel the president-elect has condemned in hysterical terms. The longtime Mississippi congressman told Punchbowl News that he’d spoken to the White House counsel’s office about the issue, adding that he’d accept a pardon if offered. “I believe Donald Trump when he says he’s going to inflict retribution on this,” Thompson said. “I believe when he says my name and Liz Cheney and the others. I believe him.” It’s unlikely that Bondi’s comments during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing proved reassuring to Thompson or the president-elect’s other potential targets.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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