WATCH: Sen. Schiff questions Attorney General Pam Bondi on Justice Department in Trump's 2nd term

[Uncle Joe]

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., questioned Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday as she testified for the first time before the Senate Judiciary Committee since her confirmation hearing in January.

The oversight hearing, focused on the Department of Justice, comes on the heels of a number of controversial decisions from the agency. That includes the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey that came days after President Donald Trump directly called on Bondi in a social media post to prosecute Comey and other perceived political foes.

Ahead of Bondi’s testimony, more than 280 former DOJ employees wrote a letter urging Congress for more oversight due to the “degradation” of oaths to the Constitution and to upholding the law under the Trump administration.

“Members in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle must provide a meaningful check on the abuses we’re witnessing,” the letter read.

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[pfitz59]

1. She is worthess

and a terrible attorney.

[jmbar2]

2. They should cut the mike of the interruptors

[FarPoint]

3. Bondi showed her strength....

strength equal to a gnat.... I could listen all day to Senator Schiff calmly, professionally methodically shame her....

[StarryNite]

4. She is a real piece of work.

And dumber than a mud fence.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. MaddowBlog-AG Pam Bondi refused to answer key questions, and Adam Schiff kept the receipts

Over several hours, the attorney general was unprofessional and partisan, but most importantly, she was evasive, rejecting important lines of inquiry.

AG Pam Bondi was unprofessional and partisan, but most importantly, she was evasive, refusing to answer good questions she didn’t like.

Fortunately, Adam Schiff kept the receipts. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-10-08T13:48:39.368Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/ag-pam-bondi-refused-answer-key-questions-adam-schiff-kept-receipts-rcna236327

The U.S. attorney general has traditionally been known as “the people’s lawyer.” Attorney General Pam Bondi, however, has gone out of her way to position herself as Donald Trump’s lawyer......

But it was the same California senator who also used the opportunity to share some of the receipts he’d collected over the course of the proceedings. As The New Republic noted:

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California took Attorney General Pam Bondi to task Tuesday for her incessant deflections and evasions throughout a Senate judiciary hearing. Bondi had verbally attacked Democratic senators throughout the hearing rather than answer their questions. Schiff was, evidently, keeping track of questions Bondi left unanswered, and he ran through the lengthy (yet inexhaustive) list.

It was arguably the most memorable exchange of the frustrating hearing.

"This is supposed to be an oversight hearing" -- Schiff helpfully ticks through all of the incriminating questions -- and there are many of them -- that Bondi refused to answer during today's hearing

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-10-07T17:29:23.535Z

As Schiff documented, Bondi refused to respond to all kinds of legitimate lines of inquiry, including:

whether the attorney general consulted with career ethics lawyers before approving a $400 million gift from Qatar (a country she was a paid lobbyist for);

what role she played in asking that Trump’s name be flagged in the Jeffrey Epstein files;

whether White House border czar Tom Homan took the $50,000 from undercover FBI agents in the run-up to the 2024 election;

whether career prosecutors found insufficient evidence to charge former FBI Director James Comey;

whether Bondi discussed the Comey indictment with Trump;

how the administration concluded that military strikes against civilians in international waters are legal;

whether Bondi approved the firing of antitrust lawyers who disagreed with the Hewlett Packard merger;

whether she supported a fund for violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6;

whether the Justice Department had fired career professionals because they worked on Jan. 6 cases;
and whether DOJ employees should have to abide by court orders.

In effectively all of these instances, the attorney general could’ve offered substantive answers. She instead attacked senators for asking good questions she didn’t like.