The following is a lightly edited transcript of the January 16 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, had her confirmation hearing. In some ways, Bondi sought to project an aura of apolitical professionalism designed to put Democratic senators at ease. But Bondi also refused to answer a number of direct questions about Trump’s threats to prosecute opponents and dissembled about similar threats voiced by Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to head the FBI. We think that taken altogether, Bondi accidentally revealed something important. At numerous moments, she could not say straight out that she wouldn’t carry out Trump’s designs. Why? Because saying that would disqualify her in Trump’s eyes, and that itself is the problem here. Today, we’re working through all this with Mimi Rocah, a former prosecutor and now a legal commentator. Thanks for coming on, Mimi.
Mimi Rocah: Thanks, Greg. It’s great to be here with you.
Sargent: Mimi, Pam Bondi is a bit of a puzzle. She clearly has qualifications for the job. She worked a long time as a prosecutor in Florida, and was the state’s attorney general for a number of years. Yet her loyalty to Trump is unshakable. She fed his lies about the 2020 election; famously accepted a big campaign donation from Trump’s foundation while deciding not to open an investigation of Trump University. Before we get to the hearing, Mimi, what are your thoughts about Bondi overall?
Rocah: You’re right that this really isn’t a question about her qualifications. There’ve probably been more qualified A.G.s, but she’s certainly not unqualified. She is a career prosecutor, as we say, and has more experience, frankly, than some other past nominees and A.G.s. But this really isn’t a question, and the heart of the hearing today, about her qualifications.
The heart of the hearing was about the second part of the question for nominees, which is her fitness to be attorney general, and really her independence. There were things that she said that, if taken at face value without any context, would give one like me, a DOJ alum who wants its independence, hope. But when you look at it in the context and in what she didn’t say, it was very concerning.
Sargent: So let’s work through some of what happened at the hearing. First, we need to go over some background. In August of 2023, after Trump was indicted on federal charges, Pam Bondi told Fox News the following, “The prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated.” That’s the background. Now, at the hearing, when Senator Mazie Hirono brought up that quote and asked if the people who will be prosecuted will include Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, and Liz Cheney, here’s what happened.
Senator Mazie Hirono (audio voiceover): Ms. Bondi, is Jack Smith one of those bad prosecutors that you will prosecute as A.G.?
Pam Bondi (audio voiceover): Senator, you hesitated a bit when I said the bad ones. Every decision will be ...
Hirono (audio voiceover): Sometimes, bad is in the eye of the beholder. I’m just asking whether you would consider Jack Smith to be one of the people. How about Liz Cheney?
Bondi (audio voiceover): Senator—
Hirono (audio voiceover): How about Merrick Garland?
Bondi (audio voiceover): I am not going to answer hypotheticals. No one has been prejudged or nor will anyone be prejudged if I am concerned.
Hirono (audio voiceover): I am asking if these are the kind of people, these are in fact the people that you would prosecute.
Sargent: Mimi, Bondi doesn’t answer directly whether those three people who prosecuted or criticized Trump as a threat to the republic will themselves be prosecuted. What’s your response to that?
Rocah: Well, I do want it to be fair. Say that in many cases, maybe even in most cases, I would not expect or want an attorney general nominee to talk about who they were or weren’t planning on investigating or prosecuting. Many an A.G. nominee has given an answer, over the decades, of I’m not going to prejudge or presuppose; Supreme Court justices also give that kind of answer. And it’s actually normally, under common circumstances, the appropriate answer. This is where it gets into the context that I was referring to earlier.
First of all, not only has she made a statement in the past that they will be prosecuted—and she is trying to caveat, Well I talking about certain ones, but here she wouldn’t say if they are that certain category. But even more troubling, I think ... Let’s take her that she was in a different context then. It was campaign mode. She was a commentator. I think she’s alluded to both those things. The person who is nominating her and to whom she will be answering has repeatedly, unequivocally, unabashedly, proudly called for the prosecution of those people and anyone who he perceives as a political enemy without regard to whether there’s a factual predicate as we would define it as prosecutors. Given that context, she has to give an answer, even if it’s not I will never prosecute them, but a more satisfying answer about what her standards would be for bringing any investigation or prosecution.
At one point, now Senator Schiff said to her, The say so or summary by the president wouldn’t be enough. And she said, Yes. That was a start. If I were him, I would have pressed way more on that because she’s never going to probably say, I won’t prosecute them, even though she should. But she should be pressed on what those legitimate standards are for even opening an investigation, and I don’t think she came anywhere close to that.
Sargent: I didn’t see this—maybe I missed it—but did she say at any point, I will not prosecute anybody who the president orders me to prosecute based only on his order?
Rocah: No, she did not affirmatively say that. The closest it came was when Schiff asked her, The summary by the president would not be enough, or the say so of a president about a factual basis, and she agreed with that. But she never gave a definitive answer that she would not prosecute them.
Sargent: Right. So two things about that. One, these aren’t hypotheticals, as she says, because the president-elect has said that those people must be prosecuted. So, not hypotheticals. When she says that these are hypotheticals, it’s bullshit, right? The second thing about it is that she cannot say what you’re talking about here. She cannot say the thing you want her to say, rightly, because Trump would find that disqualifying. Isn’t that a revealing thing right there?
Rocah: The fact [is] that Ms. Bondi could not say that someone shouldn’t be prosecuted just on the say so of anyone, let alone the president, for any reason, let alone political reasons. Either she really doesn’t believe that she should say that, which would be problematic, or more likely, she doesn’t want to say that because it would anger the person who has nominated her. And that too is concerning because she’s clearly not then ... The heart of the question of “Will you have the fortitude to stand up to him if he asks you to do something illegal and proper?,” it does not bode well for that.
Sargent: And a similar thing kicked in when Bondi was questioned about Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director. Here the background is that in 2023 Patel famously said that prosecutions of MAGA’s opponents would take place in a second Trump term. Patel said, “We’re going to come after you.” Patel also has a long enemies list, which includes former Trump officials who criticized him. At the hearing, Senator Richard Blumenthal pressed Bondi on this, and here’s what she said.
Bondi (audio voiceover): Senator, I am not familiar with all those comments, I have not discussed those comments with Mr. Patel. What I do know ...
Senator Richard Blumenthal (audio voiceover): Well, I’m asking you for your view.
Bondi (audio voiceover): Excuse me. What I do know is Mr. Patel was a career prosecutor, he was a career public defender.
Sargent: Mimi, is that at all credible? Patel’s quotes have been all over the news and the internet for years now. They were aggressively hashed out during the campaign. She would have been prepped for exactly this question, about exactly those Patel quotes. Is there any chance she isn’t deeply familiar with them?
Rocah: No. And this was a recurring pattern that was disturbing during the hearing, where things that you would have to have your head in the sand about—and she doesn’t because she was involved with all of these people and claims to know them—she denied knowledge of. She claims not to know about Patel’s “enemies” or “targets list,” [though they were] pretty well publicized, as you said. She did ultimately give, again, what in another context could be a satisfactory answer of “There will be no enemies list at the DOJ.” OK, normally you wouldn’t even need to be asked that question, but again, she didn’t say, And I’m going to tell the guy who’s going to be the director of the FBI that he must renounce—and recall, renounce, whatever word you want to use—the list he already previously has talked about.
Sargent: And renounce his own previous quotes as well.
Rocah: Yeah, exactly. But if she pretends not to know about them, then she doesn’t have to go to that point. And that’s really the tact she was taking.
Sargent: What would you like to hear her say as clearly as possible about Kash Patel?
Rocah: What we just said. Acknowledges the fact that he has said some inappropriate, at a minimum, things in the past; that he should renounce them; and that if he can’t or won’t, then he should not be confirmed, he shouldn’t be the FBI director, that it would be inappropriate. You asked me for my wishful thinking here, but that is what I would hope.
Sargent: Well, exactly. And you’re really onto something when you say that the context here is the fact that the Trump and MAGA movement have been all about prosecuting their enemies for years. So we need more from her, given that context.
Rocah: Right. I’m going to separate Trump, Patel from the MAGA movement because in fairness, I wouldn’t want a Democratic nominee to have to answer for the statements of certain constituents, even if they’re constituents who support that administration, who’s nominating the person. But here you have the principles themselves. You have Trump himself, Patel himself not even trying to hide it. Up until a very certain point in time, they have been—and Trump has been since 2016— calling for the prosecution of political enemies. [They are] not even claiming to have an investigatory factual predicate, just I think these people are bad, I think these people are evil, I heard somewhere kind of thing. That is what is so dangerous about what they say.
She, as someone who’s going to lead prosecutors and investigators who do not conduct themselves based on that kind of information and really have never had to nor should they, has to reassure not just the American people but those people who will be working there that she isn’t okay with that. And I don’t think she met that bar today at all.
Sargent: And it’s worth reminding people that Trump actually tried, in his first term, to prosecute his opponents.
Rocah: Right. And in fact, the other theme that she did—and this is 100 percent a political tactic that many Republican politicians, Trump’s MAGA-type Republicans do, and I was disappointed to see her do it—was to talk about how the DOJ has already been weaponized under Biden and Garland, which I personally think is an inaccurate description. In fact, one of Garland’s to a fault was that he tried so hard not to be political, that he maybe dropped the ball in some cases. But by painting it as already politicized, it makes it seem more normal to not be denouncing these things now.
Sargent: Here again, there’s something deeply revealing. She knows that she must say, or at least imply, that the prosecutions of Trump were somehow tainted or perhaps illegitimate. That must be the position of Trump’s nominees. She’s not allowed to say that the investigations and prosecutions of Trump were done in keeping with the rule of law, that they were legitimate.
Rocah: Exactly. There’s someone who’s the nominee for the attorney general spot versus ... And I’m going to say, the Republican senators who are questioning her—in their questions, they can talk about their perceived politicalization of the Biden administration. OK. I don’t agree with it, I think there’s plenty for the Democratic senators to push back, but those are politicians. She is not supposed to be a politician, and she shouldn’t be parroting, frankly, even if she believes it. If she believes it, that’s disturbing to me. But even if she believes it in this role, I don’t think she should be parroting it.
Sargent: Right. And big picture, in addition, Bondi cannot admit that first, Trump has been calling for the baseless prosecutions of his enemies for years, and that second, Kash Patel, who may be the next FBI director, did openly threaten this himself, and that he does have an enemies list. Here again, the key is Trump would find those admissions unacceptable. His nominees are not allowed to admit to what Trump himself has openly said he’ll do. I see that as the big accidental revealing thing here. What do you think?
Rocah: Absolutely. This is part of the pattern of ... On the one hand, Trump’s been doing this, again, since 2015, since the very first campaign where he says things and then denies that he ever said them, and the people around him then have to follow his lead in denying that they were said. It’s not that he’ll never say them again, it’s not that he’s had a change of heart and realized that they were problematic, but that they can only be said in certain contexts and not in others where it would be problematic.
I think that talking about the independence of the attorney general, we also have to look at what she said in the hearing when asked about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. She could not say, would not say—I keep saying could not, would not because I’m not a mind reader, I don’t know which it is or if it’s both. She could not, would not say that Biden had legitimately won the election. She kept saying, prepped very well, that Biden was the president. Yes, he is the president. I think she even used the word “legitimate” somewhere in there, but it wasn’t that he won the election. Why? Because she can’t say that Trump lost the election, because Trump will never acknowledge that.
Again, this is not without context. Not only does he still falsely claim that there was massive fraud in the 2020 election, but she made claims about it back in 2021. And along with Rudy Giuliani, who’s been disbarred because of those statements, lawyers are held to a standard about honesty and integrity in those public statements. And when asked the question, “Will she disavow her statements about massive fraud in the 2020 election,” again, she wouldn’t answer this question. She just kept going back to, “I can tell you what I saw personally with my eyes in Pennsylvania.”
Even putting aside the truth, or not truth, of that, that’s not the question being asked. The fact that she would not pull back her comments or his comments, false comments about the legitimacy of the election and that Trump lost and Biden won, is unacceptable for someone who’s going to be the attorney general—both for what it says about her integrity and what it says about her ability to stand up to him.
Sargent: Yes. And here again, the accidentally revealing thing is not just what Pam Bondi wouldn’t say, though that is revealing. It’s also what Pam Bondi couldn’t say in the presence of The Great One. And to me, this is the real essence of the matter. If we wanted to come away from this reassured that Bondi is not going to carry out corrupt orders that Trump gives her, how can we be reassured if she won’t even admit to what Trump’s designs actually are?
Rocah: Yeah. That is the heart of the problem here. There have been attorney general nominees in the past who people have questioned at the time or retrospectively, their independence from the president. Democrats and Republicans, right? Alberto Gonzales, because he was the White House counsel for Bush. Even Robert Kennedy, because he was the brother of John F. Kennedy. But they weren’t being nominated for and then going to be working for people who we already know ahead of time have and will continue to call for that department to do completely inappropriate, illegal, unjust things like investigate their enemies just because they’re perceived enemies.
Sargent: Exactly. If we can’t even hear her admit to what Trump himself actually intends to do, then we can’t have a debate about whether she’ll carry out those orders.
Rocah: And maybe that’s the strategy ...
Sargent: It’s like a hall of mirrors.
Rocah: That’s the strategy, right? If I don’t admit it, then it didn’t happen, which has been a Trump tactic all along.
Sargent: Just to wrap this up, it looks to me like if Pam Bondi actually has real professionalism, which is possible, real integrity, which is possible, then at some point she will inevitably be at loggerheads with Trump. How does this unfold? What do you anticipate happening here?
Rocah: That really is the question, not only at the level of the attorney general but also the deputy attorney general and even on down to line the prosecutors, agents, U.S. attorneys, people who are serving in this administration much more broadly. There’s not really a question that Donald Trump as president will try to weaponize the Department of Justice in some illegitimate way. And the FBI. The question is: What will people do when that happens? And I don’t want to sound naive. I still have hope that there are people, including someone I know will be serving as a deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, who will remember what they were taught about the Department of Justice and live up to those ideals. But I certainly can’t sit here and vouch for anyone. That is what it’s going to come down to: individual decisions and living up to those ideals.
Sargent: Mimi Rocah, it looks to me like DOJ, and our whole system, is about to get a pretty rough stress test. Thank you so much for coming on with us today. Great stuff.
Rocah: Thanks. Good to talk with you.
Sargent: You’ve been listening to The Daily Blast with me, your host, Greg Sargent. The Daily Blast is a New Republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler and the DSR Network.