
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, said during her confirmation hearing Wednesday that she “will follow the law” on special counsels.
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware asked Bondi directly about her position opposing the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump, and she responded, “I will follow the law.”
The issue of special counsels is one of the biggest questions hanging over the next era of the Justice Department, and Bondi’s approach could signal an openness to again using the prosecutors on politically charged grand jury probes. (She said Wednesday she would not allow investigations that target individuals for political reasons.)
Some context: Attorney General Merrick Garland – and Donald Trump’s Justice Department during his first term – repeatedly used special counsel prosecutors for politically charged investigations, including Smith, Robert Hur, David Weiss, John Durham and Robert Mueller.
But Trump has attacked those appointments in court during his personal cases.
A Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have said they disagree with these special counsel appointments, when the attorney general appoints a private lawyer to lead a special prosecutors’ office that hasn’t received explicit congressional approval. The Justice Department is still challenging in court the agency’s power to use special counsel’s offices in Florida.
Bondi’s response to Coons acknowledged the ongoing court challenge, before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, where she has signed an amicus brief opposing the Smith special counsel appointment.
Yet she also told Coons that at this time, she’d follow where the courts stand – which across the country, and especially in Washington, DC, have allowed special counsels’ criminal cases to move forward, after other judges found their appointments and their work to be sound.
The nationwide law currently is that the attorney general can bring in a private citizen to be a special counsel.
“I will follow the law, and I will consult with the appropriate ethics officials,” Bondi said Wednesday, on the power of the attorney general to appoint a special counsel.