Geline Salac

Bondi, Democrats clash on wiretaps of senators, Epstein files

Article (news)

Pambondi

MrDurbin

MrWhitehouse

ABS-CBN News

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, appearing before a Senate panel on Tuesday, criticized Democratic lawmakers in personal terms as she faced pushback over the Justice Department&#x27;s enforcement efforts in Democratic-led cities and investigations of President Donald Trump&#x27;s critics.Bondi, appearing before the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, said the department under Trump was returning to its &quot;core mission of fighting violent crime,&quot; citing the surge in federal law enforcement activity in Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee.Bondi said the Justice Department was ending the &quot;weaponization of justice&quot; even as several political adversaries of Trump face federal investigations and prosecutions. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin criticized Bondi for firing career prosecutors and agents who worked on investigations condemned by Trump and scaling back the department&#x27;s efforts to combat corruption and white-collar crime.&quot;In eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain on American history,&quot; Durbin said. &quot;It will take decades to recover.&quot;The attorney general parried questions from Democratic lawmakers about her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, the deployment of National Guard in major American cities and the case against former FBI Director James Comey by criticizing her questioners in partisan terms unusual for the nation&#x27;s top law enforcement officer.Pressed on the Justice Department&#x27;s reversal on releasing files on sex trafficking investigations into Epstein, a one-time friend of Trump, Bondi accused Democratic senators of accepting campaign donations from an Epstein associate.Asked about the legal justification for Trump&#x27;s moves to deploy National Guard troops in U.S. cities, Bondi blamed Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown and said it was jeopardizing public safety.&quot;I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,&quot; Bondi told Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee.Bondi&#x27;s testimony came days after the Justice Department brought charges against former FBI Director James Comey, a longtime critic of Trump who investigated alleged ties between his 2016 campaign and the Russian government, after Trump called for his prosecution and demanded the resignation of a prosecutor who did not think the evidence warranted criminal charges.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, appearing before a Senate panel on Tuesday, criticized Democratic lawmakers in personal terms as she faced pushback over the Justice Department's enforcement efforts in Democratic-led cities and investigations of President Donald Trump's critics.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, appearing before a Senate panel on Tuesday, criticized Democratic lawmakers in personal terms as she faced pushback over the Justice Department's enforcement efforts in Democratic-led cities and investigations of President Donald Trump's critics.