Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth and Attorney General pick Pam Bondi will be the first two cabinet nominees of President-elect Donald Trump to sit for confirmation hearings by Senate committees next week.
Lawmakers will grill the 44-year-old Hegseth, who is expected to still have the requisite votes for confirmation, and Bondi, 59, before the Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, respectively, starting Jan. 14.
“I’m enthused with her work as Attorney General of Florida and what she’s done as a prosecutor,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told Fox Business Network Friday of Bondi. “I think we’re going to find the Justice Department prosecuting and not being used as a political weapon against political enemies.
“There’s one thing that can speed up her nomination, and that is if the transition team that we’re working with of the new Trump administration would get the background investigations and the other paper — particularly the ethics reports that we ought to have,” Grassley added.
“We don’t have any of that paper yet. I want to get it so I can schedule her hearing for the 14th.”
Hegseth’s hearing will also be held that day, an Armed Services Committee rep confirmed.
Republicans can only lose four votes from their own conference before a nomination is in peril, given their 53-47 majority in the Senate.
Hegseth is likely to be the toughest of the Trump picks to be confirmed, though sources previously told The Post that “zero” Republicans are knives out for the former Fox News personality in private — despite several expressing reservations publicly.
Trump, 78, has stood by Hegseth despite concerns about his past alleged personal and professional misconduct — including his tenure at two veterans advocacy groups where he was accused of mismanaging finances and binge drinking on the job.
Several former senior employees — including a trustee of one of the groups, Concerned Veterans for America — categorically denied the allegations, which were put forward by anonymous whistleblowers, and threw cold water on claims that Hegseth was forced out of his position due to appalling conduct.
Others who served at the front with the Army vet, who deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq have spoken highly of his character.
“He breathes the military. That’s all he talks about,” Sgt. Maj. Eric Geressy, who served alongside Hegseth in Iraq in 2005, told The Post in an interview last month. “Pete’s extremely smart. He’s very articulate, he’s a critical thinker, and he’s going to learn from the experts and get a lot of good information from folks.”
Hegseth’s lawyer has also called for the release of a file that could clear up sexual assault accusations from 2017 that have resurfaced against the defense nom, pointing to additional exonerating information held by a DA’s office in California that looked into the matter.
That file, attorney Tim Parlatore has told The Post, is believed to contain proof that the female accuser made similar allegations of sex assault against another man in a different jurisdiction that were unfounded.
Another police file of the incident already includes details contradicting Hegseth’s accuser’s account.
Bondi, who served two terms as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019, is likely a shoo-in for her position, with one GOP aide referencing her “impressive credentials” and noting she was “significantly qualified for this role.”
More than 110 former Justice Department officials who served in senior roles under Republican and Democratic presidents sent a letter Monday to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging Bondi’s swift confirmation.
The Post obtained a copy of the letter, which was first reported by Fox News.
“As a career prosecutor, Attorney General Bondi will be ready from the first day on the job to fight on behalf of the American people to reduce crime, tackle the opioid crisis, back the women and men in blue, and restore credibility to the Department of Justice,” the officials told Grassley and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in the missive.
More recently, Bondi has worked at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute in Washington, DC, and was briefly on the former president’s legal defense team for his first impeachment trial in the Senate in 2020.
On Jan. 7, the Senate will vote on a resolution authorizing various committees vetting the Trump nominations to hold hearings. The panels are usually required to give notice of a session one week in advance.
After Bondi, Grassley anticipated that FBI Director-designate Kash Patel, who has received a warm welcome from Senate Republicans, will be the next nomination to come before the Judiciary Committee.
Grassley said he looked “very favorably” on the 44-year-old FBI boss-in-waiting — and expects Patel will be confirmed following Bondi.
“I expect him to make some big changes on the eighth floor of the Hoover building here in Washington, DC,” Grassley told FBN host Larry Kudlow Friday, “and have the FBI become a law enforcement agency and not the political weapon that it’s been.”
Agriculture Secretary nominee Brooke Rollins is also readying herself for a confirmation hearing to take place Jan. 15, Politico reported Monday, adding that former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin’s nomination to helm the Environmental Protection Agency will be considered sometime next week by the Senate’s Environment and Public Works panel.
Reps for Agriculture Committee chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
