In my blog post last Friday, I promised a near future post about U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

If you saw her performance last Wednesday in front of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, you probably do not want to be reminded of it. I saw all of it that was televised, and I wish I could unsee and unhear it.

The audacity of Pam Bondi to prance into The Capitol and call members of Congress names! It was a circus but not an entertaining one. It was an embarrassment. Her body language alone was abhorrent, not to mention her trash mouth.

It was a performance meant for one person only: Donald Trump. I am sure he thought it was a brilliant display. Even when she was reminded that it is her job and sworn duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution and to represent the United States of America (i.e., the people!) in all her dealings as U.S. Attorney General, she continued to call members of Congress derogatory names and refuse to look the Democrats on the committee in the eyes.

The hearing was supposed to be for Bondi to give U.S. Representatives some answers about the Epstein files and the recent and current operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Instead, it was half pep rally for Trump and half demonstration of how sarcastic and snarky the current U.S. Attorney General can be when facing legitimate questions that make her squirm.

In case you missed the performance, when being asked questions by Republicans on the committee, Bondi smiled and gushed. She thanked them profusely for “asking that question.” When asked “a yes or no” question, she replied accordingly.

When asked questions by a Democrat on the committee, Bondi made a great show of shuffling the papers in front of her and looking down. She was suddenly busy, busy, busy. Instead of answering “yes or no” questions by Democrats, she deflected – usually by turning to that Congress member’s section in her three-ring binder so she could attack that Representative personally with a reference (true or not) to a vote that Representative made sometime in their career along with her editorial comments (true or false).

She repeatedly said, “Mr. Chairman, I refuse to get down in the gutter with these people.” She called one of them “a washed-up lawyer.” She hurled various insults at most of the Democrats. The fact that she had that three-ring binder at her fingertips was visible evidence of her disdain for every Democrat Congress member. She used the same binder when testifying before a U.S. Senate Committee.

She accused one member of the committee of being antisemitic, even though that member’s grandfather died in the Holocaust.

Even the BBC questioned why Bondi lost her temper in the hearing.

Early in the hearing, survivors of the sexual abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and his rich and political friends in high places were asked to stand where they were seated in the audience. Bondi never acknowledged their presence. Even when asked by at least one member of the committee to turn around and look at the survivors and family members of at least one victim who is now deceased, Bondi would not do it. She is apparently incapable of looking truth in the face.

Bondi cares not that she is now the U.S. Attorney General because she was confirmed for that position by the Congress of the United States. She has a particularly peculiar way of showing her appreciation for the misguided confidence they put in her after her shaky confirmation hearings last year in which she said she would not “weaponize” the U.S. Department of Justice. Yet, that is all she has done since assuming office. I have heard people who knew and respected her as the State Attorney General in Florida say they no longer recognize her as the person they used to know.

Her behavior was bizarre, to say the least. When asked a question about the Epstein files, she “answered” by touting the fact that the stock market reached and broke the 50,000 mark the day before, then bristled when a Democrat on the committee asked, “What does that have to do with the Epstein files?”

It was horrible to see and hear a U.S. Attorney General stoop to such childish and insulting behavior. Such behavior as demonstrated by Bondi would not be tolerated in a court of law, and it should not have been tolerated in the U.S. Capitol. She should have been held in contempt of Congress, but she wasn’t because the committee is chaired by a Republican – a very self-righteous Republican who does not have enough respect for the institution or his position in Congress to even wear a suit.

In “answering” one question, she waxed poetic about what a wonderful U.S. President Donald J. Trump is. It was gag-worthy and inappropriate.

The U.S. Attorney General is not supposed to be beholding to the U.S. President.

The person in that position is not supposed to be political.

The person in that position is not supposed to be a cheerleader or public relations representative for the U.S. President.

The U.S. Attorney General is not supposed to do the President’s bidding.

In just one year, Bondi has broken every time-honored rule – written and unwritten — governing her position.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.