When U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, October 7, she behaved in a way that, according to many legal analysts on MSNBC and CNN, would have been unthinkable to those who headed the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in the past. Bondi repeatedly insulted Senate Democrats, including Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar and Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse, and recited MAGA talking points — including blaming Democratic lawmakers for the partial shutdown of the federal government.
In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark the following day, journalist Andrew Egger argues that Bondi's antics during the hearing are symptomatic of a much larger problem: President Donald Trump and his allies growing increasingly "brazen" in defying government norms.
"Not only did Bondi prove to be an unhelpful witness — answering question after question from Democratic senators with a repetition of canned non-answers or outright refusals to respond at all — she was also remarkably hostile," Egger observes. "Throughout the hearing, she toggled rapidly between high-volume outrage and sneering contempt for committee Democrats — accusing Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of having been paid off by friends of Jeffrey Epstein, speculating about whether Sen. Mazie Hirono might be Antifa. It got so bad that poor Sen. Peter Welsh tried to preempt her by saying he was ready for whatever she had on his oppo file."
Egger adds, "It would have been funny if not for the fact that this was serious business ... FBI Director Kash Patel is a twitchy little guy, but Bondi's testimony made his appearances last month before a pair of congressional committees look downright professional. By the end, I was starting to wonder if we'd all been a little too hard on (former Rep.) Matt Gaetz back when he was up for the job."
Egger describes Bondi's antics as "pure audience-of-one stuff," with the audience being Trump. But he stresses that she is hardly the only Trump ally who is behaving so "brazenly," adding that "Bondi's contemptuousness before the Senate Judiciary Committee was designed to send a clear message: You have no power to stop us."
"This is clearly the mask-off phase of Trump 2.0," Egger warns. "Trump doesn't privately call Bondi to demand his enemies be prosecuted: He communicates the message via Truth Social. He doesn't just denounce his Democratic opponents as weak on crime —he sends federal troops into their cities. He doesn't just bring the nation's generals together for a Team Trump pep rally — he uses that pep rally to preach his belief that Democratic electoral wins are illegitimate."
Egger continues, "Trump is past triangulation. He's past argumentation and persuasion. He's in the raw-power business now. Pam Bondi went to Congress yesterday to let them know."
Andrew Egger's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.