The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee turned into a political battleground on October 7, 2025, as Attorney General Pam Bondi faced nearly five hours of heated questioning in her first appearance before the panel since her confirmation. The hearing, which stretched from early morning into the afternoon, highlighted the deep divisions in Washington over the direction of the Justice Department under President Trump and Bondi’s stewardship.
Bondi, a longtime Trump ally and former Florida attorney general, arrived to face a barrage of questions from Democrats about whether the Justice Department has been weaponized to target the president’s adversaries. According to CBS News, the most pointed exchanges centered on the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, who is due to be arraigned in federal court on October 8. The effort to bring charges against Comey, a vocal Trump critic, caused significant upheaval in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia, ultimately leading to the appointment of a White House aide to head the office and secure the indictment.
Throughout the hearing, Bondi steadfastly denied that political influence has shaped her department’s work. When pressed by Democrats about whether she had discussed Comey’s case with the White House, especially after President Trump publicly called for Comey’s indictment, Bondi declined to answer. “I’m not going to discuss any conversations,” she told Senator Amy Klobuchar, as reported by BBC. “President Trump is the most transparent president in American history, and I don’t think he said anything that he hasn’t said for years.”
The political crossfire extended beyond the Comey case. Republicans on the committee turned the tables, accusing the Biden administration of weaponizing government agencies to target GOP lawmakers. They cited FBI documents showing that phone records of nine Republican legislators were obtained as part of the special counsel’s investigation into Trump and the 2020 election interference. Senator Chuck Grassley, the committee chairman, decried the move as an “unconstitutional breach,” stating, “This is an outrage — an unconstitutional breach — and ought to be immediately addressed by you and Director Patel.”
Bondi also faced tough questioning over her handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in federal custody in 2019. Earlier this year, the Justice Department refused to release further information about Epstein’s case, sparking bipartisan calls for transparency. During the hearing, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse pressed Bondi on why the department had not investigated “hundreds” of suspicious activity reports about Epstein’s finances flagged by banks. Bondi did not answer directly, instead turning the tables on Whitehouse: “Some people would deduce from the fact that they are called suspicious activity reports, that there might be suspicious activity, and yet you seem to have looked at zero of those suspicious activity reports involving Jeffrey Epstein accounts.”
The hearing was marked by frequent deflections and heated personal exchanges. When Senator Adam Schiff demanded answers about the closed investigation into border czar Tom Homan and whether he had accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents, Bondi asserted, “The investigation of Mr. Homan was subjected to a full review by the FBI, agents and DOJ prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any wrongdoing.” When pressed further about the fate of the cash, Bondi responded, “Senator, I’d look at your facts.”
On the issue of the Justice Department’s deployment of National Guard troops to Democratic-led cities, Bondi again sidestepped questions about whether she consulted with the White House. She instead emphasized the need for federal intervention in cities like Chicago, telling Senator Dick Durbin, “If you’re not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will.” Durbin shot back, “I’ve been on this committee for more than 20 years… a simple question as to whether they had a legal rationale for deploying National Guard troops becomes grounds for a personal attack.” Bondi, for her part, blamed Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown, saying, “All of my agents are working without a paycheck, because (Democrats) voted to shut down the government.”
Bondi’s defense of the Trump administration’s crime-fighting and immigration policies was unwavering. In her opening statement, she declared, “They were playing politics with law enforcement powers and will go down as a historic betrayal of public trust. We will work to earn that back every single day.” She also touted the deployment of federal law enforcement to cities like Washington, D.C., and Memphis as “the perfect example” of how the Justice Department should operate, despite criticism that these actions failed to address the root causes of crime.
Perhaps the most controversial topic was the Justice Department’s authorization of military strikes on boats allegedly used by Venezuelan drug cartels. Democratic Senator Chris Coons raised concerns about the legality of such strikes, asking whether the administration had the authority to “summarily kill people it says are cartel members, through military strikes against boats on the open ocean in the Caribbean.” Bondi declined to discuss the legal rationale, stating only, “Regarding Venezuela, what I can tell you is Maduro is a narcoterrorist, and we announced a historic — I announced — $50 million reward for his capture, to bring him to this country to face charges. He is currently under indictment in our country. Drugs coming from Venezuela are killing our children at record levels.”
The hearing also touched on the firings and resignations that have roiled the Justice Department under Bondi’s leadership. She defended the terminations, saying, “We stand by all of those.” However, more than 280 former Justice Department employees who were fired or resigned have warned that Bondi’s actions are “draining the Department of priceless institutional knowledge and expertise, and impairing its historical success in recruiting top talent.”
In the closing moments of the hearing, Bondi offered a defiant final statement: “They may try to destroy our country, but they won’t. They won’t be successful, nor will our foreign adversaries, because we have the greatest president in Donald Trump and he will make America safe again and he will keep us safe.”
Senator Durbin, in his own opening remarks, accused Bondi of leaving “an enormous stain in American history,” arguing that the Justice Department has become “a shield for the President and his allies when they engage in misconduct.” Grassley, on the other hand, praised Bondi’s leadership as “a welcome change from years of Biden Administration soft-on-crime policies.”
As the hearing adjourned, one thing was clear: the battle over the future of the Justice Department, and its role in American democracy, is far from over. Both sides left with their talking points intact, and the American public remains divided over whether justice is truly being served in Washington.