Bondi set to give testimony to Congress at first hearing since Comey indictment

Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to testify before Congress Tuesday amid mounting concerns that the Justice Department under her leadership is being weaponized to go after President Trump’s perceived enemies.

Bondi’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee comes less than two weeks after the department secured an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey following public demands from the president to do so.

Comey, who faces one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice stemming from congressional testimony in 2020, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Va.

The Comey indictment — and the machinations that led to it — are the latest, and arguably most concerning, example of what many legal observers point to as the politicization and weaponization of the department under Bondi.

Since she took the helm in February, the department has been in almost constant turmoil. Bondi and her top lieutenants have fired prosecutors who worked Capitol riot cases or investigated Trump and pushed out senior officials at the FBI.

Bondi is set to testify at 9 a.m. ET. Watch it live:

The Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes public corruption, has been almost entirely emptied out, while more than 70 percent of the attorneys in the Civil Rights Division have departed as well.

At her confirmation hearing, Bondi echoed Trump’s assertions that the Justice Department under President Biden was weaponized against Trump and conservatives more broadly.

She vowed that would change under her leadership.

“The partisanship, the weaponization will be gone,” she told lawmakers. “America will have one tier of justice for all.”

In an appearance on Fox News after Comey was indicted, she told Sean Hannity, “the weaponization has ended.”

“We’ve made that very clear,” she said. “Whether you’re a former FBI director, whether you’re the head of a former intel community, whether you are a current state or local elected official, whether you’re a billionaire funding organizations to try to keep Donald Trump out of office, everything is on the table. We will investigate you and we will end the weaponization. No longer will there be a two-tier system of justice.”

Traditionally, the Justice Department enjoys a degree of independence from the White House, particularly in investigations and prosecutions to insulate them from partisan politics.

But critics say that firewall has been bulldozed since Trump returned to office and put Bondi and other loyalists in top DOJ jobs. Last month, Trump openly directed Bondi to go after his perceived political adversaries, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, a Senate Judiciary Committee member, and Comey.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump said in a social media post addressed to Bondi. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Shortly before that post, the president pushed out the top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, a career prosecutor Trump tapped for the role earlier this year. Siebert’s office was leading investigations into both James and Comey, and Siebert had had expressed concerns about the strength of the evidence in both cases.

Trump then installed Lindsey Halligan, a former insurance attorney and White House aide with no prosecutorial experience, as U.S. attorney to replace Siebert. She sought and secured an indictment against Comey, overruling career prosecutors who questioned the strength of the case.

After Comey was charged, Bondi posted on social media: “No one is above the law. Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case.”

Since his indictment, several career prosecutors in that U.S. attorney’s office have been fired.

A letter signed by nearly 300 former career DOJ employees and released on the eve of Bondi’s hearing says the department is failing to uphold the rule of law, keep the country safe and protect civil rights.

“The administration is taking a sledgehammer to other longstanding work the Department has done to protect communities and the rule of law, too,” the letter says. “We call on these leaders to reverse course — to remember the oath we all took to uphold the Constitution — and adhere to the legal guardrails and institutional norms on which our justice system relies.”

The letter was released by Justice Connection, a group that supports DOJ employees.

DOJ has not responded to NPR’s request for comment on the letter.