During the senate confirmation hearing of Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general who replaced earlier nomination Matt Gatez, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) asked Pam Bondi if she would endorse an enemies list. Without naming Kash Patel, Whitehouse asked whether she would have hired someone who she knew had an enemies list.
“Senator, to cut to the chase, you are clearly talking about Kash Patel. I don’t believe he has an enemies list. He made a quote on TV which I have not heard…But I know Kash Patel has had 60 jury trials as a public defender, and as a prosecutor. He has great experience in the intel department, department of defence,” Pam Bondi said.
When asked if she would ever enforce an enemies list, Bondi said there will never be an ‘enemies list’ within the DOJ.
“Under what circumstances will you prosecute journalists for what they write?” Whitehouse said. “Only if anyone commits a crime,” Pam Bondi said.
In his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Kash Patel, the FBI chief pick for Donald Trump administration, laid out his case against what he refers to as “the deep state” — an amorphous term he says includes elected leaders, journalists, Big Tech tycoons and “members of the unelected bureaucracy” — calling for “a comprehensive housecleaning” of the Justice Department, which he claims has protected high-ranking members of the Democratic Party while unjustly targeting Republicans and their allies.
Trump has praised the book as a “blueprint to take back the White House and remove these Gangsters from all of Government,” according to promotional endorsements.
The list of 60 members includes Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Obama’s chief of staff John Podesta, former attorney general Bill Barr etc.
