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| Brad Raffensperger: The man who caught Trump trying to steal the 2020 election. (AP) |
You might expect that a nominee to be U.S. attorney general would be able to take a fair and direct question about her would-be boss and produce an answer that indicates she has the integrity expected of someone who seeks to be our nation's chief law-enforcement officer. But we are talking about Pam Bondi here, so you would be wrong. You might expect Bondi not to go into squirmy mode, indicating she has the depth and professionalism to effectively perform as Donald Trump's AG. In fairness to Bondi, Trump himself has proven he is hopelessly corrupt, so we might be expecting too much from Bondi here. No matter how you slice it, Bondi's performance in her confirmation hearing on Wednesday suggests we probably are in for a turbulent ride on the law-enforcement front over Trump's second term as president.
How did Bondi respond to a question that she should have expected but clearly made her uncomfortable? Malcolm Ferguson of The New Republic explains under the headline "Trump Attorney General Pick Refuses to Answer One Telling Question; Pam Bondi admitted she’s ready to spread Donald Trump’s biggest lie." Ferguson writes:
Pam Bondi tried to weasel her way out of admitting that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, during her confirmation hearing for U.S. attorney general Wednesday.
Bondi, who received the nomination only after Matt Gaetz was canned for being a sexual predator, faced questioning from Senator Dick Durbin regarding her past loyalty to the president-elect.
“Ms Bondi, you are one of four Trump personal lawyers that he has already selected for top positions in the Department of Justice. You joined Mr. Trump in working to overturn the 2020 election. You repeatedly described investigations and prosecutions of Mr. Trump as ‘witch hunts,’” Durbin told Bondi.
“To my knowledge Donald Trump has never acknowledged the legal results of the 2020 election,” he continued. “Are you prepared to say under oath without reservation that Donald Trump lost the presidential contest to Joe Biden in 2020?”
“Ranking member Durbin, President Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in, and he is the president of the United States,” Bondi replied, avoiding a straightforward answer. “There was a peaceful transition of power; President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.”
That is an answer of some sort, but not to the question that was put to her. Durbin clearly noticed:
Durbin then reframed the question, asking Bondi if she “had any doubts” that Joe Biden won the Electoral College in 2020.
“All I can tell you as a prosecutor is from my first-hand experience.… When I went to Pennsylvania as an advocate for the [Trump] campaign … I saw many things there. But do I accept the results? Of course I do. Do I agree with what happened? I saw so much,” Bondi rambled. “No one on either side of the aisle should want there to be any issues with election integrity in our country. We should all want our elections to be free and fair, and the rules and the laws to be followed.”
“I think that question deserved a yes or no,” Durbin bluntly replied. “And I think the length of your answer is an indication that you weren’t prepared to answer yes.”
In other words, Bondi is an election denier, and that is not a trait Americans should be looking for in an attorney general. So Durbin took his questioning in a slightly different direction, Ferguson reports:
Durbin continued. “Have you heard the recording of President Trump on January 2, 2021, when he urged the secretary of state of Georgia to quote ‘find 11,780 votes’ and declare him the winner of that state?”
“No, I’ve heard about it through clips, but no, Senator …” said Bondi.
“What was your reaction to President Trump making that call?”
The conversation in question is readily available on the Web, in various formats -- audio clip, video clip, written reports, and more. Here is a report from C-SPAN, which features U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) interviewing Raffensberger; (Schiff now is a U.S. senator.) Schiff's questioning of Raffensberger can be viewed at the following link. The full audio and a transcript of the phone call is available at this link. But Bondi doesn't seem to be familiar with it? That stretches my credulity to the breaking point. So, how did Bondi react to Trump making that call? Ferguson fills us in:
Bondi stumbled a bit. “I would have to listen to the tape, Senator.”
“Well that quote that I give you is exact. He said to the Georgia secretary of state, ‘Find 11,780 votes.’
Bondi said that the call was long and the quote may have been taken out of context.
Bondi is a former lawyer for Trump, representing him during his first impeachment trial.
We learn that Bondi can evade a question. Whether she can answer one truthfully is another matter.
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