Sen. Amy Klobuchar admitted to George Stephanopoulos Sunday that she is “of course” concerned “revenge will be part of” Trump attorney general nominee Pam Bondi’s “mission” should she be confirmed. “I hope that’s not the case,” she continued.
Klobuchar also acknowledged that the idea of Trump’s previous nominee Matt Gaetz running a department of 115,000 law enforcement officers was “absurd,” considering he was under investigation for sex trafficking until this week.
“Pam Bondi will have a hearing and will be able to make her views clear,” she said. “I think the things that I look at is, is someone competent, and are they going to uphold the law? It is so important. It’s the lead law enforcement officer for our country.”
Stephanopoulos also played an August 2023 clip in which Bondi forewarned Trump’s political opponents, “The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted — the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated. Because the deep state, last term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows. But now they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated, and the house needs to be cleaned out.”
Trump announced Bondi as his second nominee for attorney general only hours after Gaetz removed himself from consideration. “I am proud to announce former Attorney General of the Great State of Florida, Pam Bondi, as our next Attorney General of the United States. Pam was a prosecutor for nearly 20 years, where she was very tough on Violent Criminals, and made the streets safe for Florida Families,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Then, as Florida’s first female Attorney General, she worked to stop the trafficking of deadly drugs, and reduce the tragedy of Fentanyl Overdose Deaths, which have destroyed many families across our Country,” he continued. “She did such an incredible job, that I asked her to serve on our Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission during my first Term — We saved many lives!”
Bondi was Florida’s first attorney general from 2011 to 2019. She then worked on Trump’s impeachment defense team in 2019 before she moved on to work as a fundraiser for the Republican Ballard Partners. In 2024, she was named the chair of the America First Policy Institute.
In that respect, PBS News Hour White House Correspondent Laura Barrón-López said Friday, she’s significantly more qualified than Gaetz. Bondi is also “definitely” a Trump loyalist, Barrón-López added, and is likely to be confirmed relatively quickly because she has much more Republican support.
