Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed Thursday that the Justice Department will get back to its “core function” of prosecuting violent criminals — declaring that under President Trump “weaponization ends.”
“It’s the end of the weaponization of government and getting back to prosecuting violent crime and giving our great men and women the tools that they need in law enforcement,” Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity about what the DOJ’s priority will be under Trump.
“We will do everything in our power to find them and eradicate them in our country,” the newly-minted attorney general said of violent gangs, drug dealers and cartel members.
Bondi charged that the Biden administration’s DOJ focused too many resources on going after Trump, 78, at the expense of tackling crime.
“They have targeted Donald Trump from day one. We’ve known this. We’ve always known this. And that is going to stop,” Bondi said.
“We’re going to get back to the core function of what our government, our law enforcement, was intended to do – prosecute violent criminals and get them off our streets,” she added. “Weaponization ends.”
To that end, Bondi signaled that under watch, the DOJ will limit the use of special counsels.
“The special counsels from here on out in our country will be legally appointed and they won’t be done constantly like they’ve been done in the past,” she said. “And the weaponization of government will end.”
“No more special counsels out there targeting anyone.”
During the Biden administration, ex-Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel on three occasions to investigate Trump, former President Joe Biden and former first son Hunter Biden.
Garland’s appointment of former special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge last July, who threw out the case against Trump.
Bondi’s interview with Hannity was her first since taking the helm at the DOJ.
Bondi, 59, was sworn in as attorney general on Wednesday after senators confirmed her nomination the day before, with all but one Democrat — John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — voting against her.
Hours after her swearing-in ceremony, Bondi ordered the defunding of so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in deportation proceedings.
Bondi’s busy first day as attorney general also saw the Justice Department slap the state of Illinois, Cook County and the city of Chicago with a lawsuit, arguing that their state and local laws inhibit the federal government’s ability to enforce US immigration law.
The former top Florida prosecutor was also ordered by President Trump Thursday to set up a DOJ task force aimed at rooting out “anti-Christian bias” in the federal government.
Trump, 78, has argued that under former President Joe Biden the Department of Justice, FBI and IRS had all engaged in anti-Christian discrimination.
