Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Justice Department as attorney general, arrives to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)2025-01-15T14:31:15Z WASHINGTON (AP) Pam Bondi, Donald Trumps pick for attorney general, will face sharp questioning from Democratic senators at a confirmation hearing Wednesday expected to center on concerns that the Republican president-elect will look to use the Justice Departments powers to seek retribution against his adversaries.Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who was part of Trumps legal team during his first of two impeachment trials before the Senate, encounters a skeptical reception from Democrats concerned by her perceived loyalty to Trump. Republicans, by contrast, eagerly welcome her as a course correction to a Justice Department they believe has pursued an overly liberal agenda and unfairly pursued Trump through investigations and a special counsel appointment resulting in two indictments.If confirmed, I will work to restore confidence and integrity to the Department of Justice and each of its components, Bondi will say in her opening statement, according to a copy of her prepared remarks. Under my watch, the partisan weaponization of the Department of Justice will end. America must have one tier of justice for all. She did not elaborate on what she meant by one tier of justice. The Justice Department under outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland also investigated President Joe Biden over his mishandling of classified information no charges were filed and named a special counsel to investigate Bidens son Hunter, who was charged with tax and gun crimes before being pardoned in December by his father. Democrats including Sen. Richard Durbin are expected to seize on Bondis yearslong presence in Trumps orbit and her public defense of him on cable news appearances, including one on Fox News Channel last year in which she said: The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted the bad ones. ... The investigators will be investigated. Bondi has also said members of the so-called deep state were hiding in the shadows during Trumps first term but now they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated. Such comments have raised alarms that the department under Bondis watch could pursue investigations at Trumps behest. Although longstanding norms dictate that presidents have no role in individual criminal investigations, Trump was known during his first term to call for specific inquiries into adversaries and berated his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for having recused from an investigation into Russian election interference that ultimately shadowed much of his tenure.Bondi, a corporate lobbyist who spent 18 years in the Hillsborough County State Attorneys Office in Florida, was named to the attorney general role after Trumps first pick, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, withdrew from consideration amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation that ended without charges.Bondi is likely to try to keep the focus of Wednesdays hearing on her own agenda for the department. In her opening statement, she pledged to protect the First Amendment rights of free speech and religion, as well as the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and to reform the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons. If confirmed as United States Attorney General, my overriding objective would be to return the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe and vigorously enforcing the law, she will say. That requires getting back to basics prosecuting violent crime and gang activity, stopping child predators and drug traffickers, protecting our nation from terrorists and other foreign threats, and addressing the overwhelming crisis at the Border. ERIC TUCKER Tucker covers national security in Washington for The Associated Press, with a focus on the FBI and Justice Department and the special counsel cases against former President Donald Trump. twitter mailto ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Richer is an Associated Press reporter covering the Justice Department and legal issues from Washington. twitter mailto