▶ 0:00:27This is the place where news happens. Breaking news from loudoun county. This is where you find out what's happening when it's happening. Washington july 24 hour news source. News happens here.
▶ 0:26:37Chair Grassley: Welcome everybody to our judicial committee annual justice department oversight hearing. Before we give opening statement I wanted to say this is the second anniversary of hamas invading the sovereign state of israel.
▶ 0:27:00Chair Grassley: Yesterday I had some palestinian advocates um, talk to me about the number of people who have been killed. I'd like to remind them there wouldn't be one death if there hadn't been this invasion on the sovereign state of israel by what happened two years ago today.
▶ 0:27:24Chair Grassley: Attorney general bondi, since your confirmation you have now had the opportunity to face the federal bureaucracy that you must perform to better serve the american people. As I said to director patel, your charter is no simple task.
▶ 0:27:46Chair Grassley: When you arrived, you were left with a justice department freefall, senate democrats denied your leadership personnel , we have not been able to confirm your assistant attorney general for congressional affairs, it's now been seven months all the while democrats complain they cannot get answers from the office of legislative affairs.
▶ 0:28:16Chair Grassley: They have uh blocked the confirmation of that person. Since your confirmation you've taken steps to institute needed reforms under your leadership, the justice department's cut funding to full of it -- politicize programs to reinvest more policing activities.
▶ 0:28:39Chair Grassley: Focusing on crime, getting tough on criminals as a welcome change from four years of biden administration soft on crime policies. During the biden administration, the justice department failed to collect billions of dollars in criminal fines and penalties from corporate offenders. That is money that should have been placed in the crime victims fund.
▶ 0:29:05Chair Grassley: Much of the money of the past administration did collect went to the department of justice slush funds instead of aiding victims of criminals. Violent activity. My democratic colleagues of shared concerns about funding agency and law enforcement but generally haven't supported funding programs.
▶ 0:29:30Chair Grassley: Under the democrat leadership, the cops reauthorization was held over in committee at least eight times before the 100 18th congress concluded, it never received a vote from this committee.
▶ 0:29:45Chair Grassley: More recently, democrats have refused to support fundamental justice department programs like protect safe neighborhoods and last week democrats again blocked most of the police week bills from passing the senate even though they passed out of this committee unanimously.
▶ 0:30:07Chair Grassley: In contrast to these indefensible positions, the judiciary provisions in the republican reconciliation bill made hundreds of millions of dollars available for justice department to combat crime.
▶ 0:30:24Chair Grassley: Attorney general bondi, also created task force's to attack the problems left by your predecessor, you created a team to review the overwhelming evidence of political weaponization by federal law enforcement including the discredited crossfire hurricane investigations.
▶ 0:30:49Chair Grassley: Your weaponization working group has worked with my staff to bring forth resolutions for whistleblowers and I commend you and your staff efforts to find solutions for these patriots. I understand the task force to eradicate anti-christian bias has done an investigation into how the biden administration weaponized the government against people of faith and I look forward to your next report on that subject.
▶ 0:31:19Chair Grassley: Now you have also shuttered a task force it was a stain on this country. The foreign influence task force. Democrats have cried about closing this misleadingly named unit, the task force was involved in undermining my and senator johnson's biden family investigation.
▶ 0:31:44Chair Grassley: Instead of ruining out -- rooting out foreign influence, the task force was a political weapon. Speaking of political weapons I am now going to address examples of political weaponization in the previous administration.
▶ 0:32:00Chair Grassley: Most recently I and senator johnson made public information relating to expansive targeting of republicans and on monday just yesterday, because of our investigative work, the fbi disclosed the biden administration used arctic frost to target republican senators including several senators on this very committee.
▶ 0:32:28Chair Grassley: This is an outrage and unconstitutional breach and ought to be immediately addressed by you and director patel. This is also clear example of why the justice department has had to fire personnel you hear democrats defending.
▶ 0:32:49Chair Grassley: On the taxpayers dime, while on the taxpayers dime, these now fired employees not only weaponized law enforcement, but some of them also retaliated against patriotic whistleblowers. These are indefensible acts. Now I've obtained additional weaponization records to bring whistleblowers that predate arctic frost.
▶ 0:33:17Chair Grassley: Obtaining documents created by then supervisor special agent dated march 2, 2017. The title of this document is "trump." it appears to relate to matters different from crossfire hurricane.
▶ 0:33:39Chair Grassley: This document discusses a rumor at fbi headquarters that the fbi washington field office was leaning towards opening a case on the trump campaign. Tebo noted they were not -- they were not close to opening an investigation but did say this.
▶ 0:34:02Chair Grassley: "what are we doing, aggressively seeking out open-source source information, human intelligence info that could predicate a case." you see? Into the dust months into the trump's first presidency the partisan comey fbi was very hard at work trying to manufacture another case against trump.
▶ 0:34:32Chair Grassley: Tebo and the fbi eventually got their wish in april of 2022 with the opening of arctic frost. This was a political fishing expedition to get trump at all costs. Just like crossfire hurricane and of course it is a disgrace to the taxpayers. Whistleblowers have provided me with another document.
▶ 0:34:59Chair Grassley: This is a 20 case updated also drafted by then supervisor special agent tebo. This is a case update for cr 15, the now disbanded and public corruption squad at fbi's washington field's office which says "steve sullivan, chief financial officer of to nail was
▶ 0:35:32Chair Grassley: Interviewed in new york city. Info provided seemed to confirm to nail was used as a pass-through to pay former president of the united states." doug band was deputy assist and to then president clinton and continue to work for him post-presidency. Therefore it's pretty clear that the reference to the present to the united states is bill clinton.
▶ 0:36:02Chair Grassley: The document further notes additional interviews the fbi planned to conduct as part of the case. This information confirms there was an fbi case on mcauliffe and it indicates that -- the clintons were relevant to it. Did the fbi throw its resources behind this matter just like it did against trump and his associates? A legitimate question?
▶ 0:36:32Chair Grassley: Or did they sweep it under the rug? So general bondi I would like for you to provide me with all the records related to these matters for further verification . Lastly, whistleblowers have provided additional records related to the biden fbi political conduct against peter navarro. The first document is a request for physical surveillance on navarro the day the fbi arrested him.
▶ 0:37:03Chair Grassley: The second document is a timeline of that surveillance. With navarro -- the fbi didn't arrest him at his house which is literally right next to the fbi headquarters. Instead, they surveilled him and his fiancée all morning starting at his home. Following them to the airport and then arrested him in public at the reagan airport.
▶ 0:37:34Chair Grassley: The way navarro was treated was unnecessary. General bondi, I would like you to provide me all records relating to this matter. Attorney general bondi, this congress, I've made one document public after another. One whistleblower disclosure after another. One example of weaponization after another. So to our average constituent this is all history.
▶ 0:38:05Chair Grassley: It's all pointing out the wrong of government. Losing -- using the power of government to go after people -- political people they don't like. We are pointing this all out because we cannot have this repeated in the united states. We want an end to it right now.
▶ 0:38:31Chair Grassley: All evidence of your predecessor's failures, it's time for accountability. I look forward to hearing your success in that regard.
▶ 0:38:41Sen. Durbin: Thanks chairman grassley for holding this hearing. I'm glad we are following this committee's long-standing tradition of regular oversight hearings with the attorney general, the director of the fbi and secretary of homeland security. These hearings have never been more important. As president trump turns the full force of the federal government on chicago and other american cities.
▶ 0:39:10Sen. Durbin: The assault on the city I am proud to represent is just one example of how president trump and attorney general bondi shut down justice in the department of justice even before the president's party controlling the white house, senate and house of representatives shut down the government. The attorney general has systematically weaponized our nation's leading law enforcement agency to protect president trump, his allies, and attack his opponents in the american people.
▶ 0:39:42Sen. Durbin: They have purged hundreds of senior career officials when she first appeared before us. These men and women have dedicated their careers to protecting american people. As a result the department has lost literally thousands of years of law enforcement expertise. To be specific, disbanding the fbi's foreign influence task force in the national cryptocurrency enforcement team despite the growing threat of foreign election of fearon's and of cryptocurrency.
▶ 0:40:14Sen. Durbin: You forced out almost 75% of the civil rights division's career attorneys while hate crimes are on the rise. You fired more than 100 immigration judges while the immigration case backlog is more than three million. You cut the public integrity section from 30 prosecutors to two while political corruption skyrockets.
▶ 0:40:39Sen. Durbin: During her confirmation hearing I asked you about your many potential conflicts of interest as a former lobbyist. You responded under oath "you will consult with career ethics officials within the department and make the appropriate decision." but the justice department then remove those career ethics officials. And put in their place in experienced political appointees beholden to the president and you.
▶ 0:41:07Sen. Durbin: You effectively shut down the office of professional responsibility which investigates misconduct by the department of justice attorneys. Now with these ethical guardrails out of the way, corruption has run rampant in the department of justice. Although you have been a registered foreign agent for qatar and did not recuse yourself from signing off on president trump's solicitation of a free jet from the royal family even though this gift was clearly illegal.
▶ 0:41:36Sen. Durbin: Connections to attorney general bondi seemed to reveal more favorable outcomes for defendants, at least two wrong -- long-running prosecutions -- it's no surprise the failed U.S. attorney nominee said "no maga left behind. The nation's top law enforcement has become a shield for the president's political allies.
▶ 0:42:08Sen. Durbin: Last year president trump's border czar tom homan was allegedly recorded accepting a $50,000 bag of cash in exchange for promising immigration enforcement related contracts. Under your leadership the investigation was dropped.
▶ 0:42:25Sen. Durbin: After president trump pardoned nearly 1600 january sixth insurrectionists, including more than 600 charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, of the department of justice has argued in court that these pardons provide immunity for wholly unrelated crimes in multiple cases. Jared weiss was found on january 6 encouraging fellow rioters to attack police department officers and said kill them. What happened to him?
▶ 0:42:57Sen. Durbin: He has been hired by you as a senior advisor. February you said the epstein plan was sitting on your desk. Eight months later you still have not produced these files and a credible whistleblower told my office fbi agents directed to flag any records in which president trump was mentioned.
▶ 0:43:18Sen. Durbin: The department of justice dismissal of corruption charges against the former new york city mayor eric adams in a corrupt back deal to secure his cooperation with the president's immigration agenda. The acting U.S. attorney general a republican appointed by president trump, resigned in protest. Acting U.S.
▶ 0:43:40Sen. Durbin: Attorney for the eastern district of virginia eric sievert, a republican appointed by president trump, was forced to resign because he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to indict leticia adams and former fbi director james comey. In his place, president trump installed his former personal attorney, someone with no prosecutorial experience, to indict director comey and she did.
▶ 0:44:07Sen. Durbin: She joins a network of unqualified loyalists masquerading as federal prosecutors like alina habana who said she can use her position "turn new jersey red." -- the president and attorney general attempted to bypass the senate to install these unqualified extremists. Where do you find these people?
▶ 0:44:38Sen. Durbin: Courts have ruled both are serving in their roles illegally, jeopardizing cloud -- countless prosecution by your office. Why? That is just one example of how far -- how the department of justice is making america unsafe. Attorney general bondi shut down the organized crime and drug task force which is dismantle thousands of criminal organizations.
▶ 0:45:04Sen. Durbin: You diverted thousands of fbi dea and atf agents and doj prosecutors in their critical missions to carry out the presidents mass deportation agenda. Attorney general bondi unsurprisingly federal drug prosecutions have dropped to the lowest level in decades. Let me repeat that. Federal prosecutions for drug crimes have dropped to the lowest level in decades on your watch.
▶ 0:45:30Sen. Durbin: The department of justice has unilaterally terminated 373 million to critical state funding to law enforcement to the tune of half a billion dollars. At 2026 trump budget would slash high intensity drug traffic areas by more than one third from 300 million to 100 96 million. Instead of taking common sense steps to help reduce crime, attorney general your focus on helping president trump play strongman on television.
▶ 0:46:00Sen. Durbin: He is illegally deployed troops to chicago and other american cities and has threatened to send more. The justice department defends the dubious legal basis for these deployments and diverts doj personnel to assisting these efforts. These deployments basically target democratic run cities. Democratic leaders, ignoring many republican led areas of our country with even higher crime rates.
▶ 0:46:29Sen. Durbin: And making clear this is a political theater, not public safety. One particular chaotic raid in chicago tuesday last week, aided by the fbi and atf, which you supervise. In the middle of the night, federal agents pulled women and children out of their beds, crashed down the doors to their homes, zip tied to children and others and detained immigrants and U.S. citizens alike for hours in vans.
▶ 0:46:59Sen. Durbin: When what and complained about the children, and agent laughed at them and said f--their kids. A judge ordered the national guard in portland was illegal. The white house chief of staff stephen miller accused her of legal insurrection. This kind of language is inexcusable.
▶ 0:47:26Sen. Durbin: Last week the president and secretary hegseth some and senior military officials to a political pep rally at quantico where the president said he wanted to use american cities as "training grounds for our military." the training grounds for our military. To fight the "enemy within." chicago is not the enemy, our fellow americans are not the enemy.
▶ 0:47:54Sen. Durbin: It is abhorrent for the president, who is supposed to represent all americans regardless of political party to describe anyone who disagrees with them. To my republican colleagues who blame -- claim the previous in his region weaponize the department of justice, president biden retained president trump's fbi director who president trump then fired. President biden never directed the attorney general to prosecute his political opponents. President biden never fired his own a political appointees for refusing to prosecute.
▶ 0:48:26Sen. Durbin: What's taken place since january 20, 2020 five would make even president nixon recoil. This is your legacy attorney general bondi. In eight short months to a fundamentally transformed the justice department and left an enormous stain on american history. It will take decades to recover.
▶ 0:48:43Chair Grassley: Would you please rise so I can swear -- do you affirm the testimony you're about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? Please be seated and give us your opening statement.
▶ 0:49:09Ag Bondi: Thank you chairman grassley and ranking member durbin and every member of this committee. I'm grateful for the opportunity to testify in front of you today. First please join me in remembering as you said chairman grassley, all the jewish people who lost their lives in the october 7 attacks two years ago today. Also please let's pray for all the hostages and the families of all of those individuals.
▶ 0:49:41Ag Bondi: There are critical -- they are a critical reminder of our central mission here at the department of justice, protecting the safety and security of the american people. That is why even when the government is otherwise shut down because of the democrats, the department's law enforcement officers and prosecutors are hard at work fighting crime, keeping our streets safe and protecting you from the threats foreign and domestic.
▶ 0:50:08Ag Bondi: When I was confirmed as the 87th attorney general of the united states, I took office with two main goals. To end the weaponization of justice and return the department to the compete -- core mission of fighting violent crime. As to ending the weaponization of justice we learned the former fbi secretly investigated you and your colleagues. Why? They wanted to take president trump off the playing field.
▶ 0:50:34Ag Bondi: They were playing politics with law enforcement powers and will go down as a historic betrayal of public trust. This is the kind of conduct that shatters the american people's faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day. We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime. While there was more work to do I believe in eight short months, we have made tremendous progress towards those ends.
▶ 0:51:05Ag Bondi: Our federal surges in washington dc and memphis are a perfect example of how the department of justice should operate. We created strong partnerships with local leadership, working hand-in-hand with both cities to send resources where they were needed most. The results speak for themselves. We have made more than 3800 arrests here in washington while seizing more than 360 five illegal guns.
▶ 0:51:34Ag Bondi: In memphis we have already made more than 300 arrests and close to 80 illegal guns in just one week. We are replicating that tough on crime approach throughout this country. Under the leadership of director kash patel, the fbi is doing outstanding investigative work to keep the american people safe. The fbi conducted a month-long operation called summer heat which resulted in over 86 hundred arrests from june to september.
▶ 0:52:03Ag Bondi: More than 6500 arrests fell under the fbi's violent crime and gang program. Under the leadership of administrator terry cole, the dea has seized 47.9 million fentanyl pills and 4500 kilos of fentanyl powder. That represents 370 million deadly doses. 370 million.
▶ 0:52:30Ag Bondi: The dea is dismantling violent cartel drug trafficking networks across the country including the seizure of nearly 470 million in criminal assets. Under the leadership of daddy's or alta, our U.S. marshall have been the tip of the spear on federal searches and protecting judges and elected officials. Our marshals have arrested more than 51,000 fugitives nationwide since january 20.
▶ 0:52:57Ag Bondi: Under the leadership of acting director dan driscoll, atf has taken more than 23,000 illegal guns off our streets. 3400 of those linked to trafficking between the U.S. and mexico. My attorneys have done an incredible work advancing president trump's agenda and protecting the executive branch from judicial overreach. We have been sued more than 400 times since january 20. Judges have issued more than 90 temporary restraining orders against us.
▶ 0:53:29Ag Bondi: More than the previous several administrations combined. Despite the unprecedented degree of activism we've seen from the lower courts, we have never ignored a court order and why would we? We have secured historic 22 victories at the supreme court alone with more to come. Our civil rights attorneys are fighting discrimination and anti-semitism. Our criminal attorneys are prosecuting violent criminals and foreign terrorists every day.
▶ 0:53:56Ag Bondi: I look forward to continuing this work in the department of justice and I look forward to testifying before you today. Thank you chairman.
▶ 0:54:16Chair Grassley: I forgot to turn on the microphone. We have 10 minute rounds -- I've asked senator blackburn to share between 10:30 at 11:00.
▶ 0:54:32Chair Grassley: I hope that we can have good decorum during this hearing uh, treat each other with respect to general ponte, just in case you get caught off, so that you don't get to answer your question when that senator is done, if you ask me for a little bit of time to give -- to finish your answer I would be glad to
▶ 0:55:04Chair Grassley: Give it to you. So starting myself, you inherited a bloated bureaucracy. It requires reorientation to better serve your nation. That would include reassessing grants disguised to help americans, but many were partisan pet projects -- it also requires reallocation of
▶ 0:55:34Chair Grassley: Resources to better serve the american people. On this issue I've got two questions. What updates can you share with the committee about your review and grant doj --, grants doj has reassessed.
▶ 0:56:02Just Ag Bondi: Ag bondi: give us some examples. Sure. Thank you chairman. During my appearance at the departments budget hearings I acknowledge that some grants were mistakenly terminated and we have made a process to correct that. All grants termination appeals will be individually considered for alignment with our current policies which are strengthening law enforcement and protecting victims.
▶ 0:56:28Just Ag Bondi: Recipients have given the opportunity to appeal a grant determination consistent with the rules by writing to the assistant attorney general. Of the 50 800 discretionary grants that were reviewed, only 370 six, approximately 7%, were terminated. So far, oh jp has turned back on 18 awards, 17 appeals have been denied and the rest are actively being reviewed with decisions expected soon.
▶ 0:56:58Chair Grassley: Uh, my colleagues on the other side claim your department has reallocated resources to immigration enforcement and it's had a negative impact on law enforcement. All the drugs and crimes -- all the drugs and crimes are very much a part of immigration enforcement so these attacks are clearly off the mark. It claimed a review of these misguided.
▶ 0:57:28Ag Bondi: Chairman, every day our fbi, dea, atf and now U.S. marshals service working on a task force with homeland security are out there keeping americans safe and getting illegal aliens out of our country. Many of whom have committed violent crimes in this country.
▶ 0:57:55Ag Bondi: Our agents will continue to fight violent crime in this country working hand in hand. One example is right here in washington dc. We have the D.C. task force that has been incredibly successful. We are so proud of the work that that done. We have been working hand in hand -- hand-in-hand with the local officials in D.C. and we are very proud of that work. We are taking that into tennessee and around this country to keep americans safe.
▶ 0:58:27Chair Grassley: I won't repeat the things I've said about arctic frost, but we had this recent revelation yesterday of my republican senators being targeted by the government, underscoring the point about arctic frost.
▶ 0:58:49Chair Grassley: Taken it in context with widespread government weaponization against trump and conservatives in the last decade -- conduct arguably worse than watergate. So I have two questions along this line.
▶ 0:59:06Chair Grassley: How many department of justice and fbi personnel have been held accountable for their partisan -- questionable conduct and what was their punishment, if you could give a few examples or follow-up in writing since there are so many people that fall into this category.
▶ 0:59:27Ag Bondi: Yes senator, yes chairman we will.
▶ 0:59:32Chair Grassley: You want to answer that in writing.
▶ 0:59:35Ag Bondi: The exact number I can answer in writing, yes.
▶ 0:59:38Chair Grassley: Was attorney general on the same subject, was the attorney general garland and director ray and/or president biden's white house aware of the fbi targeting republican senators? Did they approve of it? Let's be clear, either they knew and allowed it to happen where they didn't know and if they didn't know it points to a lack of oversight, objective nests, runaway case.
▶ 1:00:07Ag Bondi: Chairman grassley, that's what we've been talking about when we refer to the weaponization of government. Operation arctic frost was an unconstitutional, undemocratic abuse of power. During arctic frost, the fbi also placed 92 linked republican individuals and republican groups such as charlie kirk's turning point, on their list.
▶ 1:00:36Ag Bondi: This is the kind of conduct that shattered the american people's faith in our government as I said in my opening statement. We are ending this weaponization. Our fbi is targeting violent criminals, child predators and other lawbreakers. Not sitting senators who happen to be from the wrong political party. Several of your colleagues sitting at this day us were targeted. And others.
▶ 1:01:05Ag Bondi: We will continue to stop that throughout the justice department, that is the ultimate weaponization of government.
▶ 1:01:13Chair Grassley: Have you sought jet -- grand jury secrecy waivers so that all documents can be produced to congress and if not, do you plan to do that?
▶ 1:01:25Ag Bondi: Chairman grassley I will be working directly with director patel on this issue and there is not much more we can say about the issue for obvious reasons at this time.
▶ 1:01:37Chair Grassley: Public safety officers benefit program provides benefits to law enforcement, first responders if they are disabled or killed in the line of duty. Affected family members may also benefit by oversight and government accountability office report which shows that some claims have taken thousands of days to conclude.
▶ 1:02:06Chair Grassley: Pso b applicant say they have been left in tears with disrespectful ways they been treated by the government. Question number one and two on this area, what actions have been taken to hold doj officials accountable for their failures to manage the program and treat applicants with respect.
▶ 1:02:32Ag Bondi: Chairman grassley, as stated earlier there have been many terminations from the department of justice and we stand by all of those. Many are subject to litigation. This department of justice will treat everyone with respect and do everything in our power to help citizens of this country. Please reach out to us with any individual cases and I will personally look at them for you chairman.
▶ 1:02:57Chair Grassley: Ok. If you will provide that information that was my second question. So now let's go on to -- regarding the initial fbi 1023 document that I made public last congress.
▶ 1:03:18Chair Grassley: That document mentioned one, text messages, two, audio recordings and three, financial records that allegedly proved biden bribery scheme with the biden family. I asked director patel if his predecessors made any effort to determine whether these records existed. He answered no.
▶ 1:03:43Chair Grassley: What steps is the department taking to determine whether these records exist one way or another in this matter ought to be put to rest.
▶ 1:03:50Ag Bondi: Chairman grassley, I know director patel is working hard on this with members of the fbi.
▶ 1:04:00Chair Grassley: So you -- you don't know if these records exist or you just cannot say that publicly at this point.
▶ 1:04:08Ag Bondi: I don't want to discuss any of that publicly.
▶ 1:04:12Chair Grassley: The form -- foreign intelligence surveys suit -- surveillance act includes a safeguard against political weaponization. The reauthorization mandated certain members and their staff shall be entitled to attend any proceedings of the fisa court.
▶ 1:04:29Chair Grassley: Former biden doj assistant attorney general matt olson drafted the privacy agreement that allowed the department to hide information from congress during fisa proceedings. Matt olson made a career out of targeting president trump and his allies so it's not surprising that he would attempt to hinder congressional oversight or cover-up for the biden regime.
▶ 1:04:58Chair Grassley: I want to make sure that you get rid of the ridiculous and misguided olson memo. When can you tell me that will be done?
▶ 1:05:06Ag Bondi: We will notify you chairman grassley, thank you.
▶ 1:05:12Sen. Durbin: Thanks Mr. chairman. Madam attorney general let me ask you this question. Were you consulted by the white house before they deployed national guard troops to the cities in the united states?
▶ 1:05:24Ag Bondi: I am not going to discuss any internal conversation with the white house.
▶ 1:05:31Sen. Durbin: You won't even say whether you talked to the white house about this?
▶ 1:05:35Ag Bondi: I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the white house with you ranking member
▶ 1:05:41Britt Sen. Durbin: I noticed that. Why do you want to keep the secrets and people don't know the rationale behind the deployment of national guard troops in the united states, I think the word has been confirmed by the white house they will transfer texas national guard units to the state of illinois. What is the rationale for that?
▶ 1:06:00Ag Bondi: As you shut down the government, you voted to shutdown the government and you are sitting here, our law enforcement officers aren't being paid they are out here working to protect you. I wish you love chicago is you hate president trump and the national guard are on the way to chicago. If you are not going to protect her citizens, president trump will.
▶ 1:06:19Sen. Durbin: I've been on this committee for more than 20 years, that's the kind of testimony you expect from this administration. A simple question as to whether or not they had a legal rationale to deploy national guard troops becomes grounds for personal attack. I think it's a legitimate question and it's my responsibility. She refuses to answer if she had any conversation with the white house about deploying national troops in my state. It's an indication of where we are politically. Let me ask you another question.
▶ 1:06:50Sen. Durbin: If you will, I want to make sure I have the right page of facts here. You testified under oath when your were last before this committee before your appointment to attorney general you had served as a representative of some sort for the royal family of qatar.
▶ 1:07:10Sen. Durbin: There was an issue that came before you in may when president trump accepted a $400 million luxury jet for temporary use before was permanently gifted to the drum presents a library foundation.
▶ 1:07:26Sen. Durbin: The constitution unequivocally bestows power to control whether any officer the united states including the president can accept a gift "for many king, prince or foreign state." this gift clearly violates the statutory regime enacted by congress. You have refused to answer a letter I sent you five months ago asking the legal rationale you relied on to advise president trump to accept this gift from your former legal client. Can you make a promise today that you will disclose that.
▶ 1:07:56Ag Bondi: Sen. durbin: disclose what ranking member? I assume there was a letter or some sort of statement from your office to the white house to advise them you felt was permissible.
▶ 1:08:09Ag Bondi: First to address my role with qatar as I addressed with you during my confirmation hearing, I disclosed it on my s j q. In private practice I worked for qatar for antihuman trafficking for the world cup. That was my only involvement and I made that very clear and I am very proud of everything I've done with antihuman trafficking.
▶ 1:08:35Ag Bondi: Obviously in preparing any advice for the president on a jet or anything else we consult with the office of legal counsel. The confidentiality applies to their input as well. And chairman, if you would approve and vote to approve as chairman grassley said -- excuse me ranking member, as chairman grassley said my employees we would answer your letters a lot faster yet you are stalling them at every stop.
▶ 1:08:59Ag Bondi: To go back to your previous question -- you poor city has a murder rate five times higher than new york's. 500 71 homicides last year. If you were serious about protecting your people, you would be asking this administration for help. You are saying we are coming into your state and your city.
▶ 1:09:26Ag Bondi: We are there to help make america safe and illinois safe whether or not you want to.
▶ 1:09:32Sen. Durbin: I believe cutting federal grant programs to law enforcement in my state and across the nation does not make us any safer. You have supplanted that decision by sending a national guard troops to california and other places. That's a situation where the governors have not asked for their help. If you truly want to do this on a bipartisan basis you would not defy the governor you would work with them.
▶ 1:09:59Sen. Durbin: I'm prepared to work with this administration, but cutting these grants to law enforcement does not make us any stronger as a nation or give us the tools we need to reduce crime in chicago. When it came to this qatar situation, did you consult with the ethics office in the department of justice before making your decision on this gift of a jet.
▶ 1:10:20Ag Bondi: Chairman, I did not gift a jet to anyone. My office of legal counsel provides confidential advice to the president, to the white house. Periosd. You are completing two issues. Cutting grants I was very clear about what grants we've cut and which ones we have been. Only 7%.
▶ 1:10:46Ag Bondi: If you have a grant in illinois that you think I cut that is not -- that is protecting law enforcement officers or your people, you personally call me and I will work with you to turn that grant back on. I think many of the democrats can tell you I've worked with them to turn grants back on. There's an appeal process, tell me a specific grant I have turned off in illinois that would help law enforcement and I will work with you. But you have not done that.
▶ 1:11:13Sen. Durbin: --
▶ 1:11:16Ag Bondi: By the way so as director patel and deputy attorney general todd blanche. You are sitting here grilling me and they are on their way to chicago to keep your state safe.
▶ 1:11:26Sen. Durbin: It is my job to grill you. Investigation of your agency is part of my responsibility on this committee. You may not like the experience but others have weathered the storm and answered questions in a respectful manner. Take a look at the president's budget -- what happens to it on the budget. It is cut by one third. $300 million to 180 six.
▶ 1:11:58Sen. Durbin: That's one example of a grant that works and your administration in the budget ahead. I want to ask about items in the letter I sent to you when would you have not answered. You made a public claim the epstein client list was sitting on your desk right now to review. You then produced already public information and no client list.
▶ 1:12:24Sen. Durbin: Attorney general bondi why did you publicly claim to have the epstein client list waiting for your review and then produced nothing to that claim.
▶ 1:12:31Ag Bondi: Senator durbin, if you listen to my entire clip on that I set I had not reviewed it yet. That it was sitting on my desk along with the jfk files, the martin luther king files and I said I had not yet reviewed it. And if you see our memo on epstein, you will see -- excuse me our memo clearly points out that there was no client list. Our july 6 the memo.
▶ 1:13:00Ag Bondi: You also didn't let me respond to the haida question. The budget transfers 196 million dollars for high intensity drug trafficking areas to the office of justice programs. The justice department will continue to administer those grants under oj p in 2026.
▶ 1:13:20Sen. Durbin: Going back to the epstein files. According to another whistleblower who made a protected disclosure to my office, you pushed the fbi to review 100 thousand epstein related records on an arbitrarily short deadline of march and the fbi was directed to flag any documents that named president trump. Nothing came of that until an unsigned memo stating there was no incriminating client list.
▶ 1:13:49Sen. Durbin: Why was the july 7 memo unsigned?
▶ 1:13:52Ag Bondi: The july 7 memo came from the fbi and department of justice. Director patel answered those questions very clear. You know senator durbin I find it interesting that you refused repeated republican requests to release the epstein flight logs in 2023 and 2024. You fought that. I'm -- did you take money from reid hoffman, campaign donations who was a huge epstein friend?
▶ 1:14:21Ag Bondi: Why did you fight for years -- why did you fight to not disclose the flight log senator durbin?
▶ 1:14:28Sen. Durbin: I did not refuse. One of the senators wish to produce those logs I asked her to put it in writing and she never did. I will quarrel -- bringing up someone I've never heard of. Who gave the order to flag records related to president trump.
▶ 1:14:50Ag Bondi: To flagged records for president trump?
▶ 1:14:53Sen. Durbin: To flag any records which include his name.
▶ 1:14:56Ag Bondi: I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you.
▶ 1:15:07Sen. Durbin: Eventually you'll have to answer to your conduct in this. You won't do it today, but eventually you will. >> Mr. chairman. Mr. chairman? Since senator durbin referred to me, I would really appreciate the opportunity to correct the record. Senator durbin knows I repeatedly asked for those flight logs, I brought up the subpoena.
▶ 1:15:33Sen. Durbin: You even shut down the committee because you didn't want that and you know I submitted that in writing and you continue to misrepresent that and I am not going to let that record stand.
▶ 1:15:45Chair Grassley: Go ahead, senator durbin.
▶ 1:15:47Sen. Durbin: I just want to make it clear that the reason the committee stated that your side invoked the rule. Point number two is asked if you wanted any documents or flight logs putting record and you never did. >> yes I did, and your staff knows that I did. You will submit once again the information to you. We've done that several times but we will be happy to once again send it to you. I think your staff doesn't show that to you.
▶ 1:16:16Chair Grassley: As I started to say about the emoluments clause, democrats bringing in up in regard to qatar, back in march of 2016 they didn't care anything about my bringing up the emoluments clause in regard I wrote to the obama justice department, that letter was based on secretary clinton's
▶ 1:16:46Chair Grassley: 2009-2013 financial disclosures when she was secretary of state, those disclosures show that her husband participated in at least 62 events with foreign states, some of those were speaking events with connections to foreign governments and some speaking events were financially supported by foreign governments. Two examples, bill clinton received hundreds of thousands of dollars for an appearance sponsored by a middle eastern government.
▶ 1:17:16Chair Grassley: No clinton also received $200,000 for a speech connected the chinese government and I don't recall getting any help from my democratic colleagues on that investigation. Senator graham.
▶ 1:17:30Senator Graham: Good morning.
▶ 1:17:32Sen. Durbin: Good morning.
▶ 1:17:35Senator Graham: Thank you. I want to make sure I got this clear. If a democrat or republican senator has a problem with a grant that has been canceled or reduced, you would be glad to talk to them?
▶ 1:17:47Sen. Durbin: Yes senator, and I've been doing that as well.
▶ 1:17:50Sen. Graham: There happened democratic members who have called you?
▶ 1:17:54Ag Bondi: They've spoken to my office, yes.
▶ 1:17:56Sen. Graham: And you try to respond.
▶ 1:17:58Ag Bondi: Of course if it has anything to do with law enforcement.
▶ 1:18:02Sen. Graham: And that includes senator durbin if he's got a problem, he can call you and you will try to respond?
▶ 1:18:07Ag Bondi: Absolutely.
▶ 1:18:08Sen. Graham: How many illegal immigrants are in chicago? Does anybody know?
▶ 1:18:17Ag Bondi: I do. Countless. What we have seen since january 20, senator graham, is a 1000% increase in violent attacks against our ice officers.
▶ 1:18:34Sen. Graham: Right, but I just want to know is it like 10 or 100,000, does anybody know?
▶ 1:18:41Ag Bondi: There have been multiple and we have made multiple arrests, of course. Violent gangs in chicago throughout illinois.
▶ 1:18:50Sen. Graham: Right. The only reason I ask is chicago is a sanctuary city. Do they help ice deal with illegal immigration or are they a sanctuary city, do you know?
▶ 1:19:04Ag Bondi: They are not cooperating and I would ask that senator durbin would condemn the governor for not cooperating with our law enforcement officers.
▶ 1:19:13Sen. Graham: If you are a sanctuary city, any place in the country, you are making it difficult for the rest of us because word gets out if you get to a certain city, maybe chicago being one of them, that you are home free and that just encourages more illegal immigration. Do you agree with that?
▶ 1:19:32Ag Bondi: I do. Antennae add something to that please. One of our biggest wins was against the sin lower cartel and that came in chicago. The state of illinois has a trust act which prevents local law enforcement from cooperating with our federal immigration authorities. That's what I was trying to talk to senator durbin about. On september 15 our partners at ice arrested an illegal alien from mexico for beating a 21-year-old man to death.
▶ 1:20:04Ag Bondi: He had been imprisoned in illinois prior to the murder and was released under illinois trust act. We filed multiple lawsuits in illinois for sanctuary policies, specifically in-state tuition for illegal aliens and obstructing employers from verifying citizenship. You can't make this up. On september 5 federal grand jury in chicago indicted a major cartel boss, narco terrorism, guns and drug charges.
▶ 1:20:37Ag Bondi: On july 11 we announced a guilty plea. You may know him as the son of el chapo, one of the worst narco terrorists in the world. In the world.
▶ 1:20:50Sen. Graham: In chicago?
▶ 1:20:52Ag Bondi: In chicago. He entered a guilty plea to drug conspiracy and two counts of knowingly engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. In the state of illinois. I could continue with fentanyl, I could continue with child predators in illinois.
▶ 1:21:10Sen. Graham: Thank you, I've seen numbers over 100,000. So chicago and other sanctuary cities are making it harder for us to deal with illegal immigration. I am glad president trump is trying to change those policies and if you need the national guard to bring order out of chaos, so be it from my point of view. Let's get back to the topic sort of that hand here.
▶ 1:21:39Sen. Graham: About how the law is being used politically. In september 2022, attorney general james from new york basically said in a campaign that she would go after trump, his business transactions, and his family full force. November 15, 2022, trump announces his candidacy for president.
▶ 1:22:07Sen. Graham: November 2022, three days after trump announced his reelection campaign, jack smith was appointed by garland to be special counsel, to at classified information, document mishandling and trying to undermine the 2020 election.
▶ 1:22:27Sen. Graham: In march, president trump was indicted in manhattan of 2023 just after announcing 34 felony counts and what they did is they took misdemeanors and turned them into felonies by using a legal theory that no one in the history of manhattan had ever been charged with.
▶ 1:22:48Sen. Graham: June the 2023, the federal grand jury in the district indicted president trump 37 charges regarding classified information. Now, all I can say is that taking a hammer to a hard drive and bleach apparently doesn't make the cut. Having documents in the garage of president biden doesn't make the cut.
▶ 1:23:17Sen. Graham: In august of 2023, he was indicted yet again regarding the 2020 election. So all I can say is that in september 27th, jack smith's team asked for my phone records and seven other senators. And that's just the 2024 election. Comey.
▶ 1:23:47Sen. Graham: Are you aware of the fact that in august, then director of the fbi, august of 2016 was in a meeting at the white house where it was discussed that, by brennan, then-cia director that there was intelligent that may be the clinton campaign was trying to cook up a narrative that trump was a russian asset?
▶ 1:24:14Ag Bondi: Senator I believe that has been reported publicly but I cannot speak on it.
▶ 1:24:19Sen. Graham: I'm just telling you, this is a campaign for president in 2016. In july, they open up crossfire hurricane. In august they have a discussion in front of president biden that there is intel that maybe this is generated by his political opponent. Nothing happened.
▶ 1:24:47Sen. Graham: In september are you aware of the fact that the intelligence community sent a memo to the fbi director detailing intelligence that suggests clinton's campaign was behind the idea that trump is colluding or cooperating with russians?
▶ 1:24:57Ag Bondi: I believe that has been reported.
▶ 1:25:00Sen. Graham: And that was addressed to the fbi -- fbi director and Mr. struct. You aware that he told this committee I don't recall that, the fbi director?
▶ 1:25:09Ag Bondi: Senator, I can't discuss anything.
▶ 1:25:12Sen. Graham: I can tell you this, what the hell would you recall? As a fitting fbi director there's a campaign for president going on. You've opened up an investigation believing that the republican candidate may be a russian asset and now all of a sudden less than a month later, two months later, you have two inquiries, to events to suggest that maybe has political opponent.
▶ 1:25:39Sen. Graham: And anybody in the fbi informed the board or anyone else about this activity that you know of?
▶ 1:25:44Ag Bondi: I can't discuss that matter, as you know.
▶ 1:25:47Sen. Graham: Should they have? Is there a requirement by law enforcement to tell the court if a warrant is being sought or the defendant that there is exculpatory information out there about you?
▶ 1:26:00Ag Bondi: In general, of course.
▶ 1:26:01Sen. Graham: Search of the country, the fbi director get the memo from the community that this may all be a political plot by his opponent. They didn't do a thing. You familiar with the steel dossier?
▶ 1:26:16Ag Bondi: Yes.
▶ 1:26:17Sen. Graham: That was a dossier prepared and paid for by the clinton campaign. Are you aware that it was that document used to get a warrant on five different occasions against carter page, an american citizen?
▶ 1:26:31Sen. Graham: Are you aware of the fact that in february of 2017 after trump's president, the person who gave christopher steal the information, the russian guy told the fbi the information I provided you was all bartok, hearsay and not reliable. Are you aware of that? Was there ever an effort by the fbi to tell the pfizer court about evidence that the man who helped prepare the document retracted his statement?
▶ 1:27:03Ag Bondi: I can't discuss that, senator.
▶ 1:27:04Sen. Graham: Should there have been?
▶ 1:27:05Ag Bondi: I can't discuss that.
▶ 1:27:07Sen. Graham: You wonder why we are looking at kobe? Give me a break. Why are we looking at comey? Because he ran the fbi and personally knew about exculpatory information and let it slide.
▶ 1:27:23Sen. Graham: How in the hell can to fbi agents interview a man who says the document you are using against a sitting president to suggest he may be a russian agent are carter page that is now low -- no longer reliable, how does that not get to the court? Can you tell me? You can't, can you.
▶ 1:27:45Ag Bondi: I can't, senator.
▶ 1:27:47Sen. Graham: Can you tell me why my phone records when I'm the chairman of the dish eric committee were sought by the jack smith agents? Why did they ask to know who I called and what I was doing from january 4 to january 7, can you tell me that?
▶ 1:28:06Ag Bondi: No senator, and there were eight senators in total.
▶ 1:28:10Sen. Graham: Do you think that was an abuse of power?
▶ 1:28:13Ag Bondi: Senator, I cannot discuss whether there is or is not an ongoing investigation. If I may add one thing, they also wasted $50 million on what you just described trying to put president trump in jail prior to the election.
▶ 1:28:27Chair Grassley: Before senator whitehouse, I want to introduce into the record what is called the durham annex to john durham's report about crossfire hurricane. The durham annex contains information exposing a reported clinton campaign plan to falsify and tie president trump to russia.
▶ 1:28:56Chair Grassley: For years I've fought to assemble and publicize all the facts surrounding durham investigation crossfire hurricane and related matters. Durham annex was declassified as a large part because of attorney general bondi. >> Mr. chairman. May I ask you a question?
▶ 1:29:16Chair Grassley: If I can answer it, yes. >> are you going to hold a separate hearing on your whistleblower account of the fbi investigation of the united states senators?
▶ 1:29:30Chair Grassley: I think we need -- my answer to your question is I think we need to wait until we see what the fbi can report and whether it's necessary to have a hearing. Right now I haven't ruled one out, but I've not made a decision. >> and what year do you think that will happen in?
▶ 1:29:49Chair Grassley: I want the fbi to be a total investigation of it and report what information they can give us. >> with respect, are you giving them a certain timeframe?
▶ 1:30:03Chair Grassley: I've not given them a certain period of time. I will discuss that matter with my staff and see if that needs to be done. >> if civil suits are filed against the perpetrators of the fbi, will that facilitate your investigation?
▶ 1:30:20Chair Grassley: What is the question again? >> 58 senators sue out of the department of justice and the perpetrators, will that facilitate their investigation and/or yours? I don't understand why we don't have a separate hearing. I find this breathtaking.
▶ 1:30:44Chair Grassley: It's been 20 four hours since the fbi investigated. Please give me an opportunity to sort through all that. >> fair enough, I just don't want to wait 24 years to get names.
▶ 1:30:58Chair Grassley: We do have an active investigation going on through my staff, I want to make that very clear. Senator whitehouse.
▶ 1:31:11Senator Whitehouse: Thank you, chairman. Miss bondi, good morning.
▶ 1:31:14Ag Bondi: Good morning.
▶ 1:31:17Senator Whitehouse: What became of the $50,000 in cash that the fbi paid to Mr. homan in a paper bag, evidently?
▶ 1:31:39Ag Bondi: Senator, as deputy attorney general todd blanche recently stated, the investigation of Mr. homan was subjected to a full review by the fbi. Agents and prosecutors found no credible evidence of any wrongdoing.
▶ 1:31:56Sen. Whitehouse: That was not my question. My question was what became of the $50,000 in cash that the fbi delivered evidently in a paper bag to Mr. homan?
▶ 1:32:07Ag Bondi: Senator, I would look at your facts.
▶ 1:32:13Sen. Whitehouse: Are you saying that they did not deliver $50,000 in cash to Mr. homan?
▶ 1:32:18Ag Bondi: As recently stated, the investigation of Mr. homan was subjected to a full review. Five fbi agent, five department of justice prosecutors. They found no evidence of wrongdoing.
▶ 1:32:33Sen. Whitehouse: That's a different question. What became of the $50,000? Did you get it back?
▶ 1:32:40Ag Bondi: Senator whitehouse, you're welcome to talk to the fbi.
▶ 1:32:44Sen. Whitehouse: I report to you, can you answer this question?
▶ 1:32:48Ag Bondi: Senator whitehouse, you're welcome to discuss this with director patel.
▶ 1:32:52Sen. Whitehouse: Did homan keep the $50,000?
▶ 1:32:57Ag Bondi: As deputy attorney general todd blanche recently stated, --
▶ 1:33:04Sen. Whitehouse: Never mind, I can see I'm not going to get a straight answer from you.
▶ 1:33:08Ag Bondi: Five fbi agent and the doj. They gave no credible evidence of wrongdoing. You know, you're very concerned about money and people taking money. Yet you work with dark money groups all the time, senator whitehouse.
▶ 1:33:24Sen. Whitehouse: Did you know whether or not in that investigation they look at whether the 20 for $50,000 payment to Mr. homan was declared by him on his tax return?
▶ 1:33:39Ag Bondi: Senator, I would be more concerned if I were you when you talk about corruption and money that when you pushed for legislation that would subsidize your wife's company.
▶ 1:33:51Sen. Whitehouse: The question see are actually pretty specific. Having you respond with completely irrelevant far right internet talking points really is not very helpful here. I'd like, Mr.
▶ 1:34:10Sen. Whitehouse: Chairman, you'd generally like to be able to have us get answers to know and we will follow up with a ufr and to the extent patel wants to answer that would be great as well. What happened to the $50,000, did homan keep it, did the fbi get it back? If he kept it, did he put it on his tax returns? Pretty simple questions. Homan was the same guy who said there was a deal with eric adams.
▶ 1:34:39Sen. Whitehouse: He said of adams doesn't come through, I'll be back, I'll be in this office of his butt sitting where the hell is the agreement we came to? Which brings us to the opr investigation of misconduct by bovee because he was also involved in that transaction. What became of the opr investigation of prosecutorial misconduct?
▶ 1:35:06Ag Bondi: To correctly for one moment, that would be the honorable judge bovee the third to you.
▶ 1:35:13Sen. Whitehouse: Not at the time of this, he was an employee at the department of justice. What became of the --
▶ 1:35:20Ag Bondi: It's all pending litigation, senator. I can't discuss pending litigation or personnel matters.
▶ 1:35:27Sen. Whitehouse: Opr customarily publicly says when there is an investigation and at the end that they provide a summary. Why can't you say whether there is an opr investigation and whether if it is concluded, there is a summary?
▶ 1:35:44Ag Bondi: Senator, I'm not going to discuss personal matters.
▶ 1:35:48Sen. Whitehouse: Even public one?
▶ 1:35:50Ag Bondi: Senator, I'm not going to discuss personnel matters.
▶ 1:35:55Sen. Whitehouse: So kash patel told this committee that his grand jury testimony after immunization, after initially pleading the fifth was, and I quote, sealed by the department of justice. How and when and why was his testimony sealed and by whom?
▶ 1:36:17Ag Bondi: Senator, I'm not going to discuss any testimony especially testimony that could be sealed with you.
▶ 1:36:25Sen. Whitehouse: Know, the question is was it or was it not sealed?
▶ 1:36:29Ag Bondi: Senator, I'm not going to discuss that with you.
▶ 1:36:33Sen. Whitehouse: Will he also said that he worked with the department of justice to have his transcript released publicly. How and when was his transcript released? Presumably if you released it publicly that is something you could discuss because it is public.
▶ 1:36:54Ag Bondi: Well senator I believe you discussed that with director patel.
▶ 1:36:57Sen. Whitehouse: And I'm asking you because he said the department of justice made this decision and you run the department of justice.
▶ 1:37:04Ag Bondi: I would refer that to director patel.
▶ 1:37:07Sen. Whitehouse: Even though you run the department of justice and he testified at the department of justice released his transcript publicly?
▶ 1:37:15Ag Bondi: If it is released publicly, we will get you a copy, gladly.
▶ 1:37:20Sen. Whitehouse: If being a rather important word when you're fbi director testified that that was a fact. Treasury compiles suspicious activity reports referred to often as sars. The doj receives automatically. Hundreds related to accounts of jeffrey epstein.
▶ 1:37:50Sen. Whitehouse: How many of those treasury sars did you or director patel investigate?
▶ 1:37:57Ag Bondi: Senator, I'm not sure if you are concerned because you took money, I believe, did you, from reid hoffman, one of epstein's closest confidantes not only once, but twice in 2018 and 2024. If that is correct, senator, did you ask merrick garland any of this over the last four years when he set before you? This investigation was closed.
▶ 1:38:28Ag Bondi: Did you ask alex acosta that?
▶ 1:38:28Sen. Whitehouse: When you end patel came to office and said you would look into this, there were hundreds of suspicious activity reports. Some people would deduce from the fact that they were called suspicious activity reports that there might be suspicious activity. And yet you seem to have looked at zero of those suspicious activity reports involving jeffrey epstein accounts. Let me ask you something else.
▶ 1:39:01Sen. Whitehouse: There's been public reporting that jeffrey epstein showed people photos of president trump with half naked young women. Do you know if the fbi found those photographs in their search of jeffrey epstein safe or premises or otherwise? Have you seen any such thing?
▶ 1:39:19Ag Bondi: You know senator whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks once again trying to slander president trump left and right when you are the one who is taking money from one of epstein's closest confidantes, I believe.
▶ 1:39:36Ag Bondi: I could be wrong, correct me reid hoffman, who was with jeffrey epstein on multiple occasions in the senator sitting right next to you tried to block the flight logs from being released. Yet you are drilling me on president trump and some photograph with epstein? Come on.
▶ 1:39:54Sen. Whitehouse: The question is did the fbi find those photographs that have been discussed publicly by a witness who claimed jeffrey epstein showed them to him? You don't know anything about that? Ok. Let's cut to something else.
▶ 1:40:27Sen. Whitehouse: The marshall service is supposed to protect our federal judges. I've asked repeatedly for the marshall service to let me know if they are investigating or being inhibited from investigating whether or not there is orchestration of threats against federal judges.
▶ 1:40:57Sen. Whitehouse: Whether under either conspiracy laws for racketeer enterprise laws or aiding and abetting laws, whatever, but as you know, there's the person who says the threat and then there may very well be somebody orchestrating the threat behind them. Is the marshall service allowed to investigate orchestration of threats and do you know if they've taken one step to do so?
▶ 1:41:18Ag Bondi: May I answer the question, chairman grassley, the time is expired.
▶ 1:41:23Chair Grassley: --
▶ 1:41:25Sen. Whitehouse: I think if the convention of the commit he that if I've started my question in my time then you may answer the question.
▶ 1:41:31Ag Bondi: I was asking the chairman.
▶ 1:41:33Chair Grassley: She wants to answer the question. Please go ahead. I thought you said you didn't want to answer.
▶ 1:41:40Ag Bondi: Yes sir, thank you. Senator whitehouse, I would be happy to sit down with you regarding any threat to any federal judge in this country. We take threats very seriously. I will set a meeting with you, with director sir alter of the U.S. marshals, and I will be there. And we will talk about any threats on federal judges. No matter who orchestrated them.
▶ 1:42:07Sen. Whitehouse: Thank you.
▶ 1:42:09Chair Grassley: Before corning speaks, I get kind of amused about my democratic colleagues rigging up suspicious activity reports regarding epstein. Senator johnson and I issued our biden family reports in 2020, we used information from these very same type of documents.
▶ 1:42:34Chair Grassley: And you know what, we were criticized by our democratic colleagues for doing so and for years they ignored the evidence of the biden family criminality. I don't think my colleagues can have it both ways. Senator cornyn. Senator cornyn. General bondi, six out of 10 americans say they live from paycheck-to-paycheck. And I'm sure that includes a lot of federal employees.
▶ 1:43:04Chair Grassley: Border patrol, fbi agent's, people who support them, frontline prosecutors. Do you find it somewhat inconsistent that our democratic colleagues claim to support law enforcement and the rule of law and yet they vote to deny those same individuals the pay which they've earned?
▶ 1:43:28Ag Bondi: Yes, senators, our law enforcement agencies, dea, fbi, U.S. marshals and all the other federal agencies, homeland security, treasury, all the agencies, all of my federal prosecutors, all of our employees are working tirelessly . National security around the clock to keep this country safe and to keep this world safe.
▶ 1:43:58Ag Bondi: Yet the democrats voted to shut the government down and they are out there working without a paycheck with families at home risking their lives every single day. Thank you for pointing that out and thank you for caring senator cornyn.
▶ 1:44:14Sen. Cornyn: So let's get back to some basics. The constitution of the united states is the supreme law of the land, is it not?
▶ 1:44:23Ag Bondi: Yes sir.
▶ 1:44:26Sen. Cornyn: All americans in the entire country. Federal law likewise applies to the entire nation, does it not?
▶ 1:44:35Ag Bondi: Yes, senator.
▶ 1:44:37Sen. Cornyn: So when federal law enforcement agents go to cities like chicago to enforce federal law they are acting within their authority, are they not?
▶ 1:44:48Ag Bondi: Yes, senator cornyn.
▶ 1:44:51Sen. Cornyn: So on what legal basis would a governor or a mayor say we are going to deny or prevent a federal law enforcement agent from enforcing federal law, what would be the legal basis for them to do that?
▶ 1:45:08Ag Bondi: You know senator, there is not one. And as I've stated there were 571 homicides in chicago last year and that is why right now, director patel and deputy attorney general todd blanche are on their way to chicago. I've been to memphis, they are in chicago right now to protect the people of illinois.
▶ 1:45:34Ag Bondi: And senator graham, the point he was trying to make earlier was that you don't cooperate with law enforcement, if I was a cartel narco terrorist, you know where I would go, chicago because they are not enforcing the law. And they are running their operations as I stated earlier, two of the biggest terrorists, we arrested right in chicago because it was a safe haven for them and they are operating these networks around our entire country.
▶ 1:46:03Ag Bondi: So we are going to keep our entire country safe, we are going to protect all americans. If these senators are going to vote to open our government and let our people work for pay with paychex, they are going to do it anyway whether or not the locals are cooperating with them. We are going to be there protecting all americans in this country.
▶ 1:46:26Sen. Cornyn: I find the comparison between washington, D.C., the nation's capital where the mayor has welcomed the federal law enforcement agents, which as I travel around the city are providing a level of deterrence against crime that I've not seen before and washington, D.C.
▶ 1:46:53Sen. Cornyn: Happens to be one of the most dangerous metropolitan areas in the country. So watching and seeing what the response has been by local officials here in washington, D.C., seeing how the public here who visits here as tourists from texas and elsewhere, how they are welcoming this federal law enforcement presence, that strikes me as a stark contrast between what we've seen in places like chicago.
▶ 1:47:24Sen. Cornyn: And I just don't understand how elected officials are sworn to uphold the law and the constitution of the united states but take the position that no, we don't want a safer community and our major cities that have a high level of crime like chicago. That doesn't strike you as bizarre?
▶ 1:47:42Ag Bondi: Senator cornyn, I don't understand it either because we've been working hand-in-hand right here in D.C. with mayor bowser. She's been an incredible partner at making D.C. safe again. We've been working with her, we've been working with a police chief, we've been working with their staff and the numbers speak for themselves. 3156 arrests, 294 illegal guns seized.
▶ 1:48:13Ag Bondi: I think the number is probably higher today. Carjackings down 87%, violent crime down 45%. Right here in the nation's capital. I've been out there countless times before they go out on the streets and I'm watching the D.C. metro police, I'm watching them with the transit authority police who of course kedar metro safe, I'm watching them with our dea, fbi, atf, U.S.
▶ 1:48:42Ag Bondi: Marshals, treasury agents and hhs has even provided doctors out there to help the team and what they are, they are a team and they are working hand-in-hand. If you couldn't see their shirts on their insignia, you wouldn't know what agency they are with I've truly never seen a partnership like that in my career, and it's working together. And that is what illinois is refusing to do.
▶ 1:49:12Ag Bondi: And I wish the sanders, I wish senator durbin would condemn the governor of illinois and have him work with us like we are doing now in memphis. We have the governor of memphis, have two great U.S. senators, we have the mayor of memphis and the chief working hand-in-hand.
▶ 1:49:31Sen. Cornyn: Last week, maybe the week before last, I lose track of the days, we had the head of the metropolitan police union for the district of columbia here and I ask him about violent crime in our communities and I asked him whether there was a straight line from the open border policies of the biden administration which helped facilitate the cartels from
▶ 1:50:02Sen. Cornyn: Exporting their poison to the united states only to then find it distributed by criminal gangs who then engaged in violence in our communities like chicago to protect their territory and the profits that go along with that illegal drug trafficking.
▶ 1:50:22Sen. Cornyn: But I wanted to ask you about another aspect of the open border policy, and that has to do with one of the least reported tragedies and scandals associated with the biden open border policies.
▶ 1:50:38Sen. Cornyn: And that has to do with the 500,000 children sometimes called unaccompanied children, 500 thousand children that the biden administration allowed to be placed with sponsors in this country that were largely unvented. Subjecting them to who knows what and then abandoning them by taking the position that it's not the federal government's responsibility, it is local child protective agency that have to follow up on these kids.
▶ 1:51:10Sen. Cornyn: So they couldn't tell you whether they were being trafficked, recruited into gangs, whether they were going to school, whether they were getting the health care that they need. They couldn't tell you because they didn't care. So I know that president trump administration, the department of justice in particular has located 22,000 of these 500,000 children. Could you talk to us a little bit about your efforts to rescue these children that have been abandoned by the biden administration?
▶ 1:51:40Ag Bondi: Yes, and thank you for asking that question. President trump cares deeply about our children in this country and children from around the world. This is horrific what has been happening in our country. Law enforcement has arrested approximately 458 sponsors. Now, what these sponsors are, they lie to or r.
▶ 1:52:12Ag Bondi: Many of them to have an unaccompanied alien child. Some of them later exploit and abuse these children. They are not parents, they are not guardians, they are coming into this country. They were coming into this country without any ramification across the mexican border until donald trump became present again and that is when it stopped.
▶ 1:52:38Ag Bondi: We are doing everything in our power to find and arrest these people who are exploiting these children and find these children throughout our country. One of those cases we charged a guatemalan national unlawfully residing in cleveland with lying to government because he became a sponsor of a young girl and of course we found he was later sexually abusing her.
▶ 1:53:05Ag Bondi: That is one of many cases, senator cornyn, that I can talk about. And donald trump will not rest until all of the sponsors are found and these children are found and protected.
▶ 1:53:17Sen. Cornyn: Thank. >> senator klobuchar, you are recognized.
▶ 1:53:24Senator Klobuchar: Thank you attorney general body. I'm going to start a different subject on behalf of families in my state and I wanted to thank the fbi and the local justice officials in minnesota, the U.S. attorney's office for the work that they did catching the murderer, the horrific murder of my friend speaker melissa hortman and her husband in the shooting of senator john hoffman.
▶ 1:53:53Senator Klobuchar: Just last month my state was again shaken to its core when a mass shooter attacked enunciation capital church in minnesota, shooting through the stained glass windows, injuring 21,000 people including 18 kids, killing little flexor, little harper and a 10-year-old, murdering them when they were in mass praying. 12-year-old protecting eight-year-olds.
▶ 1:54:19Senator Klobuchar: I know we've spoken about these tragedies and we both agree that this kind of violence, whether in minnesota or at a mormon church in michigan or the assassination of charlie kirk has no place in our politics or in our democracy. In 2018 after the parkland shooting, you were attorney general and there was a bill called the marjorie stoneman douglas high school public safety act.
▶ 1:54:46Senator Klobuchar: The bill would ban bump stocks, enact red flag warning and raise the minimum age to purchase firearms in florida from 18 to 21 and you actually defended the law in court from a challenge from the nra. And we know that I'm in favor of an assault weapons ban period. I look at this bill and think that this hurt my uncle dick in the deer stand? I don't think they do.
▶ 1:55:16Senator Klobuchar: And as I talk to director patel and he told me in the chair you are sitting in right now that assault weapons bands could prevent future attacks, I talked to him about better background checks, more red flag laws, and then perhaps we could find common ground on what actually happened in florida which would be to at least change the minimum age for purchasing assault weapons because we've got 18 to 20-year-olds giving gun homicide at over triple the
▶ 1:55:46Senator Klobuchar: Rate of adults 21 years and older even though that wouldn't have helped in enunciation church because he was a few years older, she was a few years older. But as you know, the shooter at parkland was 19 years old and the shooters in buffalo and uvalde were both 18 years old. So given your efforts in florida, do you agree that at least raising the age for purchasing assault weapons could reduce the number of the shootings?
▶ 1:56:12Ag Bondi: Senator, first, that is pending litigation and I can't discuss that at all. I cannot discuss that at all.
▶ 1:56:21Sen. Klobuchar: The 21 age --
▶ 1:56:24Ag Bondi: That is pending litigation, I can't discuss that. Back to what you said about what happened in minnesota, there is no place for that. Believe I spoke to you after that horrific, horrific murder. And I'm so sorry that happened and all of my federal agencies are partnering with state agencies working hand-in-hand in minnesota.
▶ 1:56:55Ag Bondi: What I can tell you about the second amendment is that this is the most pro-second amendment doj in american history as you know, but we want to keep guns where they should be, in the hands of law-abiding american citizens. While keeping them out of the hands of criminals and gangs. Since january 20, the atf and fbi have seized --
▶ 1:57:21Sen. Klobuchar: You've quoted the statistics. I have 10 minutes. You have given these statistics and I truly appreciate those statistics, but what I was just trying to get at is something where maybe we can find common ground on a bill that you actually defended in court which director patel seemed open to, and that was looking at could be at least raise the age to 21, the purchase of an assault weapons federally while states look at banning these weapons
▶ 1:57:53Sen. Klobuchar: Overall, given these little babies at this gun is used to kill. So we can talk about it later but that was my question and you don't want to answer it.
▶ 1:58:01Ag Bondi: It's pending litigation.
▶ 1:58:03Sen. Klobuchar: Your views on this are not pending litigation. I want to get to the independence of the justice department. At your nomination hearing I specifically asked you to provide assurance to every member of this committee that the justice department would only follow the facts in the law in the white house would play no role in the cases investigated or brought.
▶ 1:58:26Sen. Klobuchar: You stated in response politics will not play a part in my decisions and you also said the justice department must be independent and must act independently. Do you believe that you have upheld that commitment?
▶ 1:58:41Ag Bondi: I absolutely have upheld that commitment, senator. Ed pledged that I would end the weaponization also of the justice department and that america would once again have a one tier system of justice for all. And that is what we are doing in this country.
▶ 1:58:58Sen. Klobuchar: We saw this with the president directing an investigation and prosecution of the former head of cybersecurity , lisa cook who is a current governor of the federal reserve, director comey, and the president, and I know you said that you will not discuss discussions you had with the president about comey. Is that correct?
▶ 1:59:26Sen. Klobuchar: That you won't testify here about that, because I was going to ask you if you received advice, instruction or request from anyone at the white house to direct the department to engage in any investigations, prosecutorial actions including decisions not to investigate or prosecute anyone.
▶ 1:59:43Ag Bondi: I'm not going to discuss that.
▶ 1:59:46Sen. Klobuchar: Then how about the truth social post on september 20, 2025 in which the president said we can't delay any longer, pam, not bringing criminal charges is killing our reputation, his words, and credibility. And then went on to tell you to prosecute a member of this committee, to prosecute the attorney general of new york and to prosecute james comey. Do you consider that a directive to the justice department?
▶ 2:00:16Ag Bondi: Senator klobuchar, president trump is the most transparent president in american history. I do not think he said anything that he hasn't said for years.
▶ 2:00:26Sen. Klobuchar: It's been reported that you initially pushed back against requests by senior trump administration officials to push outward fire the acting U.S. attorney in virginia eric's seabird, a conservative republican who made the decision that comey, that the evidence was not there to prosecute comey. What made you change your opinion?
▶ 2:00:52Ag Bondi: I'm not going to discuss personal decisions.
▶ 2:00:55Sen. Klobuchar: Is it true that the career prosecutors in the eastern district of virginia found that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against former director comey?
▶ 2:01:04Ag Bondi: I am not going to discuss pending cases because comey was indicted in the eastern district of virginia by, I may point out, one of the most liberal great juries in the country.
▶ 2:01:19Sen. Klobuchar: Let's go on to other firings and terminations. Last week the justice department fired at least two senior attorneys in the eastern district of virginia including the offices national security chief, michael been airee. It is reported that his firing came following criticism from a right-wing social media commentator who wrote "one can only assume he was part of the internal resistance in the comey indictment. In fact he did not work on the comey case.
▶ 2:01:47Sen. Klobuchar: Instead he was working on pursuing justice for service members killed in afghanistan. How does firing a 20 year national security prosecutor enhance public safety?
▶ 2:01:59Ag Bondi: Senator klobuchar, I'm not going to discuss personnel decisions. But the personnel issue that I'm having right now is that all of my agents, all of my lawyers, my agents are on the street working without a paycheck because your party voted to shut down the government.
▶ 2:02:18Sen. Klobuchar: Unfortunately the house isn't even back here in the 80 days off the job to even meet without us to come up with a resolution that we would like to discuss with them about saving people's health care. Let's move onto the antitrust provision. Did you authorize your chief of staff to overrule top officials in the antitrust division to settle the challenge to the hewlett-packard enterprises juniper networks merger?
▶ 2:02:43Ag Bondi: Senator -- resume antitrust unit and she is doing an excellent job on many, many cases. As you know, that is a pending case. Just to clarify, in any merger, there is a deal struck with our office and with the corporations involved, but then goes to a court to certify in any merger.
▶ 2:03:15Ag Bondi: In any merger it is a multistep process.
▶ 2:03:16Sen. Klobuchar: Ok, I will ask further questions by the antitrust, I just have one other thing. Doj can now take the extraordinary step of subpoena to a journalist. Has the justice department issued any subpoenas to journalists? >> the time is expired. You may respond, miss bondi.
▶ 2:03:38Sen. Klobuchar: You can respond, she said.
▶ 2:03:41Ag Bondi: Oh. Senator, my office in april restored the justice department long-standing norm on this issue. It was ag garland who had deviated on the media investigations policy.
▶ 2:04:08Ag Bondi: Allowing self identified journalists using this self-serving status as a shield against being held accountable for endangering our nations security. We have taken that policy back to the norm and I can't comment on whether we have or have not or do or do not have pending investigations. >> time has expired. Senator lee, you are recognized.
▶ 2:04:33Ag Bondi: >> thank you for being here today and thanks for your service as attorney general of the U.S. I want to start by thanking you for acknowledging protecting the rights of the law-abiding in a country where there are hundreds of millions of guns. Not to mention unconstitutional things to disarm the law-abiding. It would be unfair, it would be fatal to many, contrary to our constitutional system that I appreciate you standing up for that.
▶ 2:05:04Ag Bondi: I'm also grateful for you standing up for gail slater, the assistant attorney general over at the antitrust division. I have full confidence in her and I can tell you do as well. More broadly, attorney general bondi, your leadership has returned the department of justice to its core mission which of course involves protecting the american people and upholding the law, upholding the constitution and making sure that justice in our system is applied evenhandedly, fairly,
▶ 2:05:36Ag Bondi: Consistently at the law requires, without fear, waiver or political bias making those decisions. With you as attorney general at the helm of this great department, the department of justice has strengthened its efforts to secure our borders. Against what has been an unprecedented influx of illegal immigration.
▶ 2:05:57Ag Bondi: It's disrupted sophisticated networks of criminals including people who profit immensely and have profited over the last five years, roughly. From a massive human trafficking and drug smuggling operation. And also it just demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the safety of american citizens.
▶ 2:06:24Ag Bondi: Your work has sent a clear message to criminal organizations and to criminally- minded people everywhere, foreign and domestic. The rule of law in the U.S. will be enforced and those who prey on the vulnerable will face especially swift and unpleasant consequences. I also like to commend you and fbi director kash patel and deputy director for your collaboration with state and local law enforcement.
▶ 2:06:55Ag Bondi: My home city of utah, assisting with the prompt apprehension of the shooter in the tragic assassination of charlie kirk just a few weeks ago. Your leadership has helped reaffirm that the department of justice exists to preserve the rule of law, to protect peace, the safety of the american people and ensure that our constitutional republic endures for many generations to come.
▶ 2:07:25Ag Bondi: Due to the open border policies that we had in the previous administration, a number of individuals, a number that is unknown and unknowable but that is estimated to be in the many millions at the low-end, be in the 10 million range, others say more like 15, others say more than that. But this unknown and unknowable number of individuals came across our border illegally.
▶ 2:07:53Ag Bondi: And an unknown number of those people are individuals who pose significant security risks, including some who are suspected terrorists. They were all allowed to enter the U.S. without proper vetting. In many cases, without any vetting at all. What progress have you made so far attorney general bondi in solving some of those issues related to the illegal immigration of an estimated 15 million, may more over the last four years?
▶ 2:08:24Ag Bondi: Senator lee, we are working hand-in-hand with kristi noem the director of homeland security. She's been doing an incredible job. All of our agencies are working in partnership with them at the direction of president trump. He ran on the promise of making america safe and closing our borders, and that's what he did on day one.
▶ 2:08:49Ag Bondi: He has also declared many of these transnational gangs as terrorist organizations, which is exactly what they are. They have been coming into our country from mexico, from venezuela, from other countries. They've been setting up shop right in our country. They are narco terrorists and it is going to stop and that is stopping under his watch. Our task are working hand-in-hand with homeland security.
▶ 2:09:19Ag Bondi: Deputy director by gino, director patel have been going nonstop to make america safe again. That's not just a slogan, that's protecting everyone in this room. That's what we are doing as a country. We don't care if you live in chicago. We don't care if you live in florida. We don't care if you live in utah. President trump wants everyone to be safe including right here in washington, D.C. and that is what he's been doing.
▶ 2:09:46Ag Bondi: Not only that senator lee, I'm sorry about my voice, the surge of drugs in this country has been horrific over the last four years. Dea, they have seized 4500 kilos of fentanyl powder and 50 million fentanyl pills, which I said earlier represents 370 million deadly doses of fentanyl.
▶ 2:10:15Ag Bondi: These transnational gangs, it's all about drugs and money and they are destroying our country, destroying our children and a lot of the sentinel as we know is made in china, they are coming into our country from mexico and now other places and under donald trump it's going to stop because he has secured our borders, senator lee.
▶ 2:10:37Sen. Lee: We are very grateful for that effort. It's interesting to note moreover that under the leadership of your predecessor, the department of justice, the fbi and others who routinely appear before this committee when asked about the human smuggling operations going on across our southern border routinely denied that fentanyl was coming in in significant quantities through the human trafficking operation.
▶ 2:11:08Sen. Lee: They stated never with any evidence, never with any ability to back it up to prove this was the case, that these things were coming across the points of entry for vehicles, trucks and otherwise. We know that not to be true, and we appreciate your work in exposing that. Going along with us law enforcement effort has been a disturbing trend. It's a disturbing trend that seems to be on the increase in recent days and weeks.
▶ 2:11:36Sen. Lee: That is a rise in violence directed at federal law enforcement officers engaged in immigration-related arrests. Including direct physical threats, organized riots outside of the tension facilities and most tragically, a fatal shooting targeting and ice facility in dallas.
▶ 2:11:55Sen. Lee: Just yesterday it was reported that a cartel member in chicago put a bounty, that's right, a bounty out there offering $2000 on information about any ice officer and $10,000 for those who kill ice officers. Keep in mind this information is not for a game of trivial pursuit.
▶ 2:12:20Sen. Lee: That information for which the cartel member would pay $2000 is so that others can kill ice officers and get $10,000. That's what that is. Can you discuss what protections are essential to ensuring the safety of ice officers and their families and why requirement to display personal information and prohibiting them from ever wearing any kind of covering would represent a totally unacceptable, indefensible risk to the public safety?
▶ 2:12:51Ag Bondi: Senator lee, our federal agents have been docked -- doxxed, and many of you know what that means. It happened to you on both sides of the aisle. Federal agents lives have been threatened. We have font to get the ice block taken down.
▶ 2:13:16Ag Bondi: That was reckless and criminal in that people were posting where ice officers live. We worked with both apple and google to take that down.
▶ 2:13:31Sen. Lee: It took as much work as vented by you to take that down. Remember they took down all kinds of things including a social media and called parler, based on very thin evidence that was largely rebutted suggesting that people have been relating parler in order to plan the january 6 attack. That wasn't true and they took it down. I'm glad they've taken this block ice aft down but it is a shame it took as long as it did much work on your part.
▶ 2:14:01Ag Bondi: To correct myself, it was where they were going, the job they were doing. That's what has been happening because hundreds organize riders are showing up where ice officers are and as you know, they have fireworks, they have gas masks. They don't want our officers to be protected yet there were in gas masks, wearing goggles. >> so it's ok for antifa to be safe.
▶ 2:14:32Ag Bondi: It's ok for those doing the bidding of international violent drug cartels to be safe but heaven forbid our ice officers should be safe. >> thank you senator. >> time is expired. Senator coons, you are recognized.
▶ 2:14:46Senator Coons: They can, senator blackburn and thank you to the committee for holding this oversight hearing. Attorney general bondi, thank you for your service and for being with us. I want to start with an area where I think we have a lot to agree on. In made the bureau of prisons issued a directive to expand the availability of home confinement. The directive said it was rooted in the principle of smart, fair criminal justice reform and explained public safety can go hand-in-hand.
▶ 2:15:15Senator Coons: That second chances are not just possible, but necessary for a justice system worthy of the american people. There is more to do to let this directive but I appreciate the recognition of these principles. Could you briefly speak further about the work deputy director is doing with regard to reform and what opportunities he sees for us to do?
▶ 2:15:39Senator Coons: >> thank you, senator coons, and you've been a champion of that and we believe in second chances . As a career prosecutor I know that most people, even violent criminals are going to be locked up and released. That is why we need everyone to be a productive member of I believe in halfway houses and asked the first stamp act. He gives people a second chance at life.
▶ 2:16:09Senator Coons: That is what billy marshall and josh smith have been doing, working hand-in-hand at the bureau of prisons. I talked to them constantly and they are working so hard. They inherited a dysfunctional and neglected agency. They are taking despite more than $450 million being appropriated between 2019 and 2020 four.
▶ 2:16:36Senator Coons: We found that the funds have been diverted away from the department of prisons, the bureau of prisons. They are creating more halfway houses in giving inmates everything they need to be successful upon release. But also by keeping america safe. I just learned from billy marshall, we made an incredible case that someone -- I believe it was in texas.
▶ 2:17:07Senator Coons: Whenever federal prisons. No one was monitoring this. There was someone caught with a drone dropping off recently cell phones paraphernalia. >> let me follow up on that point.
▶ 2:17:23Att. Gen Bondi: Many things that can cause violence in the prisons and allow cartel networks to function within our federal prisons. That is what a lot of the money is going for. To make prisons safe within and so that the criminal cannot function while they are in prison. One thing I can add. We have given inmates -- we doubled the amount of minutes they can have on their phones. They can talk to their family members. We believe that is important.
▶ 2:17:55Sen. Coons: One of the challenges probation officers face is massive caseloads. I am about to introduce -- we introduce a bill with senator lee to improve the federal supervisor release system by focusing resources on those who really need to be supervised and reduce oversight those who make progress in changed the direction of their lives. It is broadly supported by law enforcement and policy groups. I would love to work with you on that matter.
▶ 2:18:25Att. Gen Bondi: I just got the numbers. We have $8.7 billion for the bureau of prisons. It adds 587 correctional officers to help with the things we just discussed. $95 million for new hires. We have to recruit and retain. That is a really tough job to be a corrections officer.
▶ 2:18:52Att. Gen Bondi: That is what josh smith is such a valuable part of that team with billy marshall. I would welcome working with you on that. President trump is the one who signed the first step act. He believes in second chances. We all do. Thank you for the question.
▶ 2:19:08Sen. Coons: One of the things I have been concerned and upset about is how early in this administration the department cut hundreds of grants totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Many of which serve critical public safety needs supporting victims, assisting with reentry, violence prevention including in my own home state. This was literally defunding the police.
▶ 2:19:33Sen. Coons: I have concerns about how doj is putting at risk public safety by assigning thousands of agents and prosecutors away from drugs, firearms, corrections, violent crime to help ice arrest people without criminal records. You indicated a willingness to review any grant a member of congress has concerned about in a number have been restored on appeal.
▶ 2:19:57Sen. Coons: I appreciate the willingness to admit some misjudgments or mistakes in grants that were canceled. Can you assure is the process will be fixed going forward so better decisions are made at the start and not just after appeals? Can you assure us we are not leaving doors wide open her crime and criminality in the communities and overfocusing on arrest and deportation those without criminal records?
▶ 2:20:23Att. Gen Bondi: Thank you for the question. We are reviewing all the grants I believe we have turned some back on for senators. It does not matter what state you are from. If it is protecting victims, let us know when we will work with you. I am not sure we have done any in your state yet. I would be happy to work with you on that.
▶ 2:20:48Att. Gen Bondi: What I can tell you is there have been out of the 5800 discretionary grant reviewed, only 376 around the country, 7% were terminated. 225 for the grant recipients have appealed that termination. So far we turned back on 18 of those. 17 appeals have been denied and the rest are being actively reviewed. If any of you know of any of those you believe -- call me -- should be turned back on. Call me.
▶ 2:21:19Att. Gen Bondi: We don't want to jeopardize. Senator, what you said about the fbi and my federal agencies and being pulled to work in immigration cases, they are working hand-in-hand because we believe we have ice officers. I do want to repeat that. They are being harmed. We want to work with them.
▶ 2:21:43Att. Gen Bondi: I directed all of my agencies to work with ice to make sure that they are safe in chicago, to make sure they are safe and in -- in memphis and in washington, D.C. also at president trump's directive, we are not stopping the core function of what we are doing. That is fighting violent crime. Director patel made that very clear. All of the arrests that rfp I have been making on violent criminals.
▶ 2:22:08Att. Gen Bondi: There is so much we can't talk about here but if any of you are on the intel community -- committee, we are fighting terrorist around this country every single day. Our lawyers are shut down right now. They are not getting paid but the crime is not stopping. They are working around the clock to not only keep our country safe, senator, but to keep our world safe.
▶ 2:22:29Sen. Coons: I think all of us hate that there is a shut down and the impact on the federal workforce and are working to find a way out of the shutdown. One that will restore cuts to health care. We can spend a lot of time on that but let's focus on two more questions related to your services as attorney general.
▶ 2:23:00Sen. Coons: Congress has never authorized such a use of military force. It is unclear to me how the administration has concluded the strikes are legal. I'm concerned with what the limiting principles are, whether the government could summarily kill people. It just declares them as cartel members in unlawful combatants inside the united states or if they were american citizens. This is not about defending cartels and not hypothetical questions.
▶ 2:23:26Sen. Coons: President trump assembled military leaders and said they would be needed to fight the enemy from within and to train in cities in the united states that he describes as chaotic and violent. Due process is the cornerstone of our constitution. I'm deeply concerned about the authority our president seems to be asserting to summarily kill people suspected of criminal activity outside of the law. As the chief lawyer for the federal government you have the unique responsibility to ensure maintenance of the constitutional standards.
▶ 2:23:55Sen. Coons: How did you conclude the strikes on ships or boats in the open ocean are legal?
▶ 2:24:02Att. Gen. Bondi: I'm not going to discuss any legal advice my department may or may not have given or issued at the direction of the president on this matter. Regarding venezuela, what I can tell you is muduro is a narco terrorist and we announced a historic $50 million reward for his capture to bring him to this country to face charges.
▶ 2:24:33Att. Gen. Bondi: He's currently under indictment in our country. Drugs coming from venezuela are killing our children at record levels.
▶ 2:24:42Sen. Coons: And members of this committee are as passionate as you and protecting our families and communities from fentanyl. We also need to protect our sailors on the high seas who are conducting trade route navigation operations in the south china sea from an abject violation of international norms and standards about how we interdict ships on the high seas. We can push back on fentanyl and drug trafficking. Many of my colleagues have done so as former U.S. attorney's prosecutors or attorneys general.
▶ 2:25:13Sen. Coons: We have to do it in a way that is in keeping with the core values of our constitution. My colleagues have pressed you on a number of recent actions particularly in the eastern district of virginia. My colleague senator klobuchar did. I want to add my voice to those who have expressed alarm at how in your confirmation hearing you said you would be leading a department that would look forward, yet public statements by president trump urging you to go after and indict and
▶ 2:25:44Sen. Coons: Prosecute specific named people seemed to have led to dramatic action by the department. I'm gravely concerned about what is no longer a hypothetical question, which he refused to answer in your confirmation hearing, but a real question about when or if the president demands you prosecute individuals because he views them as opponents or enemies what you will do and what your living standard is, because the recent episode around the indictment of james comey left me very concerned about the direction of the department.
▶ 2:26:14Att. Gen. Bondi: We are in a minut -- we are a minute and a half over. Can I answer? Senator coons, as you stated in the past no one is above the law. James comey is a pending case. He was indicted by one of the most liberal grand juries in the country. By our U.S. attorney lindsey halligan right here in virginia.
▶ 2:26:43Att. Gen. Bondi: It is a pending case I will discuss the facts of the pending case.
▶ 2:26:46Sen. Coons: But you can understand the alarm about the circumstances of the indictment immediately following president trump demanding that you take action to indict and prosecute this viscous -- that specific and visual. -- individual.
▶ 2:27:03Chair Grassley: I'm introducing two documents into the record. The first one is the expanded scope of arctic frost. The second is a list of ruto looking -- republican groups and people that were targeted, including turning point usa. The document shows the political weaponization of the biden administration against republican senator -- against republicans. Senator hawley.
▶ 2:27:32Sen. Hawley: I have heard over and over for my democratic colleagues concerned about targeting political enemies and the accused you of all manner of things in the current president. I wrote it down because I want to be sure I heard that correctly. Joe biden never targeted his political enemies. Joe biden never directed his attorney general to target his political opponents. Huh. That's interesting.
▶ 2:28:00Sen. Hawley: Hi could have sworn that yesterday we learned the fbi tapped my phone. Let's look added. We have a list. They tapped my phone, lindsey graham's, marsha blackburn's, five other phones of united states senators. Gee. It sure looks like targeted political opponents to me. I have not heard a word from that side of the dais about any concern whatsoever.
▶ 2:28:28Sen. Hawley: We have nothing but concerns today but no concern at all for a justice department that is tapping the phones of sitting united states senators because who knows why. They don't like them. They are members of the opposition party. They are republicans. They are conservatives. You have seen this document. Who ordered this tapping of the phones of the united states senators?
▶ 2:28:54Att. Gen. Bondi: Senator hawley, I cannot discuss the details of that right now.
▶ 2:29:02Sen. Halwey: You will do a thorough investigation, I trust.
▶ 2:29:09Att. Gen. Bondi: I have talked with director patel at length about it.
▶ 2:29:11Sen. Halwey: You will figure out who was involved in this, who signed off on it, who knew about it. You will get to the bottom of all that, correct?
▶ 2:29:20Att. Gen. Bondi: Yes. I have spoken to director patel and he is committed to doing this.
▶ 2:29:25Sen. Halwey: We know this was what about the special prosecutor jack smith who appointed to the attorney general, merrick garland. We know that jack smith was on his witch hunt because he was directed to do so by the president of the united states, joe biden. Let's remember -- let's take a walk down memory lane. April 2, 2022. New york times. Carl and growing pressure.
▶ 2:29:53Sen. Halwey: As recently as late last year -- 2021 -- Mr. biden confided to his inner circle he will former president trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted. Garland -- the biden was frustrated with garland and wanted him to take decisive action against trump. Here is what we are talking about. Trump was a private citizen at the time.
▶ 2:30:15Sen. Halwey: He appoints his own hitman, jack smith, it was after the president, who was after members of this body. The thing about it that really strikes me, it did not stop with members of the senate. Did it? Just as egregious, maybe more so than tapping the phones of U.S. senators is this memo I know you have seen before. This is an fbi memo from the same time.
▶ 2:30:45Sen. Halwey: E. The fbi attempts to recruit informants into catholic carriages in this country. Here you have an administration that is activating the fbi against his political opponents and tapping the phones of united states senators. Can I say that for the benefit of my colleagues? Tapping the phones of the united states senators. This is not hypothetical. This is not maybe what you will do in the future.
▶ 2:31:18Sen. Halwey: This is, can you imagine the situation? This happened. And this happened. The targeting of catholics in this country because joe biden and his fbi did not like catholics who went to a certain kind of mass. Good god in heaven. What is happening to this country? What happened under joe biden?
▶ 2:31:39Sen. Halwey: The infamous school board memo where merrick garland at the direction of the white house issued a memo activating the fbi's counterterrorism division against parents who attended school board meetings and had the temerity to ask what their kids were being taught. Some of those parents were treated like this. Let's remember how parents were treated. Treated like this man. A parent in virginia who was drug out of the school board meeting. He's bloodied.
▶ 2:32:14Sen. Halwey: .you can see it what was the joe biden's doj and fbi? To issue a memorandum saying people like this ought to be investigated by the counter terrorism unit. An unbelievably, they were. They were. How about this? Mark houck and the pro-lifers who were prosecuted for what? For going to a clinic, an abortion clinic and praying on a sidewalk outside the abortion clinic.
▶ 2:32:42Sen. Halwey: This man at the direction of joe biden's fbi had an fbi swat team come to his door in the early morning hours with his beautiful children, terrorizing them with weapons drawn. He was interested in prosecuted. Fortunately a jury acquitted him. This is what was happening under joe biden.
▶ 2:33:09Sen. Halwey: United states senators spied upon, former president political opponents prosecuted. Pro-lifers targeted in prosecuted. Catholics targeted in prosecuted. 92 organizations put under surveillance, targeted for potential prosecution. Would you call that an example of weaponization, attorney general bondi? Is that a fair generalization?
▶ 2:33:40Att. Gen. Bondi: That is the ultimate weaponization. Weaponization under donald trump is ended. It has ended. Harvey dillon is running the civil rights unit and she is doing an incredible job. No longer will parents be targeted. No longer will parents who care about whether their elementary school children have to read a transgender book be targeted and told they cannot have any say in their child's education.
▶ 2:34:10Att. Gen. Bondi: That has ended under this administration. People can worship freely, whether they are catholic, at synagogues, or muslims. Everyone can worship freely. That was the ultimate weaponization. They were targeting catholics. No longer. They were targeting so many american citizens throughout this country. Senator hawley, you have been a champion of this and thank you for being a champion. Under donald trump's watch it has ended.
▶ 2:34:40Sen. Halwey: I think about the abuses of power in this country's history. There's been a lot but members of the executive branch over the years, whether it was watergate, j edgar hoover at the fbi spying on public figures, you name it. I have to say what we now know happened in the last four years under this administration surpasses all of that. Not just the interference in the legislative branch.
▶ 2:35:07Sen. Halwey: Not just a blatant disregard for the separation of powers, the disregard for the first amendment but the targeting of ordinary american citizens who cannot afford lawyers, who can't afford to mount a defense, who in the fbi knocks at the door they don't know what to do. It is absolutely a disgrace, a stain on the history of this country and on the conscience of this country with this administration did in the last four years.
▶ 2:35:34Sen. Halwey: I think we need a special prosecutor to be appointed whose sole responsibility will be to get to the bottom of what is happened in every instance I just named. We need to know who approved the wiretaps on U.S. senators. Who knew about it? What agents were involved at doj or the fbi? We need to know exactly who signed off on the catholic memo? How far to go?
▶ 2:36:03Sen. Halwey: We need to know exactly who authorized the prosecution of mark houck. Who terrorized pro-lifers and try to intimidate them? Mr. chairman, this committee needs to do oversight hearings. We need to have thorough hearings into what is happened these last four years and the abuse that is been uncovered. We have to ensure it stops. As you just said, attorney general bondi, we have to ensure it stops.
▶ 2:36:33Sen. Halwey: This chapter in american history needs to come to a close, never to be opened again. The use of the most powerful law enforcement bodies in the world against ordinary citizens and political opponents must end once and for all. We have a chance to do it and it needs to be done with a thorough investigation. Full transparency. Those who violate the laws need to be prosecuted. I think you what you are doing. I hope you will launch a thorough investigation and appoint a special prosecutor.
▶ 2:37:04Sen. Halwey: I hope we will hold hearings and without a yield.
▶ 2:37:08Chair Grassley: I want to introduce into the record a document general body helped declassify. It is an fbi analysis of false statements to congress or never severed consequences for advancing this phony trump russian narrative and attempting to cover up her involvement with false statements.
▶ 2:37:38Chair Grassley: Time and again, the american justice system has been weaponized against president trump and his associates. I have talked about peter navarro in regard to that. The doj's inaction on criminal referral despite the obvious and incriminating evidence provided in the fbi's on analysis undermines public trust in the rule of law thanks to director ray's utter failures.
▶ 2:38:05Sen. Blumenthal: Just so the american people understand, this issue of weaponization of justice goes to the core of the integrity of our criminal justice system.
▶ 2:38:20Sen. Blumenthal: I think we can all agree that no individual, no group should be targeted simply because they are a political opponent or because the president of the united states has some personal animosity towards the -- you just said president trump is the most transparent president in history.
▶ 2:38:47Sen. Blumenthal: Tragically and chillingly, you might be right when it comes to criminal justice. Far from ending weaponization of justice, I would submit, madam attorney general, president trump has embodied. We have a record. A public record of his expressed instructions that certain individuals be investigated.
▶ 2:39:17Sen. Blumenthal: The attorney general of new york, my colleague adam schiff, the former assistant director chris krebs, dhs former chief of staff miles taylor. There is a list. He has been transparent. Five days before the indictment of james comey, he put this post up as instructions to you. He didn't towards.
▶ 2:39:44Sen. Blumenthal: -- didn't mince words. He was open and public you should indict james comey and others because they are "guilty as hell." no more delay. Five days before you indicted or a grand jury at your instructions indicted james comey.
▶ 2:40:12Sen. Blumenthal: I would like to know from you what conversations you have had with president trump about the indictment of james comey.
▶ 2:40:22Att. Gen. Bondi: Senator, I am not going to discuss any conversations I have had or had not had with the president of the united states. You are an attorney. You have a law degree and you know that I'm not going to do that. I also find it fascinating. I will keep fighting to ensure that law enforcement and the judicial process move forward without political interference. No one is above the law.
▶ 2:40:53Att. Gen. Bondi: Not even the president. That is a quote from you, senator blumenthal. 2017.
▶ 2:40:59Sen. Blumenthal: When you saw that -- when you saw that post, did you talk to anybody in the white house?
▶ 2:41:09Att. Gen. Bondi: I am not going to discuss any conversations I had, nor any investigations.
▶ 2:41:19Sen. Blumenthal: You are unwilling to tell this committee about conversations with the white house on james comey's indictment. Let me show you a picture.
▶ 2:41:27Att. Gen. Bondi: James comey was indicted by one of the most liberal grand juries in the united states.
▶ 2:41:34Sen. Blumenthal: The night before james comey's indictment, you had dinner with the president of the united states. Pretty intimate group.
▶ 2:41:42Att. Gen. Bondi: There were a lot of people there that night.
▶ 2:41:46Sen. Blumenthal: Was james comey disgusted at dinner?
▶ 2:41:52Att. Gen. Bondi: That's a great picture and there were a lot of people there that night. I think the entire cabinet was there.
▶ 2:41:58Sen. Blumenthal: Did you discuss james comey with the president of the united states? He was sitting just to your left.
▶ 2:42:02Att. Gen. Bondi: Two seats down. I'm not going to discuss any conversation I have had or not had with the president.
▶ 2:42:09Sen. Blumenthal: The american public is entitled to no, madam attorney general, whether you took instructions from president trump after he told you very directly to indict james comey, which is weaponization of the department of justice. I want to agree with my colleague, senator hawley, that weaponization of our justice system must end.
▶ 2:42:39Sen. Blumenthal: That's the reason I proposed legislation and I challenge him and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join me in legislation that would create a statutory right of action for people who are selectively or maliciously prosecuted for political reasons.
▶ 2:42:58Sen. Blumenthal: It would codify your manual, the department of justice manual on political prohibitions against political considerations in charging decisions and prohibit the white house from intervening , president trump and any other president from intervening in political -- in charging decisions. It would make reforms to the grand jury process. You said this grand jury was liberal.
▶ 2:43:27Sen. Blumenthal: We should reform the grand jury process to ensure the government is not abusing its power and authority. And will required transport -- transparency and accountability reforms at doj so that you will and other attorney shall be held accountable to these kinds of decisions. Will you join me in supporting that kind of reform?
▶ 2:43:52Att. Gen. Bondi: Senator, I find it interesting you did not bring any of this up during president biden's administration when he was doing every thing to protect hunter biden, his son. You just how director radcliffe just released. If I can finish answering the question. I will not get in the gutter with you. .
▶ 2:44:11Att. Gen. Bondi: Information that the biden administration told him that -- someone lied about being in the military just as he elected senator.
▶ 2:44:29Sen. Blumenthal: The merger between hewlett-packard enterprises and juniper networks was settled. You authorized the settlement. It is the subject of a lawsuit to block it. The settlement produced virtually no concessions from hewlett-packard. It was a settlement that prompted criticism from the antitrust division.
▶ 2:45:00Sen. Blumenthal: Did you authorize that settlement yourself?
▶ 2:45:05Att. Gen. Bondi: As I stated earlier, gail slater is doing an incredible job running the antitrust unit. As I stated earlier, that is still a pending matter.
▶ 2:45:20Sen. Blumenthal: Did you not -- I'm going to interrupt you because my time is limited.
▶ 2:45:27Att. Gen. Bondi: Then don't ask me a question. You have a law degree. You know that not only are mergers agreed upon but they have to go to a court of law to be approved. It is a multistep process. As I said, that is still pending. I have full faith in gail slater.
▶ 2:45:48Sen. Blumenthal: Ms. slater reportedly objected to the settlement.
▶ 2:45:52Att. Gen. Bondi: Reportedly.
▶ 2:45:53Sen. Blumenthal: Moreover, two of her top officials were fired. Roger alford and bill senter. Did you direct those firings after they objected to the settlement?
▶ 2:46:10Att. Gen. Bondi: I'm not going to discuss personnel metals -- matters or pending litigation for my office.
▶ 2:46:16Sen. Blumenthal: Let me ask about another merger. The merger involving two home health care agencies. Likely to drive up costs for millions of americans. The transportation department's rule to provide compensation to travelers impacted by airline cost of delays which was canceled.
▶ 2:46:45Sen. Blumenthal: The merger of skydance and paramount after paramount ownership took a number of steps favorable to the president. These kinds of mergers belie the claims that president trump himself is made, that this administration will stop big corporate mergers that ultimately benefit the owners of
▶ 2:47:18Sen. Blumenthal: Those corporations rather than consumers who were ordinary, everyday americans. Let me ask you -- let me just finish.
▶ 2:47:29Att. Gen. Bondi: Can you talk about the issues with these mergers? In the merger that took place involving american express.
▶ 2:47:54Att. Gen. Bondi: Brian ballard in the head of the law firm where you work was instrumental in lobbing the justice department to drop the lawsuit. He was dismissed. It is not subject to a court review. What conversation did you have with Mr. ballard?
▶ 2:48:13Att. Gen. Bondi: Senator blumenthal, I cannot believe you would accuse me of impropriety when you lied about your military service.
▶ 2:48:23Sen. Blumenthal: I am not asking you over accusing you of impropriety. I'm asking you about Mr. ballard.
▶ 2:48:34Att. Gen. Bondi: I have abided by every ethics standard. Do not question my ability to be fair and impartial as attorney general.
▶ 2:48:45Sen. Blumenthal: Thank you.
▶ 2:48:48Chair Grassley: Senator lee.
▶ 2:48:54Sen. Lee: , the paramount merger he referenced was not with the department of justice's -- that was that the fcc, not the department of justice. Attorney general bondi would've had nothing to do it.
▶ 2:49:07Att. Gen. Bondi: He was reading off a script.
▶ 2:49:09Chair Grassley: Before I: senator kennedy, it is laughable that my democratic friends expressing concern on the recent attempts of holding parties responsible for the actions. Where have they been in the last few years? They had no problem watching the biden administration and the white house use all of its might and power to attack trump and associates.
▶ 2:49:39Chair Grassley: Now even republican senators have been selected to have their telephone records made public. Not public, but I guess they are public now. Biden weaponized the institutions and did not hear a peep from the other side. Now every investigation and prosecution under this administration, people will be held accountable for their actions. Senator kennedy.
▶ 2:50:07Sen. Kennedy: I want extra time, Mr. chairman. Enough is enough.
▶ 2:50:12Chair Grassley: Cruz was next but he wasn't here. Senator cruz, if you are ready, go ahead.
▶ 2:50:23Sen. Cruz: I will look in senator kennedy adding color commentary throughout my questioning.
▶ 2:50:30Sen. Cassidy: I will be happy to will we ever finish this hearing.
▶ 2:50:35Sen. Cruz: Senator kennedy has a new book about testing negative for stupid. I hope I meet the threshold. Several kennedy you do meet it and I talk about the tattoo of the backstreet boys on your back. [laughter]
▶ 2:50:50Sen. Cruz: I can't help you going to reach young people. I think young people are the future and I'll do whatever steps are needed. Several kennedy the backstreet boys? -- several kennedy the back -- Sen. kaiennedy.
▶ 2:51:10Sen. Cruz: I apologize for injecting you in the matter of senator kennedy's antics. Thank you for the job you are doing. You are doing a tremendous job keeping this country safe. Our families are safer because you are on the wall. Our families are safer because you are returning the department of justice to its core function, which is enforcing the law and locking up bad guys.
▶ 2:51:42Sen. Cruz: We saw for four years under the biden administration department of justice buddha sized and weaponized. We saw them refused to do their core function. More than 12 million illegal aliens flooded into this country.
▶ 2:52:02Sen. Cruz: Seem to think it's job was letting murderers and gang bangers and rapists go and the results in just a few months that you've been able to produce are tremendous. Arrests of violent criminals are up 100 25% since the biden administration. Fentanyl trafficking prosecutions have risen 42% since fiscal year 2023.
▶ 2:52:31Sen. Cruz: Doj has coordinated with dhs to remove over 200 20,000 criminal illegal aliens this year alone. Under your leadership as attorney general you have helped rescue 4000 children from predators and helped arrest 1003 child predators and 285 human traffickers. In my home state of texas, operation -- resulted in the rescue of 109 children.
▶ 2:53:04Sen. Cruz: Thank you attorney general bundy. Texans are safer because you are serving americans. You have a big task, cleaning up the messes of the biden doj. One of the most agree just failures of the biden justice department was their refusal to protect just -- judges and for supreme court justices.
▶ 2:53:30Sen. Cruz: May of 2022, an unknown individual linked to politico the draft of the supreme court decision in dobbs versus jackson health organization. The opinion that finally overturned roe v. Wade. That leak was a crime. It was a theft of government property and it was an unauthorized disclosure of confidential information.
▶ 2:54:00Sen. Cruz: General bondi, do you agree leaking that was a criminal act? >> I can't discuss anything regarding that matter. That should answer your question.
▶ 2:54:14Sen. Cruz: The leak occurred in 2022. The five-year statute of limitations has not expired. And I'm going to ask you if it is not happening already, to direct the fbi to investigate and find the leaker. The leaker has not been exposed or been identified and the fbi has far greater investigatory tools at its disposal than the marshals service.
▶ 2:54:45Sen. Cruz: When it comes to defending the rule of law, when it comes to the integrity of the rules, having partisan law clerks, and I believe in all likelihood it is a law clerk that leaked it, leaking opinions designed to try and pressure the court politically is a gross subversion of the integrity of the court and so I would ask you to direct the fbi to use every resource possible to investigate, find the leaker and prosecute the leaker for their
▶ 2:55:15Sen. Cruz: Crime. >> thank you senator cruz.
▶ 2:55:19Sen. Cruz: I want to turn secondly -- after that decision was leaked, I believe the leak was part of a broader effort to intimidate and threaten and harass justices, trying to get them to change their decision. And we saw mobs assemble outside the homes of multiple justices.
▶ 2:55:49Sen. Cruz: Do you agree that the mobs that came outside the homes of justices were there to intimidate the court and try and influence their decision? >> 100%.
▶ 2:56:04Sen. Cruz: As you know, federal law, in particular -- makes it a crime to picket or parade outside a judge's home with the intent of influencing that judge's decision. That statute is crystal clear. I will point out these protests happened in 2022. Just like the leak, the five-year statute of limitations has not expired on these protests.
▶ 2:56:34Sen. Cruz: But unfortunately the biden department of justice didn't give a dam about prosecuting the statute. Because president biden and merrick garland and the political hacks at the doj disagreed with the supreme court's decision in dobbs and were perfectly fine turning a blind eye to violent protesters threatening the justices and their children.
▶ 2:56:58Sen. Cruz: You may recall I questioned attorney general garland about this statute and he admitted under oath that not a single protester had been prosecuted. He blamed the marshals service. He said the marshals didn't make arrests. . Subsequent documents told a different story.
▶ 2:57:22Sen. Cruz: Internal training materials obtained reveals that the marshals were explicitly instructed not to arrest protesters. So the reason there were no arrests was because of a political decision, where we like what the protesters are protesting and we at the department of justice are not going to protect the safety of justices. We are going to allow them to be victims of intimidation and threats.
▶ 2:57:51Sen. Cruz: Just as I asked you with regard to the dobbs opinion, I would ask you to direct the fbi to review the footage of these protests, review the evidence that exists in terms of who engaged in it and will you commit that anyone who you can prove violated the law will face consequences and prosecution?
▶ 2:58:17Sen. Cruz: >> we currently have 63 ongoing investigations involving judges and officials throughout this country. That scene you are showing will not happen under my watch. They will not happen under donald trump. It does not matter if you're a liberal judge or a conservative judge or justice. That will not happen.
▶ 2:58:43Sen. Cruz: That point she made is very important. I would be equally mad if these people were outside of liberal justices houses. Violence is unacceptable, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the politics. Violence particularly fueled by rhetoric by irresponsible politicians, violence can result .
▶ 2:59:12Sen. Cruz: Tragically it resulted in one deranged individual traveling through california and maryland with the intention of murdering justice brett kavanaugh. As you know this deranged individual was arrested outside of the justice's house with a kill kit, a gun, handcuffs, duct tape, zip ties and with the intention of murdering justice kavanaugh, possibly murdering his wife and two daughters, and potentially murdering two other
▶ 2:59:43Sen. Cruz: Supreme court justices. As you know, just this week a left-wing biden appointed judge sentenced this attempted murderer, this attempted assassin to just eight years.
▶ 3:00:00Sen. Cruz: The department of justice asked for 30 years and that judge -- because this left-wing judge said that the attempted murderer was transgender, and because he identifies as transgender, it's ok to try and kill a supreme court justice if your politics are sufficiently woke. I know you said the department of justice is going to appeal and you should.
▶ 3:00:30Sen. Cruz: I believe this judge should be impeached because the judge has demonstrated she is completely unfit to be a federal judge. What is your view of the justice of the sentence of just eight years for the attempted murder of a supreme court justice? >> I'm speaking with our prosecutor who did an incredible job on this case.
▶ 3:00:51Sen. Cruz: And yet this judge gave eight years and the judge also would not refer to the defendant by their biological name. Referred to them by the pronouns and were concerned about the treatment that this individual will get regarding a sex change while in prison and I said we are appealing that sentence.
▶ 3:01:21Sen. Cruz: But my prosecutors did an incredible job in that case.
▶ 3:01:25Sen. Cruz: The judge wanted to put him in a women's prison. >> not going to happen. That's not going to happen in the bureau of prisons now.
▶ 3:01:38Sen. Durbin: I would like to introduce three forms to the record. The first form, this is the one that the fbi director said his predecessors didn't fully investigate. The second and third forms relate to the first and that they reference potential biden family criminal conduct.
▶ 3:02:07Sen. Durbin: I made these public and we simply want to know whether the government has investigated what it found.
▶ 3:02:16Sen. Hirono: Miss bondi, -- will expire in six months. At your confirmation hearing, you said you did not have experience with pfizer but if confirmed you would consult with doj.
▶ 3:02:39Sen. Hirono: Now that you've had that opportunity, do you support adding additional safeguards for searching american communications in the database? >> it is a vital source of foreign intelligence and instrumental in keeping americans safe.
▶ 3:03:01Sen. Hirono: We also take the individual rights of all americans very seriously, and many statutory reforms to fisa have important safeguards. They have to incorporate safeguards to protect our civil liberties. The department of justice looks forward to working with you, to discuss anything regarding 700 to. -- 702.
▶ 3:03:35Sen. Hirono: We are going to be working on that so I appreciate your openness to further amending it. At your confirmation hearing, you assured me that it is the department of justice's decision to determine what cases will be prosecuted. Last month, the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of virginia was forced out. President trump then posted a message behind me, asking about prosecuting james comey.
▶ 3:04:06Sen. Hirono: You then appointed a new U.S. attorney who within days secured an indictment against james comey. That social media post behind me saying what about combing, was directed to pam. Are you the pam the president was referring to?
▶ 3:04:23A.G. Boni: I'm sure I was.
▶ 3:04:27Sen. Hirono: So it is clear to me that when the president post something like that, he considers the doj to be his law firm and you his lawyer and in fact very shortly after that post to you, combing gets indicted.
▶ 3:04:43Sen. Hirono: Last year, president trump's now border czar was videotaped taking a bag with $50,000 in cash from undercover fbi agents, after suggesting he could help with government contracts. Sounds like a bribe. Two weeks ago, doj officials shut down that investigation.
▶ 3:05:11Sen. Hirono: Did you approve closing that investigation?
▶ 3:05:21A.G. Boni: As I stated earlier, the department of justice and the fbi conducted a thorough review and found no credible evidence of any wrongdoing. You were also on video outside the white house protesting with a group where antifa members were. Does that mean you are a member of antifa?
▶ 3:05:52Sen. Hirono: I simply asked if you approved the shutting down of that investigation. I have to assume you did because the fbi reports to you, but the american people would look at the situation where this person is taking a -- is taking $50,000 in cash and you testify today that a thorough investigation was done.
▶ 3:06:16Sen. Hirono: I have to assume and conclude that since no wrongdoing was determined, that an answer to senator whitehouse's question, he kept the money, he kept the money and I hope he will put that on his tax returns as income. Next question, over 1200 rioters were collected charges related to january 6. President trump has pardoned nearly all of them.
▶ 3:06:47Sen. Hirono: Last month there were reports that a lawyer for the january 6 rioters met with senior doj officials about setting up a compensation fund. A compensation fund like the one congress set up after 9/11. To compensate these rioters. Is anyone at doj considering setting up a compensation fund for january 6 rioters?
▶ 3:07:16A.G. Boni: I have had no meetings or discussions about a fund.
▶ 3:07:23Sen. Hirono: So would you support such a fund? Would you ok such a fund?
▶ 3:07:28A.G. Boni: You can send me the information and I would be happy to look at it.
▶ 3:07:35Sen. Hirono: This is what I'm getting at. To actually set up a fund and have people talking with your senior people about creating a fund, and you won't let us know what you think about that, that is unbelievable. On january 30 of this year, the trump doj sued to block the merger of two tech companies.
▶ 3:08:02Sen. Hirono: Then a well-connected lobbyist met with your political deputies who overruled the career staff and approved the merger, so there was a settlement. Separately, doj sued ticketmaster last year for monopolizing concert tickets and forcing consumers to pay outrageous fees.
▶ 3:08:25Sen. Hirono: Ticketmaster has hired the exact same lobbyist who met with senior doj appointees regarding the merger of those tech companies. My question is, have lobbyists met with your political deputies about the ticketmaster case?
▶ 3:08:45A.G. Boni: As I stated earlier, I am not going to discuss anything that is ongoing. Gail slater runs the antitrust office and is doing an incredible job running my antitrust unit.
▶ 3:09:06Sen. Hirono: It is very likely the same lobbyist who met with your people basically got rid of the antitrust case.
▶ 3:09:13A.G. Boni: I don't think a lot of people like that you were out protesting with antifa.
▶ 3:09:21Sen. Hirono: Next question. You have fired dozens of career prosecutors because they worked on cases involving president trump or january 6 rioters. For example, one career federal prosecutor who secured over 100 convictions in florida. He also spent time in D.C., prosecuting january 6 cases. He received an outstanding review only two days before you signed a memo firing him.
▶ 3:09:50Sen. Hirono: The memo cited no reason for his firing. Are you firing career prosecutors solely because they worked on cases like january 6? That the president doesn't like?
▶ 3:10:05A.G. Boni: I am not going to discuss personnel matters with you.
▶ 3:10:11Sen. Hirono: We all know that hundreds of career politician career prosecutors have left the doj.
▶ 3:10:28A.G. Boni: Are you the one who went out on your lunch break --
▶ 3:10:35Sen. Hirono: Would you say doj losing these career prosecutors and the thousands of hours of experience they have prosecuting criminals, that is not a reassuring situation.
▶ 3:10:45A.G. Boni: Many employees took the fork in the road and resigned. Doj is hiring committed prosecutors who will actually come into the office and work and not work remotely and prosecute violent criminals around the country and terrorists. And I am very proud --
▶ 3:11:06Sen. Hirono: I'm running out of time so I think you should stop your continuous interruptions. Mr. chairman, I want to close by saying that what was once the department of justice has become the department of revenge and corruption. Rather than pursuing cases -- the doj seeks to favor the president's friends and instill fear in his alleged enemies.
▶ 3:11:33Sen. Hirono: If you are a friend of the president, this corrupt doj will bend over backwards to help you, just like it dropped the investigations, like it is considering paying money to january 6 rioters and like it has put antitrust enforcement in the hands of well-connected lobbyists. But if you are on the wrong side of this president, you will face the wrath of the doj, no matter what the facts are.
▶ 3:12:04Sen. Hirono: James comey is indicted days after the president's social media directive. Experienced career prosecutors are fired because they were assigned to work on january 6 cases. Blue states are suited to get highly sensitive private voter data, whereas red states are left alone. The double standard is clear and the people are waking up to the corruption and the favoritism and the lawlessness of the doj. Thank you Mr. chairman.
▶ 3:12:34A.G. Boni: May I respond? Chair durbin, you may respond.
▶ 3:12:40A.G. Boni: The double standard is crystal clear. Because you didn't complain for four years when president trump was being targeted by jack smith, by the last justice department. But the american people spoke loud and clear when they overwhelmingly elected him. The two-tiered system of justice is over.
▶ 3:13:02Chair Durbin: Senator kennedy.
▶ 3:13:05Sen. Kennedy: Yes. General, welcome let's suppose that I am appointed special counsel with the department of justice and I go to the telecommunication companies, the phone companies and say I know
▶ 3:13:37Sen. Kennedy: You are busy but I want to see the phone records of a sitting united states senator. They are not just going to give them to me.
▶ 3:13:47A.G. Boni: No of course not.
▶ 3:13:51Sen. Kennedy: They are probably going to ask me what planet I just parachuted in from. They will tell me to come back with a subpoena.
▶ 3:14:00A.G. Boni: Yes senator. Seton-la salle kennedy -- Sen.
▶ 3:14:07Kennedy: What do I have to show -- what do I have to show to get the phone records of a sitting united states senator?
▶ 3:14:20A.G. Boni: There are actually eight sitting united states senators and you would have to have cause.
▶ 3:14:30Sen. Kennedy: Probable cause?
▶ 3:14:32A.G. Boni: Probable cause.
▶ 3:14:35Sen. Kennedy: Probable cause or if it is a subpoena of a good cause, to show what?
▶ 3:14:48A.G. Boni: You would need good cause for a subpoena and what you would have to show is that you believe a crime had been committed or there was a possibility of a crime or that could lead to other crimes.
▶ 3:15:06Sen. Kennedy: By the sitting united states senator?
▶ 3:15:07A.G. Boni: They would have to have believed you were part of a criminal conspiracy is my understanding.
▶ 3:15:16Sen. Kennedy: What a judge have to sign off on it? On the subpoena?
▶ 3:15:20A.G. Boni: Yes. Jack smith probably took his straight to the judge.
▶ 3:15:32Sen. Kennedy: Now the phone companies, particularly their general counsel if they are worried about civil liability, even with a subpoena to get the phone records of a sitting united states senator. Did I mention that?
▶ 3:15:53Sen. Kennedy: The general counsel of that phone company, they have the right to seek to quash that subpoena don't they?
▶ 3:16:03A.G. Boni: Phone companies frequently do that.
▶ 3:16:10Sen. Kennedy: And a smart general counsel for that phone company is going to call a sitting united states senator and ask would you like me to quash this subpoena? We are talking about invading someone's privacy here, by a sitting united states senator. Good the general counsel for the phone company do that?
▶ 3:16:36A.G. Boni: If they believe a crime could have been committed, they could not tip off the person who committed the crime. I can't comment on details of this particular case.
▶ 3:16:50Sen. Kennedy: I'm asking you theoretically.
▶ 3:16:51A.G. Boni: I understand you committed a crime.
▶ 3:16:57Sen. Kennedy: They would not want to tip off the sitting senator but the phone company and the general counsel for the phone company are companies and could say this is serious. This a sitting united states senator. So the general counsel would likely advise the ceo you need to file a motion to quash. The telephone companies could have contested those subpoenas could they not?
▶ 3:17:26A.G. Boni: Hypothetically, yes. I can't talk about the facts. Subpoenas are issued all the time through phone companies, working with the general counsel.
▶ 3:17:46Sen. Kennedy: And if they should have filed a motion to quash and a reasonable person would have filed a motion to quash because this -- and they didn't file a motion to quash, they would incur civil liability wouldn't they?
▶ 3:18:08A.G. Boni: Typically, phone companies follow a subpoena from a united states --
▶ 3:18:18Sen. Kennedy: But they don't have to.
▶ 3:18:19A.G. Boni: They could challenge it.
▶ 3:18:23Sen. Kennedy: And if they don't challenge it, they better have a good reason, right? Right?
▶ 3:18:33A.G. Boni: I can't talk about the facts. Hypothetically maybe they didn't recognize any of the names.
▶ 3:19:01Sen. Kennedy: I will show you the phone records of a sitting united states senator on the basis of an administrative subpoena. Do you have copies of the subpoena applications?
▶ 3:19:14A.G. Boni: I can't discuss anything. I can't discuss any of this.
▶ 3:19:24Sen. Kennedy: When are you going to be able to discuss it?
▶ 3:19:25A.G. Boni: I cannot discuss whether there is or is not a pending investigation.
▶ 3:19:32Sen. Kennedy: If there is -- I don't want to get this swept under the rug. I think you are going to get pushback from all corners. I think the telecommunication companies are going to be all over you like a bad rash because they've got liability here. For just turning over these records. When they knew what was going on.
▶ 3:19:59Sen. Kennedy: I think some fbi agents might have some liability, some special counsel might have liability. If I was your special counsel and you appointed me, and I wanted to get the records of the sitting senator, is that something you would expect me to tell you as attorney general?
▶ 3:20:19A.G. Boni: They better have.
▶ 3:20:25Sen. Kennedy: Do we know in this instance, if they told attorney general garland?
▶ 3:20:30A.G. Boni: I just learned about this very recently as did director patel and we cannot discuss the details.
▶ 3:20:41Sen. Kennedy: Maybe we ought to get attorney general garland in here. Do you know if the special counsel told fbi director ray?
▶ 3:20:58Sen. Kennedy: If I were your special counsel and you are the director of the fbi and I'm trying to get the phone records of a sitting senator, that I meant -- is that something you would expect me to tell you as director of the fbi?
▶ 3:21:15A.G. Boni: I believe the fbi would help execute the subpoenas.
▶ 3:21:22Sen. Kennedy: I'm going to switch to another subject in the 12 minutes that I have left since everyone else got to go over. I've got to ask about this. Secretary howard lutnick on october 1 gave an interview to the new york post about Mr. epstein. He described Mr. epstein as quote, the greatest blackmailer ever.
▶ 3:21:52Sen. Kennedy: Have you reviewed that interview?
▶ 3:21:56A.G. Boni: I have not. I saw the interview.
▶ 3:22:00Sen. Kennedy: It appears that secretary lutnick was Mr. epstein's next-door neighbor. There townhomes shared a wall. The reporter that was talking to Mr. lutnick, she asked how other prominent men could have been associated with Mr.
▶ 3:22:29Sen. Kennedy: Epstein when Mr. lutnick could immediately sense that he was a quote, pervert. Sec. Lutnick -- the reporter said to they see it and ignore it? And sec. Lutnick said no. They participated. And then sec. Lutnick goes on to say quote, that's what his m.o.
▶ 3:23:00Sen. Kennedy: Was. Get a massage, get a massage and what happened in that massage room I assume is a video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. He blackmailed people. That is how he had money. Is that true?
▶ 3:23:20A.G. Boni: As our july memo said, we did not uncover evidence. This case has gone through three administrations as well as former U.S. attorneys.
▶ 3:23:35Sen. Kennedy: Have you interviewed sec. Lutnick?
▶ 3:23:37A.G. Boni: No.
▶ 3:23:39Sen. Kennedy: Do you plan to?
▶ 3:23:42A.G. Boni: If he wants to talk to the fbi.
▶ 3:23:47Sen. Kennedy: Don't you think you ought to?
▶ 3:23:50A.G. Boni: If the fbi wants to speak to howard lutnick or if howard lutnick wants to speak to the fbi, absolutely.
▶ 3:23:58Sen. Kennedy: Maybe we ought to get Mr. lutnick in here too.
▶ 3:24:05Sen. Booker: Thank you Mr. chairman. I know there's been a lot of talk about grants. It is really important to my state. New jersey is one of the top donor states in america which means our taxpayers, millions of people send more money down here then we get back relative to all the other states in the nation except for three others. We've been talking about different grants and I want to be specific about office of justice program grants.
▶ 3:24:37Sen. Booker: There were $35 million worth of grant recruited in a bipartisan way, grants that invest in things that are vital to public safety. I know we are in a room full of people who want to see crime go down. Republicans and democrats, law enforcement officers have spoken to the urgency of these programs which deal with school violence, and supportive services.
▶ 3:25:05Sen. Booker: Community violence intervention programs, bipartisan programs that this committee worked hard on. I've heard what you said to others on the committee, what you said to patty murray, that members should reach out to you if they want those grants reinstated. I have written letters, but I am hoping that you and I can have a conversation.
▶ 3:25:25Sen. Booker: $35 million of frozen funding for public safety that the people of new jersey, democrats, republicans and independents are investing in those resources, those programs and nonprofits, expecting those grants and are now in a lurch. Can we talk about those grants and the restoration of them?
▶ 3:25:46A.G. Boni: Senator booker, I had stated earlier that yes we did terminate grants. We have an appeal process, we have turned some back on. We are looking at some. Some were denied, some are still pending. I believe we have multiple appeals pending with new jersey and I would be happy to sit down with you and look at those appeals. I believe one is with the city of new jersey.
▶ 3:26:13A.G. Boni: There are multiple ones pending but of course I would be happy to sit down with you or any senator or any house member and look at grants that have been terminated. I've been doing that and I would welcome that.
▶ 3:26:26Sen. Booker: But I would be the first one you sit down with.
▶ 3:26:28A.G. Boni: Absolutely. I will look at those tomorrow. We have been restoring some grants. Some have been denied and some have not.
▶ 3:26:41Sen. Booker: In new jersey, none have and I want to get to the bottom of that. The second thing I want to move to is that earlier this year, the department of justice charged the mayor of newark after he visited a detention center to conduct oversight. The charges on their face were clearly baseless. Many people say they are politically motivated.
▶ 3:27:08Sen. Booker: The federal judge admonished the prosecutors for even bringing the case before them. The federal prosecutor served -- your role is not to secure convictions at all cost to satisfy republican clamor nor to advance political agendas. The federal judge went on to call the charges embarrassing and a worrisome misstep.
▶ 3:27:35Sen. Booker: The mayor was arrested that day on the scene, and I know you understand this. To arrest the mayor of a major city on charges that were called by a federal judge embarrassing and a worrisome misstep is very concerning to me and I think it should be to the whole committee. Recently released video shows a federal agent telling fellow officers that the decision to arrest the mayor was quote, per the deputy attorney general of the united states. I'm assuming that person is todd blanche.
▶ 3:28:06Sen. Booker: This is evidence to me that this decision was not made by people on the ground in the field but by -- and it leads to the conclusion that this was a political decision. That the decision to arrest was not made by people who were there on the spot. I can assume that you can see how that is problematic.
▶ 3:28:31Sen. Booker: I have questions not about the case but how the decisions to arrest and charge the mayor, and now congresswoman mciver were made. Before this committee I'm saying that I'm going to submit these questions for the record and I'm really hoping that we can understand how those decisions, how we are making decisions, especially for high-level officials in my state.
▶ 3:28:57Sen. Booker: The mayor of a large city, a congressperson of that city and I'm hoping you can respond to those letters on the record.
▶ 3:29:05A.G. Boni: That matter is ongoing, so I can't discuss it. I cannot discuss an ongoing matter.
▶ 3:29:17Sen. Booker: I guess I just want to know -- we will leave this for the questions for the record about the decisions on how they are being made, not the case itself. I want to move on and again, I've heard your testimony so far. I know that there is data about violent crime in the city but I am concerned about the application of justice department resources towards the challenges we have.
▶ 3:29:44Sen. Booker: You and I both know that about 11,000 americans have been killed by a firearm just this year. The department of justice according to the white house's own documents as well as the cato institute have shown that there is significant movement of law enforcement resources away from many other issues and into immigration enforcement and we are seeing that a lot of the people are not the violent criminals that we are needing to
▶ 3:30:15Sen. Booker: Rid our streets of. In total, according to the cato institute, you've reassigned over 7000 law enforcement away from their primary duties investigating drug traffickers, prosecuting child pornography, targeting high-value white-collar criminals and again, forcing them into low-level immigration enforcement. This includes in terms of gun violence, 1778 agents from the atf to this kind of immigration enforcement.
▶ 3:30:47Sen. Booker: The white house itself has said they diverted 45% of agents in 25 fbi field offices to work on immigration full-time. As a person who worked very closely with the new jersey field office, that is very concerning given the other threats but it does not end there.
▶ 3:31:08Sen. Booker: The doj has eliminated the organized crime drug enforcement task force, the independent component of the doj whose job it was to combat transnational organized crime, to solve -- dissolve the communication -- the community relations service which was valuable in new jersey with communities experiencing conflict or violence and something that people on both sides of the aisle really invested in. You have rescinded grants to support survivors of sexual assault and human trafficking.
▶ 3:31:39Sen. Booker: There seems to be a disconnect here between the application of the resources of the justice department on the things that are most concerning when it comes to crime, and where they are being directed instead.
▶ 3:31:51A.G. Boni: Senator booker, the most important point is that the work is continuing. The executive office is being dissolved. We have said that, but the work is continuing. The resources that were previously provided to law enforcement organizations are now going directly to those organizations.
▶ 3:32:18A.G. Boni: I assure you no work will be sacrificed as a result of getting rid of the executive office. The agents and the attorneys are working with homeland security. They are all working together as a unit.
▶ 3:32:33Sen. Booker: I am running out of time. I'm going to put some questions in because this is conservative think tanks and others that are pointing out that over 1000 people are being taken off of things that would concern the public. I also want to quickly mention that I want to ask about the public corruption unit as well. We now have gone from a public integrity section that went from 36 full-time prosecutors to now only two.
▶ 3:33:06Sen. Booker: Yet we know, democrats and republicans, there is a real problem with public corruption in our country. We know that the doj has stopped enforcing the foreign corrupt practices act, disbanded the foreign influence task force, dismissed the indictment against a trump donor, cut back on white-collar investigations. The list goes on.
▶ 3:33:30Sen. Booker: I will ask for the record, it is not only reassigning officers and prosecutorial resources from the other things I mentioned but public corruption is very important. I want to talk about an area of bipartisanship on this committee which is antitrust. This is a very bipartisan area. In june the antitrust division finalized a proposed consent decree with hewlett-packard enterprises and jupiter networks settling the doj challenge to the company's $14 billion merger.
▶ 3:33:59Sen. Booker: Reportedly your chief of staff and acting attorney general ruled career antitrust staff and approve the merger. This is a massive area of concern for americans writ large . This is an area where corporate power is growing, corporate concentration in our country is happening to a great degree.
▶ 3:34:20Sen. Booker: I'm grateful that the ranking member with mike lee on a committee that is really trying to get at this disturbing trend in the issues right now in the justice department, the resources being put on it and the appearance of impropriety's we are seeing is troubling. All I want to ask is would you commit just to talk about antitrust, coming before the antitrust subcommittee to discuss antitrust enforcement?
▶ 3:34:47A.G. Boni: May I answer? Senator booker, I work hand in hand with gail slater and she is doing an incredible job. I will let gail slater handle all matters with antitrust. The hp matter is a pending matter because it is before the courts even after a decision has been made and that is where it is pending right now. If I can go back to your previous two questions, first about agents being reassigned.
▶ 3:35:18A.G. Boni: Our agents are working tirelessly on their day jobs and with homeland security and right now they are not getting paid and they are on the streets during a government shutdown, working to keep every city in this country safe. In new jersey and every state. They are working together with dhs on task forces but they are also doing their core mission and getting child predators off the street. They are working so hard with all of the agency's in hand.
▶ 3:35:48A.G. Boni: That has not been sacrificed and I am so proud of the work that the fbi, dea and etf are doing. Atf agents are working tirelessly. I am in constant contact with them on the incredible cases they are taking to keep our country and world safe, especially dea agents stationed around the world and they are not getting paid. Back to the public integrity section, the last point you made. It has not been slashed. Those are going to various U.S.
▶ 3:36:17A.G. Boni: Attorney offices to be handled in each office around the country instead of one unit based in D.C.
▶ 3:36:23Chair Durbin: Before blackburn, by democratic colleagues continue to criticize the doj for their role in president trump's historic immigration crackdown. Talked about due process, the lack of transparency and oversight, however they were silent about the former biden administration's failure to vet afghan evacuees instead of coming clean, the biden administration dismissed and
▶ 3:36:54Chair Durbin: Failed to answer my oversight requests. Not a peep from my colleagues about these massive failures. The department of homeland security inspector general confirmed these failures. Senator blackburn.
▶ 3:37:09Sen. Blackburn: Thank you for your time before us. Today I have found this hearing to be so instructive because it has pointed out to me, the lack of caring from my colleagues across the dais when it comes to how the doj hunter biden was weaponized.
▶ 3:37:37Sen. Blackburn: How they used this for political attack on their political opponents, and the smugness from some of my colleagues across the dais. I think they enjoyed it.
▶ 3:37:52Sen. Blackburn: I think they wanted it to continue and I think that is why they opposed some of the reforms that you were making, to actually get people out across the country and to get them working and to have people that are actually finding out what the fbi and the doj did.
▶ 3:38:19Sen. Blackburn: You look at what happened with crossfire hurricane and the way some democrats tried to blow that up and make it some big issue all about donald trump and the accusations and of course they've been proven wrong.
▶ 3:38:37Sen. Blackburn: You look at what has happened, what we are finding about arctic frost and the way we were surveilled and the way senator graham, senator hawley and I -- we don't know what all they got. We don't know who they tracked.
▶ 3:38:56Sen. Blackburn: But to tap our phones, to pull that data, for these wireless companies to have allowed them to have that, and for them to use it in their investigations, how disgusting is that?
▶ 3:39:24Sen. Blackburn: -- I have had a couple of colleagues who had been so concerned about bureaucrats since the doj and the fbi being fired. If they did wrong, not only fire them, prosecute them. My hope is that as we look at what happened with arctic frost, that there will be a special counsel, that we will do our due diligence and that those who did this wrong, this illegal
▶ 3:39:54Sen. Blackburn: Activity absolutely, they need to be prosecuted and they need to face the full extent of accountability within the law. I made a knowing -- made a note of how resistant they are to reform and in my opinion, what this shows is that they don't want one tear of justice.
▶ 3:40:20Sen. Blackburn: What they want is two tiers of justice. It was their play box. They could get in and manipulate and use it to spy on us. So they saw this as something that furthered their political goal. I am pleased that you are cleaning house and those who have not served the american people well? Fire them.
▶ 3:40:51Sen. Blackburn: They need to be gone. Talk for a moment about what you are doing to end the weaponization.
▶ 3:41:04A.G. Boni: Senator, the weaponization against you and your colleagues should greatly concern all of us. It's a concern democrats, republicans. Yet we don't see that. There was a two-tiered system of justice under the biden administration. We are learning that every day.
▶ 3:41:30A.G. Boni: We saw jack smith weaponize the justice department against donald trump. We saw the biden administration weaponize the entire justice department, all of the law enforcement agencies against donald trump, against his family members, against his friends for years and years and that weaponization is over. No one is above the law and there is a one tiered system of justice at this justice department.
▶ 3:42:02Sen. Blackburn: And we appreciate that and having vice chair to the president's transition in 2016 as you remember, there was surveillance that took place on the transition and on the transition team. This is not the first time, it is the second time and shame to those who have furthered those lies and what james comey did to this country. What christopher wray allowed to happen to this country. I want to talk about memphis.
▶ 3:42:34Sen. Blackburn: The memphis safe task force. You, president trump and director patel, the work you are doing is quite amazing. I pulled the latest stats and we had 503 arrests with the fbi task force in july and august.
▶ 3:42:57Sen. Blackburn: We have added with your memphis safe task force, just last week, 320 one arrests, 83 firearms were seized, seven missing children that were recovered. 28 known gang members have been arrested and the list continues to grow. We've also gotten over 120 federal indictments.
▶ 3:43:25Sen. Blackburn: But this is really quite a success story and I think cities like portland and chicago are missing out by not having this coordinated focused effort and the fact that there are 13 federal and state agencies working together to make memphis safe. We are very grateful about that.
▶ 3:43:52Sen. Blackburn: One of the things that we are working on is to end cashless bail. . We have a very liberal da in memphis that is -- that has campaigned on avoiding cashless bail.
▶ 3:44:11Sen. Blackburn: We had a hearing on this last week and we have legislation -- representative stefanik and I have legislation that would add -- that would end cashless bail in D.C. and then also would remove funds from jurisdictions that practice cashless bail.
▶ 3:44:36Sen. Blackburn: Touch on that and the importance of having cash bail for that accountability, keeping those criminals off the street.
▶ 3:44:44A.G. Boni: First to memphis, I would say -- I was in memphis with secretary hegseth and we had about 1100 officers from at least 13 agencies, working hand in hand. Your memphis police officers care. They want to be out there doing their jobs and what we said is we have federal law enforcement officers now who have their backs.
▶ 3:45:12A.G. Boni: They were thrilled to have us there. The mayor is working well with us. You have been a champion of this. Senator hagerty has been a champion. Before I was sworn in, you both brought this problem to my attention. You talked to director patel and he was on the ground right away.
▶ 3:45:43A.G. Boni: -- but memphis crime is through the roof. The highest violent crime rate in the country and that's why we went to memphis and memphis has welcomed us. It is an iconic city and we want to continue to work with memphis and we are going to do that. The citizens have been great, working with us.
▶ 3:46:01A.G. Boni: Violent crime shouldn't be occurring in any of these cities and as you said, I don't understand why chicago, why portland, why these sanctuary jurisdictions don't want to work with the federal government. Gangs are rampant, transnational gangs are rampant in the cities because they are harboring them. No longer under donald trump. Whether they want to or not, we are going to come in and make it safe for their citizens.
▶ 3:46:31A.G. Boni: Whether these liberal lawmakers -- working on that here in D.C. and change that also.
▶ 3:46:59Sen. Blackburn: We appreciate that and the memphis mayor is doing great. We have an official who was trying to docks some of these officers and she has since taken the tweet down but she is an elected official and she says attention on peabody between mclean and cooper, four fed vehicles and a trooper, men in full gear with guns on the street. Pay attention folks.
▶ 3:47:27Sen. Blackburn: This is the kind of action that is not called for. The fact that an elected official would do this. This is why we have legislation that would make it a crime to docks any federal law enforcement official when they are doing their job.
▶ 3:47:53Sen. Blackburn: These apps and google and apple say they have removed these apps , but I tell you what, these law enforcement officers need to be protected. We appreciate that you are doing that. Thank you for being here. [inaudible]
▶ 3:48:17Chair Grassley: Evidence that the obama-biden state department stripped law enforcement efforts to go after high-level targets. This objection led by john kerry was done because of political consideration of the failed iran nuclear deal. Senator padilla.
▶ 3:48:42Sen. Padilla: I appreciate the opportunity to speak in this hearing today, which is at medium -- at minimum an annual opportunity to ask questions and fulfill our obligation to provide accountability over the department of justice. A little bit of set up for the folks in the audience.
▶ 3:49:09Sen. Padilla: The department of justice is supposed to be the nation's guardian of fairness and the rule of law. The power of the department of justice is built on public trust and a belief that prosecutions are based on facts and the law. Not on politics, or personal loyalty.
▶ 3:49:30Sen. Padilla: I c1 when the public trust breaks tht risk. But under this trump administration and the leadership of the attorney general, I believe the independence of the department of justice has come under attack.
▶ 3:50:02Sen. Padilla: Important offices have been closed, key programs dismantled and agents diverted. All without congressional authorization, please are not minor bureaucratic changes. They represent a fundamental shift in the department of justice's missions and priorities, its policies, and its practices.
▶ 3:50:29Sen. Padilla: For example, career prosecutors have been pressured to change decisions in politically sensitive cases. Ethics oversight has been taken away from independent career professionals and handed to political appointees with political experience in these manners. Internal working groups have been created to revisit investigations involving president trump and his allies.
▶ 3:50:56Sen. Padilla: Together, these steps have been dangerous metrics of prosecutorial decisions can be driven by political loyalty instead of the law. The department of justice has pulled resources away from organized crime, away from counterterrorism, away from the protection of civil rights. To focus on immigration enforcement. The american people expect a department of justice to pursue violent crime, as do I.
▶ 3:51:28Sen. Padilla: To pursue corruption and threats to national security. Not to serve as an arm of immigration policy. And in so doing, under resource other critical missions. The justice department's credibility depends on the faith injustice and that the justice will be applied equally to every person and not reserved for the powerful or the connected. That faith must be protected.
▶ 3:51:58Sen. Padilla: It is in that spirit that this committee has a duty to -- remains transparent and remains true to its highest duty. That being said, I want to get into some specific items with attorney general bundy, beginning with the firing of michelle beckwith's. She was a 15 year career prosecutor with a department of justice.
▶ 3:52:28Sen. Padilla: She prosecuted in her career some of the worst of the worst in my home state of's -- of california. Six traffickers, transnational terrorists, most of this administration claims to care about and be targeting, prioritizing and taking them off the streets. It may surprise some to learn that she was unceremoniously marched out of her office and fired from her job in july of this year. Why?
▶ 3:52:59Sen. Padilla: Not because she failed to do her job, quite the opposite. It is because she had the audacity to remind border patrol that he was obligated to follow a court order and the constitution. In california. According to reports, she was fired less than six hours after she told him that he could not rip -- not arrest people without probable cause. Six hours.
▶ 3:53:28Sen. Padilla: They first question, attorney general bundy -- bondi, do you believe that government officials are obligated to follow applicable court orders whether they agree with them or not? Yes or no?
▶ 3:53:42Attorney Gen. Bondi: First, senator padilla, you have gone on for over five minutes and I wish you loved your state of california as much as you hate president trump. We would be in really good shape then. Violent crime in california is currently 35% higher than the national average. Property crime in california is 18% higher than the national average. That should be something that we should be talking about and working together on. Yet we are not. This is important.
▶ 3:54:11Attorney Gen. Bondi: You are talking about all of my agencies. I want to let you know what dea has been doing. They are working hand in hand.
▶ 3:54:19Sen. Padilla: I appreciate that.
▶ 3:54:22Attorney Gen. Bondi: You can't go on for five minutes and criticize my agents who are out there without pay right now because you voted to shut down the government.
▶ 3:54:29Sen. Padilla: Mr. chairman. I asked a simple yes or no question. Attorney general bondi --
▶ 3:54:41Attorney Gen. Bondi: 50 million fentanyl hills off the street.
▶ 3:54:42Sen. Padilla: Mr. chairman. Mr. chairman, border, please. I'm trying -- I'm not getting the answer to my question. I'm trying to go to the next topic. Mr. chairman, order, please. Thank you. Under other trip -- under attorney general bondi, prosecutors are being fired for telling agencies to follow the law and uphold the constitution.
▶ 3:55:11Sen. Padilla: Meanwhile, there are instances that seem to be getting let off the hook. I want to reiterate what my colleagues have already brought up in terms of the dismissal of the investigation into tom homan and his alleged acceptance of $50,000 as payment by undercover fbi agents looking to secure contracts with a future trump administration. If the reports are true, it is not just the underlying conduct of Mr.
▶ 3:55:39Sen. Padilla: Homan, which would be absolutely unacceptable. But the dismissal of the investigation raises concerns about the end -- the influence of the white house on the department of justice. A simple question. And I would appreciate a simple and brief answer. Whose decision was it to end this investigation?
▶ 3:56:00Sen. Padilla: I have answer --
▶ 3:56:02Attorney Gen. Bondi: I have answered that question multiple times. You did not have the courtesy to sit in the hearing. I find it interesting that you want order in this proceeding now. Excuse me, senator --
▶ 3:56:14Sen. Padilla: Mr. chairman, order.
▶ 3:56:18Attorney Gen. Bondi: We sure devon have order when you stormed secretary gnome out of a press conference in california.
▶ 3:56:23Sen. Padilla: I will ask a follow-up question. Would you commit to releasing the tape or making it available for members of this committee to review, yes or no?
▶ 3:56:34Attorney Gen. Bondi: Senator, you have not been sitting in here this entire hearing. I have answered the question. I also want to tell you that it is 25,000 illegal firearms.
▶ 3:56:49Sen. Padilla: We will try again.
▶ 3:56:50Attorney Gen. Bondi: In your home state, we are prosecuting illegal aliens who have raped and murdered young girls.
▶ 3:56:57Sen. Padilla: Thank you. I have been watching from my office the entire hearing so everybody is aware. Since I'm not getting answers to my questions, I will try to ask one last subject area. There has been increasing concerns about the politicized decision-making and the erosion of safeguards to protect prosecutorial independence.
▶ 3:57:25Sen. Padilla: Before we get into the integrity independence of prosecutions, we get -- we have to ask the question about the independence and integrity of investigations themselves. The director of the fbi, director patel, was here with us a few weeks ago. Attorney general bondi, you are the attorney general of the united states. Director tello reports to you.
▶ 3:57:55Sen. Padilla: Do you believe he is doing a good job, yes or no?
▶ 3:57:57Attorney Gen. Bondi: I believe director patel is doing a great job. You know where he is right now? Right now, you asked me a question.
▶ 3:58:06Sen. Padilla: Because you said it earlier in the hearing. You said it earlier in the hearing, and yes I have been paying attention.
▶ 3:58:13Attorney Gen. Bondi: You want order in here now yet you stormed the director of homeland security kristi noem. You sure do not have order that day.
▶ 3:58:23Sen. Padilla: You are under oath and I did not stormed the secretary --
▶ 3:58:28Attorney Gen. Bondi: That video has been released.
▶ 3:58:31Sen. Padilla: Mr. chairman, recent acts -- actions about director patel judgment and politicization, alleging retaliatory firings, and his decision to cut off long-standing partnerships with civil rights organizations, and his decision to fire fbi agents for refusing to engage in a "perp walk" of james comey.
▶ 3:58:55Sen. Padilla: On top of all of that, his payment truly -- he is prematurely claiming that after the shooting of charlie kirk. I take attorney general bondi's endorsement of his work as her support for those actions. Thank you, Mr. chair.
▶ 3:59:09Attorney Gen. Bondi: May I respond?
▶ 3:59:11Chair Grassley: Yes.
▶ 3:59:13Attorney Gen. Bondi: Under director patel, 23,000 violent criminals have been arrested. And 91 percent increase over last year. More than 1500 child predators have been arrested. We are making cases in your jurisdiction constantly in california. And I wish you would care about those cases.
▶ 3:59:38Attorney Gen. Bondi: We have disrupted 1600 gangs and criminal enterprises, 1600 gangs within this country. Thanks to director patel. And the great men and women of the fbi. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. How are you today, attorney general? It's good to see you.
▶ 3:59:55Attorney Gen. Bondi: I have a rough voice. >> I have to say, I'm struck by the degree of the cognitive dissonance that I hear on the other side. Unused to the political debates and arguing in court and all of those sorts of things. But to hear the other side of the dais talk about weaponization is truly shocking given what we know now.
▶ 4:00:22Attorney Gen. Bondi: I thought what I might do is tell a story and these are 100% facts. Hillary clinton, concerned about her email scandal, works with a organization to cook up this russia gate nonsense. They feed it to the intelligence agencies. And base by under barack obama's presidency, they spy on the political opponent running against hillary clinton. He gets elected.
▶ 4:00:54Attorney Gen. Bondi: They continue the operation. And they launder this intelligence into stuff that was meant to sideline a presidency. Duly elected president of the united states of america, to sideline them. That continued. You heard some people on this committee further that nonsense for four years. Then, the fbi is involved with pre-bunking the hunter biden laptop story, because they did not want to be elected again. They pre-bonked the story.
▶ 4:01:25Attorney Gen. Bondi: The american people should have been allowed to make their own judgments from jet. They were the fbi rushed -- called it a russian hack. There were meetings with social media companies telling them the laptop that they verified in november of 2019, they knew it was his, said it was russian disinformation. We heard that before. Then, after joe biden comes in, three days in, they start a censorship campaign against the country and anyone who is a conservative.
▶ 4:01:55Attorney Gen. Bondi: We know the fbi was weaponized in this arctic frost investigation. That tapped the phones of sitting U.S. senators. Also, the republican attorneys general association has two more senators, charlie kirk, political organizations they did not agree with. This is not in the soviet union in the 1980's. This is in the united states of america in the last few years.
▶ 4:02:23Attorney Gen. Bondi: Then, when they thought president trump was on the run and there is no way people would've liked him and he announces he is running for president, three days later, jack smith is appointed to get trump. Fani willis brings charges against president trump. And the assistant prosecutor meets with a white house counsel's office. Why would that happen? You have alvin bragg bring his charges are the number three person goes to work for him to get trump.
▶ 4:02:54Attorney Gen. Bondi: All in the united states of america this continued. Senator hawley asked the question, I wrote it down, what is happening in this country? I hope msnbc is still broadcasting this because I'm sure their viewership has not heard this story that has gone on for 10 years. The truth is they never forgave president trump for coming down the escalator at all. They didn't like him. They didn't like the disruption.
▶ 4:03:21Attorney Gen. Bondi: And they have spent the better part of a decade not just going after him, but demonizing half the country as fascist and nazis and threats to democracy. And they have fueled this division. Their inability to accept the fact that half of the country isn't deplorable's as hillary clinton called them, bitter cleaners as barack obama called, for trash as joe biden called them.
▶ 4:03:51Attorney Gen. Bondi: That they rose up and she sat in their own jury box and saw this play out over a decade and rejected it. Now you have come into clean that up. You are doing a great job in doing that. Let me make this clear. There is a big difference between what happened under the biden regime and the weaponization and then holding those people accountable. That is not weaponization. If that does not happen, this will happen all over again.
▶ 4:04:20Attorney Gen. Bondi: So your job is so important that this never happens again, and holding people accountable or part of this conspiracy is absolutely your job. I'm also taking -- you don't have to comment on this, your unwillingness to answer questions that have come up, I am led to believe as a former attorney general that that might mean there is an ongoing investigation. You don't have to talk about it. The statute of limitations may have run on all of this stuff, but not on a conspiracy.
▶ 4:04:51Attorney Gen. Bondi: If you are a co-conspirator on mile marker one, even if you want to get on the exit ramp, you are liable for the conspiracy in mile marker 10. We are at mile marker 10. I will also say what is happening in this country, what is happening with the assault on I.c.e. Officers is truly shocking. Deportations are nothing new. Though clinton deported 12 million people -- bill clinton deported 12 million people.
▶ 4:05:19Attorney Gen. Bondi: You did not see this pure the radicalization that has happened on the left that plays out with political violence israel. -- violence is real. If we had a scenario where john thune was on the supreme court step saying, you have wreaked a world when supreme court justices, and then a right-wing assassin tried to kill ruth bader ginsburg in a republican appointed judge only gave that person eight years, there would be riots on the streets. Cities would be burning right now.
▶ 4:05:50Attorney Gen. Bondi: Let's just call it out. Let's just be truthful of what is happening. This left-wing political violence is not a both sides thing, it is not. Attorney general, I do want to ask you a couple questions about that. I feel like we have got to get a handle on this. Despite the overwhelming evidence that the political violence threat comes primarily from the left, the media just won't do it. They will go along with it.
▶ 4:06:19Attorney Gen. Bondi: They cited a few ridiculous studies to say right-wing political violence is the main problem. One of those studies was written by an antifa affiliated professor, and others count classes -- and the others count classes on prison gang violence as right-wing political violence. And refused to count anything from the 2020 summer of love. The antifa attacks that set off explosives outside of michael mills campus speech.
▶ 4:06:50Attorney Gen. Bondi: We need good data. We need good data here. Will you commit to having the department of justice and the fbi research and release a public report on left-wing political violence?
▶ 4:07:03Attorney Gen. Bondi: Yes.
▶ 4:07:04Sen. Schmitt: Thank you. I also want to, after antifa has laid siege on federal buildings and officers in portland during the 2020 riots, your predecessor, merrick garland, dropped virtually all the cases against these defendants. You recently issued a new charging memo instructing federal prosecutors to aggressively pursue antifa and other radical leftists wreaking havoc on our cities.
▶ 4:07:34Sen. Schmitt: What can you do to ensure the various U.S. attorneys offices follow through on your instructions?
▶ 4:07:39Attorney Gen. Bondi: Hopefully we will have our U.S. attorneys confirmed soon. They have been held up. Now our government is in a shut down. Yet our prosecutors are still working, getting all of our U.S. attorneys confirmed weighted be a huge step forward, senator schmitt. Our attorneys throughout this country will be focusing on that.
▶ 4:07:58Sen. Schmitt: I want to thank you, too. I talked to you during your confirmation hearing and with kash patel, you have talked about your two pillars, which is to end the weaponization and get back to crime-fighting. God bless. That is something the american people support, despite what you hear from the other side of the dais. In those conversations, we have talked about you and kash patel getting field agents out on the field and doing the work of law enforcement.
▶ 4:08:27Sen. Schmitt: I've got just the place for you, st. Louis. St. Louis has received the largest per capita infusion of permanent fbi agent's in the country and they are working with local law enforcement. That's what happens when you have state leaders work with federal partners to crackdown on something I hope we can all agree is a scourge for our communities. That is not -- jb pritzker, I guess he wants his moment. This portland -- these portland people want their moment of defying trump. It's crazy to me.
▶ 4:08:58Sen. Schmitt: We should all be unified in this effort of making sure our laws are enforced and taking on violent crime. Enclosing with this, because you referenced the shutdown. It is the same motivation. The same thing that motivates jb pritzker to stand in front of the podium and defy trump's the same motivation I hear from my democratic colleagues in the shutdown.
▶ 4:09:21Sen. Schmitt: It's not about anything other than the fact -- this is a clean cr. This is what they have lectured us on making sure we do 13 times in the last four years. This is about appeasing an increasingly radical base to prove they are willing to stand up to president trump. I don't know how we get through all of this unless there is a real reckoning on the other side about that reality.
▶ 4:09:47Sen. Schmitt: I'm glad you are doing what your job is, which is to be the chief law enforcement officer of this country, focusing on violent crime and keeping our communities safe.
▶ 4:09:57Attorney Gen. Bondi: Thank you, senator schmitt. Despite what they are saying on the other side of the aisle, our agents are out there working tirelessly every day to make america safe. That was donald trump's directive and we will make it happen. >> editor welch.
▶ 4:10:14Sen. Welch: Thank you, attorney general bondi. I have noticed that at various times when one of my colleagues is pressing you, you come up with something in their background. So I will be waiting for my turn. But you don't have to do it right now. Let me to my questions. One of the things you mentioned, and I agree with this, tough on the various federal workforce including our law enforcement folks.
▶ 4:10:44Sen. Welch: Who are not getting paid because of the shutdown. I agree with that. But I also think that was not the whole story. There is an issue here that will affect americans, whether they voted for president or voted for vice president harris. And that is the loss of health care where on november 1, everyone who was getting affordable care act help to buy insurance is going to get the notice of premium increases.
▶ 4:11:15Sen. Welch: And I got a letter just today from a vermont family, and nuclear family of five. A husband and wife, 54 and 55 with three kids. One of whom has acute myeloid leukemia.
▶ 4:11:32Sen. Welch: The apprehension that they have is that if we don't solve this problem in november, november 1 is an urgent date, then their family premiums will triple, it will be beyond their ability to pay. So I'm assuming that with respect to the threat to health care for families in your state of florida, in my state of vermont, you would share that concern and hope that we would resolve that.
▶ 4:12:01Attorney Gen. Bondi: Senator welsch, I would be happy to speak with that family too, because there are many nonprofits that help with children with terminal illnesses. And I'm involved in some in florida. We would be happy to talk to you about that. As to health care, the government is shut down, it is my understanding, maybe you are not one of them, but because many democrats won't help care for illegal aliens. That is what shut down the government. That is one of the sticking points.
▶ 4:12:30Sen. Welch: This actually is important to all of us. The lament I have is that if this health care goes away, this premium support, it is really going to hurt families in red states and blue states. In vermont, we voted democratic we have a lot of good folks who voted for president trump in their health care that is jeopardized. There is a november 1 deadline that is coming up.
▶ 4:13:00Sen. Welch: Reason I'm saying this is that I think it is important for us to try to work out together a resolution that will be beneficial to people you care about in florida and voted for president trump and people I care about in vermont who voted for vice president harris, and some for president trump. It is not just democrats not wanting to negotiate. In fact, we do want to negotiate.
▶ 4:13:27Sen. Welch: That's why I would encourage the president to encourage my colleagues and the republican side to sit down with us and try to see if we can make progress. Another topic, with their respective voting rights in the letter your voting rights chief sent out, we got one in vermont, a demand to get all of the information on the voting file.
▶ 4:13:52Sen. Welch: In that letter, in the announcement of that letter, the chief indicated an apprehension about the voting process being taken over by "the left." do you have any information with respect to vermont about a takeover of the voting process by "the left"?
▶ 4:14:21Attorney Gen. Bondi: Senator, I'm not familiar with what you are referring to. We are currently involved in voter roll lawsuits in six states. Is that what you are referring to?
▶ 4:14:30Sen. Welch: There is a letter that went out demanding states, including vermont, provide all the voting file information. When that letter was sent out --
▶ 4:14:39Attorney Gen. Bondi: That is perfectly legal.
▶ 4:14:44Sen. Welch: But there was an assertion by the chief in this division that this was the deal with the fact that the voting process has been taken over by the left. We got one of those letters in vermont. My question to you is a what do you mean by the left? Do you have any evidence that the so-called system has been overtaken by the left.
▶ 4:15:06Attorney Gen. Bondi: We must have fair and free elections.
▶ 4:15:09Sen. Welch: I know that. I'm asking for the specific basis.
▶ 4:15:13Attorney Gen. Bondi: And we will have fair and free elections in this country. I would be happy to talk to my chief. Who was it who said that?
▶ 4:15:20Sen. Welch: It was your chief. Which I assume you would know who that is? Here is the question here. There is a point of view that is in dispute here. About the fairness of elections. But you have the power as the U.S. attorney general to use the authority of your office to make demands on states, and you did that with vermont. That is within your right to do it.
▶ 4:15:52Sen. Welch: I'm not disputing your legal authority to do it.
▶ 4:15:53Attorney Gen. Bondi: His vermont disputing turning over the information to our office?
▶ 4:15:57Sen. Welch: Vermont is. You can resolve that with her.
▶ 4:16:02Attorney Gen. Bondi: We have every right to have that information. Why wouldn't they want to turn it in?
▶ 4:16:12Sen. Welch: You are a prosecutor with the awesome authority to make the decision that you are going to start an investigation against the state, or against an individual. I know from your experience as a county prosecutor and as the attorney general in florida, you took seriously that obligation to have a factual basis before you would proceed, right?
▶ 4:16:27Attorney Gen. Bondi: Senator, I take that role, I take my oath very seriously. And I take fair and free elections in this country very seriously.
▶ 4:16:38Sen. Welch: We'll do.
▶ 4:16:39Attorney Gen. Bondi: Without that information, our office is entitled to the have that information.
▶ 4:16:44Sen. Welch: Here is the question that I have. We have a republican governor in vermont. We had our former republican governor that was a treasurer for many years. And also the secretary of state with election responsibility.
▶ 4:17:03Sen. Welch: What I'm asking is do you or does your head of this voting section have any factual basis that you can point to that justifies your demand that vermont turnover all of this confidential voting rights information?
▶ 4:17:20Attorney Gen. Bondi: It would remain confidential with my office. And you just said you have a republican governor. So it doesn't make sense what you just said. We have asked that of every state.
▶ 4:17:32Sen. Welch: Right. What I'm asking about vermont with a factual basis, but we can move on. You mentioned that you can't discuss pending litigation. I think the committee by and large accepted that. I did notice you spoke at great length about pending litigation, specifically with respect to the questions senator cruz asked you about the sentencing of the kavanaugh defendant. That is pending, right?
▶ 4:18:02Attorney Gen. Bondi: He was sentenced to eight years.
▶ 4:18:06Sen. Welch: I understand that that is on appeal.
▶ 4:18:07Attorney Gen. Bondi: He will be appealing.
▶ 4:18:08Sen. Welch: Right. That makes it pending litigation. You may an exception with respect --
▶ 4:18:14Attorney Gen. Bondi: No. Hold on.
▶ 4:18:16Sen. Welch: You said they were pending at litigation for many of my colleagues.
▶ 4:18:24Attorney Gen. Bondi: Those were facts that came out at the sentencing hearing. You are welcome to see the transcript.
▶ 4:18:27Sen. Welch: I understand that.
▶ 4:18:30Attorney Gen. Bondi: But they threatened to do to justice kavanaugh.
▶ 4:18:33Sen. Welch: I can understand what that person did. But the point here is that that is pending litigation, indicating you are going to be appealing. It is your right to do that. And you would not -- you use that justification to not answer many other questions. Justification? You are an attorney, senator.
▶ 4:18:58Sen. Welch: You realize that.
▶ 4:18:59Sen. Welch: I do want to go back to home in. There is a take with Mr. homan. First of all, is there a tape that has audio and video of the transfer of the 50,000?
▶ 4:19:11Attorney Gen. Bondi: You would have to talk to director patel about that.
▶ 4:19:15Sen. Welch: No, I'm talking to you.
▶ 4:19:17Attorney Gen. Bondi: I don't know the answer.
▶ 4:19:18Sen. Welch: You do know the answer.
▶ 4:19:20Attorney Gen. Bondi: Don't call me a liar.
▶ 4:19:23Sen. Welch: I didn't call you a liar.
▶ 4:19:24Attorney Gen. Bondi: I said I don't know the answer. You have to talk to director patel. What I said is that investigation is disclosed.
▶ 4:19:33Sen. Welch: If you don't know, why don't you know whether there is a tape and video?
▶ 4:19:35Attorney Gen. Bondi: Senator, I believe that was resolved prior to my confirmation as attorney general.
▶ 4:19:42Sen. Welch: Do you think it is a public interest for the people to know what happened to the 50 grand the fbi turned over to Mr. homan?
▶ 4:19:51Attorney Gen. Bondi: Did you hear what I just said? That was resolved prior to my confirmation as attorney general.
▶ 4:19:56Sen. Welch: It is not -- it is not resolved. There is $50,000. Mr. homan has it or somebody has it. Do you have no interest in knowing where it is?
▶ 4:20:07Attorney Gen. Bondi: You are now going to sit here and slander tom homan. The fbi and deputy director blanche said there was nothing --
▶ 4:20:18Sen. Welch: I'm not slamming tom homan.
▶ 4:20:18Attorney Gen. Bondi: How do you know that? Tom homan is doing a great job as our border czar, keeping your border state safe. You are a border state. >> thank you, senator welch. >> point of personal privilege. >> not right now. Senator tillis and many others have been waiting their turn. So you can hold until the end. No. Senator tillis, go ahead.
▶ 4:20:47Sen. Tillis: Thank you for being here. I'm going to get parochial for a bit of time. Maybe I have time for other questions. There is this island at the end of western north carolina. You have got convergence of tennessee and georgia, south carolina. But they are an island, and they sell pot. And I have no problem with that.
▶ 4:21:17Sen. Tillis: What I have a problem with is some of their actions or activities that I think are concerning me, that speak to the broader issue about marijuana and what we ultimately do with it, with nearly three dozen states having it either medical, recreational. This kind of feels like to me the way the tobacco industry got attacked for advertising to young people.
▶ 4:21:48Sen. Tillis: We already know incidentally that we have a vaped problem around here, particularly a young -- among young people. Adam chair, I would like to seek unanimous consent for letters from the sheriffs association and federal law enforcement officers association foundation, citing the serious problem we have with illegal vapes in this country.
▶ 4:22:07Chair Moody: Without objection.
▶ 4:22:08Sen. Tillis: Thank you. This worries me because it is a moneymaking enterprise, it seems like it is preying on younger people. I want to talk about this handy app you can get now. It's illegal in north carolina. And tennessee and georgia and south carolina to bipoc.
▶ 4:22:33Sen. Tillis: Apparently, you can go order it on a app and ride over there and assume they are not delivering it outside of the boundary. Because I think that would be illegal. Would that be illegal?
▶ 4:22:45Attorney Gen. Bondi: Senator, thank you for pointing that out. I was not familiar with that app. We will certainly look at it.
▶ 4:22:52Sen. Tillis: Yeah. Let's say I get -- let's get a vape from china. Anywhere near the sort of scrutiny we have here in the united states. If that illegal vape -- let's say, I don't know what it is loaded with, but if it is illegal in the state of north carolina, let's say it comes in, I'm using a hypothetical example, in the port of wilmington.
▶ 4:23:23Sen. Tillis: And finds its way to new york or some other state that has legalized marijuana. Is that a lit -- is that illegal transfer rotation of illegal substance? Unless it teleports it to a legal jurisdiction, wouldn't it have been illegally transported at some point?
▶ 4:23:41Attorney Gen. Bondi: Based on federal law.
▶ 4:23:43Sen. Tillis: Ok. Are you familiar with the science of teleportation? I don't think it has been perfected yet. It requires a physical movement from one place to the other. I have asked a number of people when they have come before this committee and hopefully I get your attention on this too general bondi.
▶ 4:24:10Sen. Tillis: There is a growing operation in western north carolina that is part of the travel lands. The problem is is I can't find any legal way to get this pot but is grown here to the dispensary that is in another noncontiguous area. Do you see what I mean?
▶ 4:24:36Sen. Tillis: I just tried to figure out that the eastern band of the cherokee are illegally transporting what they are growing at scale here, to what they are advertising in charlotte on the billboards as one of the country's largest dispensaries. Apparently, also offering a bun -- offering to buy it online.
▶ 4:24:55Sen. Tillis: Can I get your commitment within the doj, not you personally, but can I get a definitive answer that there is no there there, that they do have something that does not seem to comport.
▶ 4:25:10Attorney Gen. Bondi: I will absolutely have my team look at that issue and I'm not familiar with that establishment.
▶ 4:25:17Sen. Tillis: It is an island. I don't I really think the federal government needs to step up. We need to get rid of this fish or foul status that marijuana has in this country. Many red states, even your home state, my home state, many states I should say, not just the state of florida are trending toward legalizing.
▶ 4:25:49Sen. Tillis: We have to get it solved at the federal level. We have to capture revenue, that revenue needs to go back to federal law enforcement and we need to have more focus on what I think are unsafe and inconsistent practices. If I could get that I would appreciate it. General bondi, I am kind of a boring management consultant nerd that believes in best practices as a way to move forward and create consistent outcomes.
▶ 4:26:20Sen. Tillis: Having a real struggle right now with the national guard being deployed and masking the abject failure of leaders at the state and local level. Give me some sense, if the deployment of the national guard to chicago or portland is necessary, to kind of create a shock to the system, do you believe that is the best practice or just a necessary evil until we have the
▶ 4:26:52Sen. Tillis: Extraordinary workforce that I've seen everyday in north carolina with absolute cooperation between state, federal, and local officials? Is that the best practice we should get to? Or is this deployment of the national guard part of an emerging best practice that I don't get yet?
▶ 4:27:08Attorney Gen. Bondi: Senator tillis, seeing what is happening in chicago, they need the national guard. Our I.c.e. Members need the national guard to protect the national buildings.
▶ 4:27:21Sen. Tillis: 100%. I masking with local law enforcement. I felt like deployment in D.C. made sense because of the hybrid nature of D.C. I'm saying outside of that defending federal buildings and federal law enforcement, addressing over 500 murders in chicago, are we masking an underlying problem that will come back the minute we leave? Not the protection of federal buildings and federal law enforcement officers.
▶ 4:27:52Sen. Tillis: But almost the sense that they have become an arm of local law enforcement. I don't consider that a best practice.
▶ 4:27:57Attorney Gen. Bondi: I don't believe our national guard want to be doing that, but they are going to be where they have to be to keep americans safe. In memphis, the highest violent crime rate in the country, I was on the ground with secretary hegseth and our guard was there. And they were thrilled, they are ready to help. We used all tennessee guard for. Secretary hegseth used all tennessee guard.
▶ 4:28:25Attorney Gen. Bondi: They are working hand-in-hand with the memphis police department who I believe were very happy to have them there, helping them to keep memphis safe. Can I go back to the vaping that you brought up? I went to chicago with secretary kennedy. It was just outside of chicago in a suburb. We were there talking about the illegal vapes and what parents need to know. This is a bipartisan issue. These illegal vapes are all over this country.
▶ 4:28:57Attorney Gen. Bondi: You can buy them in convenience stores, in grocery stores. One vape is the equivalent of 20 cigarettes. The flavored ones are illegal. And they are targeting children, what you said earlier. Some of these vapes, and I had never seen this until we were there, even have videogames attached to them. That is not targeting an adult, it is targeting a child. They are also coming in from china, which is illegal, and they are lacing them with thc.
▶ 4:29:26Attorney Gen. Bondi: Right now, I can't say that I've seen deaths with fentanyl lace, but we want to get on the front end of this. Because that's what is next. That's what's next. For the first time, we are getting on the front end of a very serious problem around our country. Senator moody, you fought this as well. Thank you for loving -- letting me address that. Parents need to know that.
▶ 4:29:56Sen. Tillis: We do. We need to focus on it. All I'm saying from a political standpoint is that if we -- president trump, he will only be able to serve out his second term. I believe the president is absolutely focused on making these dangerous cities safer. I reject any notion that charlotte is on my list. Whether you are democrat or republican, bring it on.
▶ 4:30:27Sen. Tillis: But I see 3.5 years from now, if we don't address this systemic problems, what we have basically done is given a governor and mayor and city council a pass on failing to protect their people. I was formerly speaker of the house in north carolina. If I thought I had to have the president deployed troops to keep north carolina safe, I would've considered myself a failure as a state leader.
▶ 4:30:50Sen. Tillis: I just hope we strike the balance of we are not fixing a problem temporarily, only to come back, maybe even worse than the problem we are fixing come of the moment this president who has committed to local safety leaves. That's something we have to talk about. I'm going to yield back.
▶ 4:31:09Chair Moody: Thank you. Senator schiff.
▶ 4:31:12Sen. Schiff: Attorney temp -- attorney general bondi, in your hearing in january, you made a clear commitment you would not politicize your position. Your first oversight hearing nine months into your tenure, at a time when hundreds of career prosecutors have quit because they were required to take unethical actions at odds with that promise. Or fear that they would have to take such actions if they were made on the job.
▶ 4:31:40Sen. Schiff: Over 1000 former federal prosecutors have sounded the alarm about the unprecedented degree to which the powers of the doj are being abused to go after the presidents enemies. I approach this hearing with a heavy heart, as a former federal prosecutor myself, I served in a department that whether it was under a democratic or republican president would never use the office to go after the president's enemies for to hide the corruption of his friends.
▶ 4:32:06Sen. Schiff: Today, the justice department has been used to cover up the possible correction of the mayor of new york, or taking $50,000 reportedly of cash in a bag, or a child sex president -- child sex predator who befriended the president. Your department has engaged in a brazenly political prosecution at the president's explicit direction.
▶ 4:32:43Sen. Schiff: To protect himself, his allies and associates. My question is focused on these two themes. Hiding the corrupt acts of his friends in the political prosecution of his enemies. Let me start with the shocking allegations of bribery and pay to play. 2 -- four major media outlets reported tom homan, working in the white house, took $50,000 in cash in a bag from undercover fbi agents in september 2024.
▶ 4:33:16Sen. Schiff: Just over a year ago. According to these reports, homan indicated he would facilitate securing contracts in exchange for money once he was in office in the future trump administration. Reportedly, this exchange was caught on tape. Rather than pursue this investigation without fear or favor, the department and fbi under your leadership or that of your predecessor confirmed, quietly shut it down.
▶ 4:33:43Sen. Schiff: Your deputy and fbi director issued a joint public statement confirming that the trump administration close the investigation. White house press secretary karoline leavitt denied home and took the 50,000, telling a reporter "Mr. homan never took the $50,000 that you are referring to, so you should get your facts straight." today, I hope you can help us get our facts straight. Was that true what the white house press secretary said, when she denied home and took the money?
▶ 4:34:13Sen. Schiff: Did he take the money?
▶ 4:34:16Attorney Gen. Bondi: As I stated , I was not on when that was determined. Director patel said there was no evidence that tom homan committed a crime. Now you are putting his picture up to slander him.
▶ 4:34:44Sen. Schiff: He was explicitly asked about these allegations that he took a $50,000 hike. He refused to answer. He didn't answer the question of whether he took the money. Did he take the money?
▶ 4:34:59Attorney Gen. Bondi: I answered that question multiple times.
▶ 4:35:04Sen. Schiff: I don't think, with respect, that you did. But in case I just didn't hear you, what is the answer? Did he take the money?
▶ 4:35:14Attorney Gen. Bondi: That happened prior to my confirmation, do you know -- all I know deputy attorney general todd blanche and fbi director said that there was no case. Karoline leavitt is one of the most trustworthy human beings I know.
▶ 4:35:38Sen. Schiff: Was she right?
▶ 4:35:40Attorney Gen. Bondi: If you worked for me, you would have been fired. You are lying.
▶ 4:35:47Sen. Schiff: You can stipulate to all youth your personal attacks.
▶ 4:35:49Attorney Gen. Bondi: Personal attacks? You have been attacking my fbi director.
▶ 4:35:54Sen. Schiff: We are interested in the answer to these oversight questions.
▶ 4:36:00Attorney Gen. Bondi: You want your five minutes of fame attacking good people.
▶ 4:36:05Sen. Schiff: You were asked by my colleague from vermont whether you would support providing a video or audio tape, will you support a request by this committee to provide that tape or tapes to the committee.
▶ 4:36:34Sen. Schiff: This will be your decision, will you support?
▶ 4:36:35Attorney Gen. Bondi: You don't tell me what is my decision and what is not my decision. You think you have a gotcha with tom homan. Who has been out there fighting for our country.
▶ 4:36:56Sen. Schiff: You don't have to defer to the fbi director to pass the buck. I'm asking you. Will you support a request so that the committee or indeed committee american people should be able to see that video or audio tape, will you support that request? My guess is you will not support.
▶ 4:37:15Attorney Gen. Bondi: After you now know joe biden tried to cover up hunter biden's involvement with ukraine.
▶ 4:37:17Sen. Schiff: Let me do this, I think it is valuable that the american people, answer with personal attacks. You were asked whether you consulted with current ethnic lawyers as you promised you would do through your nomination hearing when you approved the president receiving a $400 million gift from the qatari's.
▶ 4:37:47Sen. Schiff: You refused to answer that question. You are asked who or what role you may have played or who played the role in asking the -- that trumps's name be flagged in the epstein documents gathered by the fbi. He refused to answer that question. You are asked whether homan kept the $50,000 bride money. You refused to answer that question you are asked whether homan paid taxes, you refused to answer that question.
▶ 4:38:13Sen. Schiff: You were asked if career prosecutors find insufficient evidence to start james comey. You are fused to answer that question. You are asked how our military strikes on these boats in the caribbean legal, and you refused to answer that question.
▶ 4:38:30Attorney Gen. Bondi: Do you have a law degree?
▶ 4:38:32Sen. Schiff: Excuse me. You were asked, did you discuss indicting james comey with the president. You refused to answer that. You are asked did you approve the firing of trust lawyers, you refused to answer that question.
▶ 4:38:48Sen. Schiff: You were asked whether you supported a restoration fund for violent insurrections that attacked the capital, you refused to answer that question you are asked whether you -- because they worked on january 6 question -- investigations, you refused to answer that question. You were asked by my california colleague whether you believed government officials have to abide by court orders, you wouldn't even answer that question.
▶ 4:39:20Sen. Schiff: This is supposed to be an oversight hearing.
▶ 4:39:22Attorney Gen. Bondi: Oversight!
▶ 4:39:24Sen. Schiff: You can attack me after my dad -- you can attack me later. I know you have plenty of attacks we have heard them all day.
▶ 4:39:39Attorney Gen. Bondi: No one needs a canned attack on you.
▶ 4:39:40Sen. Schiff: Regular order. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing. It comes in the wake of an indictment called for by the president of one of his enemies. This is supposed to be an oversight hearing and a comes in the wake of revelations, that a top administration official took $50,000 in a bag. This department made that investigation go away.
▶ 4:40:05Sen. Schiff: This is supposed to be in in a oversight hearing when dozens of prosecutors have been fired simple because they worked on cases investigating the former president.
▶ 4:40:14Attorney Gen. Bondi: What about the fires in california? Did you hear about that?
▶ 4:40:21Sen. Schiff: This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of congress can get serious answers to serious questions.
▶ 4:40:31Attorney Gen. Bondi: Are the riots in l.a. Serious?
▶ 4:40:35Sen. Schiff: About the cover above corruption. About the prosecution of the president's enemies.
▶ 4:40:38Attorney Gen. Bondi: I think you owe the president an apology.
▶ 4:40:41Sen. Schiff: When will it be that the members of this committee in a bipartisan basis demand answers to those questions? And refused to accept --
▶ 4:40:53Attorney Gen. Bondi: Clearly you are a failed lawyer.
▶ 4:40:55Sen. Schiff: Personal slander as an answer to those questions.
▶ 4:41:00Attorney Gen. Bondi: Personal slander, will you apologize to president trump for slandering him?
▶ 4:41:06Sen. Schiff: May I ask unanimous consent to introduce into the record the statement of a thousand former justice of department officials who warned the james comey indictment is a democracy threatening abuse of power.
▶ 4:41:22Sen. Schiff: May I request unanimous consent for the introduction to the record of 282 former career officials that the justice department raised an alarm that were voluntarily or involuntarily forced to leave the department because of improper actions taken by the department of justice. May I introduce with unanimous consent the justice department manual that talks about when initiating a declining chart are subject to impermissible considerations.
▶ 4:41:50Sen. Schiff: And finally, may I introduce the letter from michael bennet area, a career counterterrorism prosecutor at doj, a p mailed to his door -- a letter he mailto his door which includes by urging officials to do the right thing, for the right reasons. To follow the facts of the law and raises the alarm that the decision to remove experience career officials from U.S.
▶ 4:42:18Sen. Schiff: Attorney offices, the fbi and critical parts of doj, undermines our country's abilities to counterterrorism organizations, and countless others that seek to harm our nation and its citizens. And he believes the priority is --
▶ 4:42:35Attorney Gen. Bondi: Are you still arguing or admitting --
▶ 4:42:36Chair Moody: Are you entering that into the record? Without objection.
▶ 4:42:41Sen. Schiff: Thank you. >> may I clarify one thing he entered into the record? I want to say I believe he entered a letter by 200 something former employees. I believe the spokesperson for that letter was also the spokesperson for jack smith. >> thank you, madam chair. The next generation. I want to talk to you about our kids. People who don't have a seat at the table but need us to fight for them tirelessly.
▶ 4:43:13Sen. Schiff: When you look at this, I see a couple different buckets of ways that bad actors areadvantage ofn some of the most extreme situations, we lose that child whether to death or self-harm. I think we owe it to them to do something about it. -- first is social media.
▶ 4:43:32Sen. Schiff: What are you doing -- I have said kirk -- sat across from a number of parents who have talked to me about their child falling victim to sex torsion, different schemes online. We know that there is an element of human trafficking that comes here. Let's start with social media. What are you doing to hold bad actors accountable, to track them down and keep our kids safe?
▶ 4:43:55Attorney Gen. Bondi: Senator, first, thank you for bringing that up. -- thank you for bringing that up. This is what an oversight hearing should be about, trying to help parents and children online. Erector patel -- director patel has been doing a great job.
▶ 4:44:23Attorney Gen. Bondi: The fbi, we have an entire unit that is working internationally.
▶ 4:44:27Sen. Moody: I want to talk about that, too. A lot of this comes from overseas. Whether it is schemes like sextortion, it is happening off our shores. How are you connecting the dots? And let's look at human trafficking. A lot of times people are lured into this on social media. I believe that is a global trafficking ring.
▶ 4:44:51Sen. Moody: What are you doing to hold those people accountable and getting to the bottom of it, finding bad actors and making sure we are keeping these children safe?
▶ 4:45:00Attorney Gen. Bondi: We have made countless cases around this country and many have involved global international defendants and we have been extraditing many of them back to this country. That is how we are holding them accountable and locking them up for as long as we can. Director patel and the national security division have been working tirelessly on that. We have entire units working on that.
▶ 4:45:28Sen. Britt: Do you feel you have made better strides then in the last four years?
▶ 4:45:33Attorney Gen. Bondi: Yes, we have made incredible strides. Sorry I don't have statistics in front of me.
▶ 4:45:39Sen. Britt: I would like to get notes from you. I have worked diligently alongside senator black earn and others to put the proper guard rails in place when it comes to social media to prevent these things happening to our children, allowing them to thrive in line but knowing the threats out there, it is incumbent upon us to do something about it so I hope those different pieces of legislation that would help keep kids safe and give additional tools, I hope congress will take that up.
▶ 4:46:10Attorney Gen. Bondi: Can I add something to that? Parents also, I tell them your child has no right to privacy on the internet and parents need to monitor what their kids are doing. We all know that even elementary kids, so many of them have cell phones because they are at school, they are latchkey kids, riding the bus home. So many kids have cell phones but parents you have to monitor. There are safeguards you can put on the phone.
▶ 4:46:38Sen. Britt: I do think accountability has to be held even with social media providers.
▶ 4:46:43Attorney Gen. Bondi: Absolutely.
▶ 4:46:44Sen. Britt: We had a judiciary subcommittee hearing where we heard from parent after parent whose child bought something online they thought to be a different type of drug, it was laced with fentanyl and they died. That was happening at a storefront at a small business in america. We shut that storefront down. We must do more to hold bad actors online accountable and I hope you can work with me on that.
▶ 4:47:11Attorney Gen. Bondi: I wholeheartedly agree.
▶ 4:47:13Sen. Britt: Staying in that vein on parents, looking at illegal gaming -- this is a global thing, offshore, illegal gaming. We have found young men in particular have been targeted when it comes to betting and illegal gaming whether it be advertisements where things directly targeted to get them addicted.
▶ 4:47:43Sen. Britt: When it comes to illegal gaming will you commit to looking at what is happening offshore and how they are utilizing different spaces to go after our children, getting them addicted and pulling them in?
▶ 4:47:58Attorney Gen. Bondi: Certainly and I'm sure the fbi would welcome working with you.
▶ 4:48:02Sen. Britt: Last but not least, you touched on it earlier with vaping. If you're a parent, chinese vapes, this is a real issue. You spoke a little about what you were worried will come next in this space. What are you doing to get to the bottom of that and how are we going to make sure these do not infiltrate our markets and do not end up in the hands of their children?
▶ 4:48:31Attorney Gen. Bondi: We have been going around this country and rating -- raiding these vape shops. That is what senator kennedy and I were doing in illinois. It was a massive arrest of illegal vapes from china mainly coming in from china, laced with thc.
▶ 4:48:56Attorney Gen. Bondi: Back to the child predators, since january20, we have made 20 -- 2580 cases. 250 more than last year.
▶ 4:49:15Sen. Britt: Will you commit to going after these unregulated products and making sure they are not the answer to children?
▶ 4:49:22Attorney Gen. Bondi: Yes and we need to do this because it is targeting our children.
▶ 4:49:26Sen. Britt: Thank you. Today is the second anniversary of the horrific, horrific attacks on october 7. This morning I had an opportunity to listen to stories of some individuals that had been held hostage, families that will never get their loved ones back in some hoping there was a resolution soon that they get to embrace their family member they have not seen for 700 days.
▶ 4:49:57Sen. Britt: It was a reminder. One of them said I can breathe, but I can't live until this is resolved. In addition to this nightmare they had been living for the past two years we have seen a rise in anti-semitism here on our soil. Never again actually has to mean never again.
▶ 4:50:24Sen. Britt: I know we spoke about this briefly when you were in front of this committee but can you talk about the work the doj is doing to combat that rise in anti-semitism and to hold offenders to hold them accountable.
▶ 4:50:40Attorney Gen. Bondi: Thank you for again bringing up that today is the second anniversary of that horrific attack on israel. Donald trump is the greatest peace president of our lifetime, probably our history. If anyone can resolve this it will be donald trump. I also met with many of the families of the hostages and of those who have lost loved ones.
▶ 4:51:09Attorney Gen. Bondi: We are combating anti-semitism throughout this country not only through my civil rights division. We have not talked about harmeet dillon who runs our division and is combating anti-semitism across this country. We have an anti-semitism task force we are forming.
▶ 4:51:30Attorney Gen. Bondi: Do mind giving me a list?
▶ 4:51:33Attorney Gen. Bondi: Absolutely.
▶ 4:51:35Sen. Britt: In my remaining minute, appreciate the work you're doing. I know my colleague senator lee asked you about the attacks on I.c.e. Officers. Thank you for working to keep our federal law enforcement safe. Thank you for the work you are doing there. I want to talk about crime in american cities.
▶ 4:51:57Sen. Britt: We had a horrific event occur in montgomery, alabama over the weekend and 14 people, two people are no longer with us and 12 people injured. My heart breaks for everyone of the victims and their families and the community. I would like to know about your inner agency work. And talk to me about the things you find because we have to find solutions in this space. This cannot keep happening.
▶ 4:52:27Sen. Britt: What are you seeing as your biggest success stories and challenges to working to try to resolve crime throughout the country?
▶ 4:52:34Attorney Gen. Bondi: The biggest challenge is the federal government is shutdown but we are not letting that become a challenge because our agents are working tirelessly. I get almost real-time updates from my agencies. The deputy director of atf, kash patel and others at fbi. Terry cole at dea. And all of our great team of lawyers. We are working nonstop to combat crime.
▶ 4:53:03Attorney Gen. Bondi: That is donald trump's only directive to me, to make america safe again, and that is what we will do.
▶ 4:53:09Sen. Britt: Thank you for your commitment and any best practices you have or ways to tackle challenges that are effective, please let us know. We want to see every community across our state and country safe and we appreciate your and president trump's commitment to doing that. >> thank you, senator britt.
▶ 4:53:32Sen. Britt: Thank you to our witness who has been sitting here now for 4.5 hours without a break, maybe a little under the weather. You have outlasted pretty much everyone here but senator britt and myself. Thank you for being here today.
▶ 4:53:48Attorney Gen. Bondi: I'm in good company.
▶ 4:53:55Sen. Moody: Wen yu served as attorney general in florida that was a high bar that you set and I was honored to come in after you as attorney general. You touched on so many of the issues that you are still fighting for in washington, protecting our children, law-enforcement officers, rule of law.
▶ 4:54:21Sen. Moody: All of these things, your experiences personal and professional are playing into standing strong for what this country was built on in this role. I for one and proud to be here as the most junior member of this committee but to be here and working in washington with the honor of serving as a senator and watching this administration and you bring this country back to its
▶ 4:54:52Sen. Moody: Bearing, that we are a nation that is a government for the people with the consent of the governed and if we are going to protect life, liberty and opportunity to pursue happiness we have to guarantee safety.
▶ 4:55:06Sen. Moody: It has to be a mission and that starts in our communities and states and I think what people are missing is, the federal government has to work within federal jurisdiction but it is incumbent upon them to execute and enforce within the states.
▶ 4:55:28Sen. Moody: I'm watching what is happening around the station as a result of what has happened under the biden administration, what they allowed to happen purposefully, whether that was rogue prosecutors, defunding police, decriminalizing crime, allowing juveniles to run rampant with no accountability, revolving jailhouse door, no respect for rule of law, it goes on and on. You are seeing that play out in cities around this country.
▶ 4:55:57Sen. Moody: What is terrifying, and I think you would agree, is, this is not your democratic party of yesteryear where we might have said they are soft on crime. This is now a democratic party who is offering support for, encouraging obstructionist behavior, threats of violence against law enforcement.
▶ 4:56:28Sen. Moody: As the wife of a law enforcement officer, as someone who committed my own life, now as senator, it is horrifying to me that where we used to talk about differences in policies where one party was thought to be tough on crime and one was thought to be soft on crime, we are not talking about the
▶ 4:56:59Sen. Moody: Fundamental ideals and structure on which this country was built. I have been horrified watching the partnership between the governor in illinois and a mayor in chicago and the collaboration, some might say the corruption, and the rhetoric they are using. I have to say this because I think for somebody like you and me it makes you extraordinarily concern for the success and future of this country.
▶ 4:57:32Sen. Moody: Pritzker, he uses words like this is an unconstitutional invasion of illinois, militarized cbp and I.c.e. Agents to the streets of chicago to cause violence and chaos in the city. And I quote pritzker, people are getting detained, arrested, U.S. citizens, making it a war zone.
▶ 4:57:57Sen. Moody: Pritzker, it is a war zone, and they are using tear gas and chemical agents at peaceful protesters. Pritzker, they are waging war on our people. Pritzker, we must now start calling this what it is, trump's invasion. Not to be outdone though by johnson, who says that and I quote, law enforcement is a sickness.
▶ 4:58:28Sen. Moody: We have a rogue, reckless group of heavily armed mass individuals roaming throughout our city. Johnson, I.c.e.lies and people dying. Johnson, the trump administration must end the war on chicago. Johnson, in the coming weeks, we will use this as an opportunity to build greater resistance.
▶ 4:59:01Sen. Moody: I am wondering, if pritzker and johnson understand that there are federal laws that criminalize inciting violence against law enforcement and federal agents?
▶ 4:59:22Sen. Moody: I am wondering if they are concerned at all about what their speech is doing and the danger it is putting not only federal agents in, who by the way swore an oath to protect other people, but the danger it is putting the citizens of their community in.
▶ 4:59:47Sen. Moody: Any time you start pitting your own people against their own government, a government is only there at its core to protect rights and the safety of its people, that is incredibly dangerous.
▶ 5:00:01Sen. Moody: And I hear this rhetoric and I think to myself every foreign adversary of the united states of america in this country is saying thank you to the governor of illinois and the mayor of chicago. Thank you for doing their jobs for them.
▶ 5:00:22Sen. Moody: For undermining the strength and safety of this country, and for gas lighting the american people as we are trying to shore up the stability of our communities. That puts you in such a remarkable, important decision right now.
▶ 5:00:47Sen. Moody: You are the top law-enforcement official in this country and you have a responsibility to call out this rhetoric. And when it violates and crosses over from free speech to inciting violence, we have to call that out. We have to remind the american people that we are dealing with the aftermath of millions of undocumented allowed to flood into this country.
▶ 5:01:18Sen. Moody: I know because I litigated it and fought against it and when I had to get through litigation documents that showed their plan was to step back and let the border be overrun, when nobody believed that was happening, it was people like us that said this is happening. They are allowing our country to be overrun.
▶ 5:01:39Sen. Moody: They are allowing through rogue prosecutors and in --an undermining and demoralization of law enforcement for our city's default or criminals they are allowing this to happen and they are doing so trust me cheered on by our adversaries. It will take someone with strength and ability to take criticism from four hours and 45 minutes and sit here resolute in your commitment to uphold the rule of law.
▶ 5:02:09Sen. Moody: I know the only reason you can is because of what you went through in your prayer life working hand-in-hand with law enforcement, seeing what their families went through, holding the hands of victims, not allowing these people to turn our heroes into villains and certainly not letting these people make the united states of america appear anything other than what it is.
▶ 5:02:37Sen. Moody: It is a country that protects first and foremost our people's rights and we do so by also guaranteeing with the consent of our public that will focus on their safety which is why I was so glad you started out this hearing with, my mission is to protect the people and prosecute violent crime, and to make sure the corruption that happened again under the last administration can never happen again.
▶ 5:03:05Sen. Moody: As you sat here today and heard the affect of the people whose friends and colleagues and members of the judiciary whose phones were analyzed and traced from grand jury subpoena and only just finding out last night, assuring them you understand what that feels like and that you will not let it happen again. No matter how much they want to disguise accountability as weaponization.
▶ 5:03:35Sen. Moody: Thank you for being you pam the prosecutor, pam the person that cares about the country and its people and the future of america. Thank you for being here today. Would you like to end with any comments?
▶ 5:03:47Attorney Gen. Bondi: Thank you, senator moody. They may try to destroy our country but they will not. They will not be successful nor will our foreign adversaries because we have the greatest president and he will make america safe again and keep us safe. Thank you, senator for all you do.
▶ 5:04:05Sen. Moody: We will keep the record open for a week. Senator whitehouse will offer comments for the record. Any additional questions I would ask that you respond to those. With that the hearing is adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]