Pam Bondi sworn in as attorney general; Trump ally takes charge of Justice Department
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WASHINGTON — Pam Bondi was sworn in Wednesday as attorney general, taking charge of a Justice Department bracing for upheaval as President Trump aims to exert his will over the agency that has long provoked his ire.
The Senate confirmed Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general the night before, putting the longtime Trump ally at the helm of a Justice Department that has already been rattled by the firings of career employees seen as disloyal to the Republican president.
The swearing-in took place in the Oval Office, and it was the first time President Trump had participated in a second-term swearing-in of a Cabinet member. It was further evidence of his intense personal interest in the operations of the department that investigated him during his first term and then brought two since-abandoned indictments after he left office in 2021.
Before Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office, Trump praised Bondi’s record as a prosecutor and said she would restore “fair, equal and impartial justice at the department.”
Bondi told the president, “I will make you proud and I will make this country proud.”
She added: “I will restore integrity to the Justice Department and I will fight violent crime throughout this country and throughout this world, and make America safe again.”
The Senate’s vote fell almost entirely along party lines, with only Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joining with all Republicans to pass her confirmation, 54 to 46.
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and corporate lobbyist, is expected to oversee a radical reshaping of the department. She enters with the FBI, which she will oversee, in turmoil over the scrutiny of agents involved in investigations related to the president, who has made clear his desire to seek revenge on his perceived adversaries.
Republicans have praised Bondi as a highly qualified leader.
Trump administration fires prosecutors involved in Jan. 6 cases and is moving to fire FBI agents involved in investigations involving the president.
“Pam Bondi has promised to get the department back to its core mission: prosecuting crime and protecting Americans from threats to their safety and their freedoms,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
But Bondi has faced intense scrutiny over her close relationship with the president, who during his term fired an FBI director who refused to pledge loyalty to him and forced out an attorney general who recused himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
While Bondi told Democrats that politics would play no part in her decision-making, she refused at her confirmation hearing last month to rule out investigations into Trump’s adversaries. And she has repeated Trump’s claims that the felony prosecutions against him amount to political persecution.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) praised Bondi as “accomplished and competent” but said his “grave concern is really about President Trump and what he is clearly demanding.”
FBI agents who participated in investigations related to the Capitol riot and Trump’s classified documents case sue over efforts to develop a list of employees involved in those inquiries.
“That clearly is a loyalty oath to him as opposed to a demand for straightforward, candid advice, including if the president is asking for something to be done like the prosecution of a political adversary,” Welch said.
Bondi’s confirmation vote came just hours after FBI agents sued the Justice Department over efforts to develop a list of employees involved in the Jan. 6 prosecutions, which agents fear could be a precursor to mass firings.
Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Emil Bove last week ordered the acting FBI director to provide the names, titles and offices of all FBI employees who worked on the Jan. 6 cases — which Trump has described as a “grave national injustice.” Bove, who defended Trump in his criminal cases before joining the administration, said Justice Department officials would carry out a “review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”
Justice Department officials have also recently forced out senior FBI executives, fired prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team who investigated Trump and terminated a group of prosecutors in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office who were hired to help with the massive Jan. 6 investigation.
Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, insisted at her Senate confirmation hearing that Trump was unfairly targeted by years of investigations.
Bondi repeatedly stressed at her confirmation hearing that she would not pursue anyone for political reasons, and vowed that the public, not the president, would be her client. But her answers at times echoed Trump’s campaign rhetoric about a politicized justice system.
“They targeted Donald Trump,” Bondi told lawmakers. “They went after him — actually starting back in 2016, they targeted his campaign. They have launched countless investigations against him.”
She added, “If I am attorney general, I will not politicize that office.”
Trump nominated Bondi for attorney general after it became clear that his initial pick, Republican former Rep. Matt Gaetz, could not win enough support from Republican senators to be confirmed.
Bondi has been a fixture in Trump’s orbit for years, and a regular defender of his on news programs amid his legal cases. In a 2023 Fox News appearance, she suggested that “bad” Justice Department prosecutors would be investigated under the Trump administration.
“The investigators will be investigated,” she said.
Smith has said politics played no part in his decisions and the evidence his team gathered was sufficient for Trump to have been convicted at trial on charges of scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Smith dropped that case and a separate one charging Trump with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., after Trump’s election win in November, citing long-standing Justice Department policy prohibiting criminal cases against a sitting president.
Trump’s felony conviction came in a New York state case, in which a jury found him guilty of falsifying business documents related to a hush money payment to a porn actor.
Richer and Groves write for the Associated Press.
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