Pam Bondi, the attorney general of Florida, and the prosecutor he hired in his first term as president-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general

A former two-term attorney general for the state of Florida, Bondi is expected to receive broad support from Republicans, who hold the Senate majority, but face sharp questions from Democrats who have concerns about whether she will protect the Justice Department from undue political influence or use its vast powers to go after Trump’s perceived political enemies.

The attorney general of Florida solicited and accepted a donation from the Donald Trump Foundation but did not open an investigation of his real estate seminar business.

Todd Blanche, an attorney who has represented Trump both in state and federal court, and one of his top deputy attorneys, is also a member of the incoming administration, as is another attorney, like Dean John Sauer, who worked for the Supreme Court.

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, appears before the Senate on Wednesday for her confirmation hearing to serve as the nation’s top prosecutor.

“The president-elect has made it clear that he values one thing above all else in an attorney general: loyalty,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, earlier this week. “I have no reason to believe President-elect Trump has changed his litmus test for attorney general or his views on how the Justice Department should operate. In fact, I fear he found someone who can pass his loyalty test.”

Those sorts of comments have made some Democrats worry that the department will use its prosecutorial powers to pursue Trump’s stated desire for vengeance.

“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted. The bad ones,” she said on Fox News in 2023. The deep state, last term for president Trump, they were hiding in the shadows and now they have a spotlight on them, so they can all be investigated.

Even though he has claimed that he was weaponized against him, and even though he talked about wanting vengeance against his political enemies, Trump also talked about seeking vengeance at the Justice Department.

The four criminal prosecutions that Trump faced after leaving office dealt with his handling of classified material and his efforts to overturn the election.

Much of Trump’s first presidency took place in the shadow of Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

You might know her from: She served as Florida’s attorney general for eight years, and later served as a personal attorney for President Trump during his first impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.

Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration due to the allegations of sexual mismanagement and illegal drug use. Gaetz has consistently denied those allegations. Nevertheless, Republicans, who showed little enthusiasm for Gaetz, warmly welcomed Bondi after Trump named her for the job.

The Attorney General’s Role in the Justice Department and Its Component Agencies (with an Appendix by J’era Pedreza)

What does this role do? The attorney general leads the Justice Department and oversees the more than 100,000 people who work for it and its component agencies, including the FBI.