STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Early this year, Pam Bondi appeared before a Senate committee considering her nomination to be attorney general. Senator Amy Klobuchar asked a question.
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AMY KLOBUCHAR: So you will provide an assurance to every member of this committee that the Justice Department will only follow the facts and the law, and the White House will play no role in cases investigated or brought?
PAM BONDI: Senator, it will be my job, if confirmed as attorney general, to make those decisions. Politics will not play a part.
INSKEEP: Today, Attorney General Bondi appears before that same committee shortly after her department procured an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey at the urging of the president. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas will be watching. Ryan, good morning.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Morning.
INSKEEP: Who is the witness who takes questions today?
LUCAS: Well, look, Bondi served as an attorney for Trump during his first impeachment trial. Her top lieutenants at the department now served as Trump's personal attorneys. They are very much all seen as Trump loyalist. And remember, Bondi previously served as attorney general of the state of Florida. But leading the Justice Department here in D.C. is a much bigger, much more complicated job. Here we are well into Trump's second term, and the department under Bondi's leadership has pushed out prosecutors who worked Capitol riot cases or investigated Trump.
They've pushed out senior FBI officials. They've hollowed out the Justice Department unit that prosecutes public corruption and shut down the FBI's premier public corruption squad. But for department veterans and legal experts, probably the most alarming thing is what they see as Bondi using the Justice Department, its vast powers, to enact President Trump's promised campaign of vengeance. And on that question, the criminal case you mentioned, the one against James Comey - very outspoken longtime critic of Trump - is seen as Exhibit A.
INSKEEP: Well, what has she said so far to the allegation that the anti-weaponizer has weaponized the department?
LUCAS: Well, look, she came into the department echoing the argument that we've heard from President Trump that the Justice Department under the Biden administration was weaponized against him. That includes the criminal cases against Trump when he was out of office. Bondi said at her confirmation hearing that she would end such purported weaponization. And talking to Fox News' Sean Hannity after Comey was indicted, she said she's done exactly that.
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BONDI: Whether you're a former FBI director, whether you're a former head of an intel community, whether you are a current state or local elected official, whether you're a billionaire funding organizations to try to keep Donald Trump out of office, everything is on the table. We will investigate you, and we will end the weaponization.
LUCAS: Now, Comey was indicted days after Trump called out Bondi on social media and directed her publicly to go after his political foes.
INSKEEP: Yep.
LUCAS: He even named them. Comey was one of them. New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff were the other two. They are both facing Justice Department investigations on allegations of mortgage fraud. Meanwhile, the former CIA chief John Brennan, who led the agency in the early days of the Trump-Russia investigation, he is also facing a federal investigation. So that's four prominent Trump critics facing Justice Department probes.
INSKEEP: What are the senators who are going to question her today already saying about this?
LUCAS: Well, look, Republicans have largely been supportive of Bondi and her time at the department, it must be said. A lot of them do not like James Comey. They were happy to see him face charges. They're also largely supportive of the department's work on crime, such as the law enforcement surge that we saw here in Washington, D.C., and that we're seeing now in Memphis, Tennessee. But Democrats certainly are going to have questions about how effective those efforts are and are also likely to press her on using the FBI and other DOJ agencies in immigration enforcement, instead of having them focus on their primary missions, like violent crime and national security.
INSKEEP: NPR's Ryan Lucas. Thanks so much.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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