President Donald Trump hinted that Attorney General Pam Bondi will go after Democrats during a speech at her swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday.
"I know I'm supposed to say 'she's going to be totally impartial with respect to Democrats,' and I think she will be as impartial as a person can be," Trump said of Bondi, who stood behind him smiling. "I'm not sure if there's a possibility of totally."
During her Senate confirmation hearing, Bondi refused to say whether she would go after Trump’s enemies if she were to be confirmed.
“I am not going to answer hypotheticals. No one has been prejudged, nor will anyone be prejudged if I am confirmed,” she said.
Yet at her swearing in, Bondi stood by smiling and holding back laughter as Trump said that she might target Democrats—a terrible omen for what’s to come.
Prosecuting members of the opposition party is something that happens in autocratic nations—not in the United States. But Trump appears to be tossing out prosecutorial independence to make good on his threat to get revenge on anyone he feels has personally wronged him.
Pam Bondi being sworn in as President Donald Trump’s attorney general on Feb. 5, 2025.
Already, Trump is trying to purge the FBI and DOJ of anyone who worked on the investigations that led to his multiple indictments, or who helped indict and convict the hundreds of pro-Trump insurrectionists from Jan. 6, 2021.
According to the Atlantic, FBI agents are "stunned by the scale of the expected Trump purge," and they are going as far as suing the DOJ to block the purge.
Trump's threat to have Bondi investigate Democrats makes former President Joe Biden's preemptive pardons of the Congress members on the Jan. 6 committee look prescient.
In his final days in office, Biden pardoned all members of the now-defunct House Select Committee that probed the Jan. 6 insurrection, including Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who helped run Trump’s COVID-19 response; and Gen. Mark Milley, the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who called Trump a “fascist” and is being targeted by Trump.
“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong—and in fact have done the right thing—and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances,” Biden said in a statement.
Ultimately, Trump promised to be a dictator on Day 1. His actions show us that he has accomplished that goal.
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