Name: Nicolle Wallace on Pam Bondi: ‘Donald Trump may finally have what he has long been looking for’
Uploaded: 2025-01-17T17:50:02.000Z
Duration: 11 min 54 s
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Modal verbs - B1

If Pam Bondi's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee is any indication, Donald Trump may finally have what he has long been looking for, an attorney general he desperately wants.

Adverbs of manner

Repeatedly, the former Florida AG and attorney for Donald Trump was pressed by Democrats on one of the basic pillars of the historic role of the rule of law in our country, DOJ's independence from all politics and everybody else in the executive branch, including a president.

Adverbs of degree

It's the thing that makes the position of attorney general completely different from every other cabinet post.

Pam Bondi gave the country an indication of exactly what kind of attorney general she will be if she is confirmed very early on when she was confronted with the basic question, the answer to which is indisputable to any one of us living on Earth One.

Are you prepared to say today under oath without reservation that Donald Trump lost the presidential contest to Joe Biden in 2020?

Ranking member Durbin, President Biden is the president of the United States.

He was duly sworn in and he is the president of the United States.

There was a peaceful transition of power.

President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.

Not true, but not a surprise for for Pam Bondi, who in the days after Trump lost the 2020 election by eight million votes, had this to say.

We do have evidence of cheating, and I'll talk about that in a minute, but we are still on the ground in Pennsylvania.

I'm here right now and we are not going anywhere until they declare that we won Pennsylvania.

If they're letting you know, Steve, do you have have you heard stories of ballots that are fake?

Well, we know that ballots have been dumped.

There were ballots that were found early on.

And if you don't want to believe me, don't just ask the last Trump appointed and Senate confirmed Attorney General Bill Barr, who said this to congressional investigators.

I told him that the stuff that his people were shuttling out to the public or book was I mean, that the claims of fraud were.

We all know what happens in the beep, right?

What Bill Barr did there tell the truth, Pam Bondi, notably today, didn't do.

And that, of course, is the point, the whole point.

That's why she was a suitable second choice after Matt Gaetz flamed out.

When Bondi was asked whether she would drop a case if Trump asked her to, Bondi said this.

What would you do if your career DOJ prosecutors came to you with a case to prosecute, grounded in the facts and law, but the White House directs you to drop the case?

Senator, if I thought that would happen, I would not be sitting here today.

Except for when it does, because it already did.

Here's former FBI Director Jim Comey back in 2017.

And so that's why I understood him to be saying that what he wanted me to do was drop any investigation connected to Flynn's account of his conversations with the Russians.

Bondi today was also asked about her past comments on pursuing investigations into Donald Trump's political enemies.

Here's a particularly testy exchange with Senator Adam Schiff.

Sitting here today, sitting here today, are you aware of any factual predicate to investigate Jack Smith?

Senator, I will look at the facts and the circumstances.

There's no worry about divulging law enforcement sensitive information.

Are you aware of a factual predicate to investigate Jack Smith?

You seem reluctant to answer a simple question.

Let me ask you a different simple question.

The president also wants to jail Liz Cheney sitting here today.

Are you aware of any factual basis to investigate Liz Cheney?

I'm asking you sitting here today whether you are aware of a factual predicate to investigate Liz Cheney.

Senator, no one has asked me to investigate Liz Cheney.

The president has called for it publicly.

We're also worried about Liz Cheney, Senator.

You know what we should be worried about?

The crime rate in California right now is the root of the roof.

Your robberies are 87 percent higher than the national average.

That's what I want to be focused on, Senator.

So wearing her nominee hat, those were her answers.

But here she is wearing just her, I don't know, Tuesday on Fox News hat.

She was a lot more definitive answering those questions.

The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted.

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.

Joining our conversation, former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice.

Now lucky for us, an MSNBC legal analyst, Mary McCord is here.

She's the co-host of the podcast, Maine Justice, along with Andrew Weissman, a former top official at the Department of Justice and also an MSNBC legal analyst.

Also joining us, voting rights attorney, founder of the site Democracy Docket, Mark Elias, is back.