Sen. Adam Schiff took attorney general nominee Pam Bondi to task in a fiery Senate hearing, pressing her on Donald Trump's election fraud allegations and her plans for handling Jan. 6-related evidence. Bondi's evasive answers sparked a tense back-and-forth.
A rift developed between Democratic California Senator Adam Schiff and Democratic nominee for attorney general Pam Bondi over Donald Trump's attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat.
Schiff, along with other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Bondi about whether Trump was unsuccessful in that race, which she had before asserted was plagued by fraud. But Bondi said she would never "play politics" if confirmed attorney general and that he was attempting to bait her with a "gotcha" question.
In his subsequent question to Bondi, Schiff threatened to raise a new question-one that should be straightforward and easy-if she was unable to answer the first. He then went on to inquire as to whether or not the outcome of the 2020 election was impacted by widespread fraud.
Bondi expressed her gratitude for the inquiry, but Schiff cut her off mid-sentence to pose the identical question, which she skillfully avoided once more.
"You can't answer that question?" Schiff asserted. "You can't speak that easy truth to us, let alone the president, so let me ask you a different question. It will also be important that you give good advice to the president. Are you prepared to advise the president not to pardon people who beat police officers?"
To avoid answering the question of whether Trump should pardon all rioters on January 6, Bondi reiterated that the decision to pardon is with the president. However, she did promise to review each case individually and claimed she had not yet thought about it.
In a direct challenge to the nominee, Schiff asked whether she could handle reviewing hundreds of cases on the first day. After that, he doubled down by stating that certainly, she won't.
After Trump broke his pledge to pardon some of the cases from January 6, Bondi said she would have "plenty of staff" to review them and that he had spoken over her response. House Republicans censured him in June 2023 for his role in investigating the revolt, which she brought up.
Her argument is that the Congress censured Schiff for remarks like these, which are extremely careless, The Raw Story reports.
Even though the investigation into the cases involving January 6th came to a halt following Trump's re-election, Schiff persisted in questioning her about whether she would pledge to save the evidence collected by the DOJ while Joe Biden was president and used to indict him.
"Are you ready to commit that none of the evidence in the Jan. 6 investigation will be destroyed under your watch?" Bondi responded to Schiff's question by saying she will check with ethics officials and adhere to the law. "Do you see any ethical basis to destroy any Jan. 6 investigation? Then why can't you answer the question? Why can't you say, 'I commit to this committee we will never destroy the evidence?' Why can you not give this committee and the American people that assurance?"
The president-elect has made baseless claims about the destruction of evidence obtained against Trump; Bondi asked Schiff whether she was frightened about that, but Schiff reprimanded her for changing the subject.
