Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for attorney general, refused to explicitly say that she would defy Mr. Trump’s pressure during a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, but she offered a blanket promise that “politics will not play a part” in deciding who to investigate.
Both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee predicted that Ms. Bondi, a former attorney general of Florida, would be easily confirmed. Both sides expressed relief that Mr. Trump’s first pick, former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, had stepped aside to give way to Ms. Bondi, who has prosecutorial experience and a more balanced temperament.
But the daylong hearing had its contentious moments as Democrats repeatedly accused her of dodging basic yes-or-no questions about election denialism, the potential prosecution of Mr. Trump’s political enemies — and how she would deal with attempts by Mr. Trump to influence the department’s actions.
“Politics has to be taken out of this system,” said Ms. Bondi, who repeatedly circled back to her argument that the Justice Department had been misused and misdirected under the Biden administration. “This department has been weaponized for years and years and years, and it has to stop.”
Ms. Bondi, 59, sought to project the image of a tough, independent, crime-fighting prosecutor, and she repeatedly expressed loyalty to Mr. Trump and her belief that he had been the victim of politically motivated prosecutions by the Biden administration.
She did not endorse Mr. Trump’s contention that the special counsel who brought two criminal cases against him, Jack Smith, should be thrown out of the country, but she said what she had “heard on the news” about his conduct was “horrible.”
When asked if she would investigate Mr. Smith, or anyone else, at Mr. Trump’s behest, she added that she would exercise independent judgment, in accordance with the law.
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