Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and attorney general nominee Pam Bondi clashed over Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Like other Democratic senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Schiff pressed Bondi to say whether Trump lost that election, which she claimed at the time was rife with fraud. But Bondi complained he was trying to trap her with a "gotcha" question and insisted she would never "play politics" if confirmed as attorney general.
"If you cannot answer the question, let me ask you a different [one], what should be a simple truth, not a hard one," Schiff said. "Was there massive fraud affecting the result of the 2020 election, yes or no."
Bondi said she appreciated the question, but Schiff interrupted to ask the same question, which she again sidestepped.
"You can't answer that question?" Schiff said. "You can't speak that easy truth to us, let alone the president, so let me ask you a different question. It will also be important that you give good advice to the president. Are you prepared to advise the president not to pardon people who beat police officers?"
Bondi once again dodged, saying pardons are at the discretion of the president, but she pledged to examine those on a case-by-case basis and said she had not considered whether Trump should give blanket pardons to Jan. 6 rioters.
"Will you be able to review hundreds of cases on Day One?" Schiff said. "Of course, you won't."
Bondi complained that he had talked over her answer and insisted she would have "plenty of staff" available to review the Jan. 6 cases if Trump carried through on his promise to pardon at least some of them. She brought up his June 2023 censure by House Republicans for his role in investigating the insurrection.
"You were censured by Congress for comments just like this that are so reckless," she said.
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Schiff kept pressing her on Jan. 6 cases, asking whether she would commit to preserving evidence gathered by the Department of Justice during Joe Biden's presidency that resulted in Trump's indictment — but that prosecution ended after his re-election.
"Are you ready to commit that none of the evidence in the Jan. 6 investigation will be destroyed under your watch?" Schiff asked, and Bondi insisted she would follow the law and consult with ethics officials on the matter. "Do you see any ethical basis to destroy any Jan. 6 investigation? Then why can't you answer the question? Why can't you say, 'I commit to this committee we will never destroy the evidence?' Why can you not give this committee and the American people that assurance?"
Bondi asked whether Schiff was afraid that evidence gathered against Trump was destroyed, as the president-elect has baselessly claimed, but Schiff chided her for changing the subject.
"Why do you have difficulty answering that question?" he said. "Why do you have difficulty promising to preserve evidence at the Department of Justice? Why is that a difficult question?"
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