January 16, 2025

Lisa Gilbert Testifies Pam Bondi Is Unfit, Unqualified, and Inappropriate

Testimony highlights the dangerous politicization of the Department of Justice and Bondi’s record as a corporate marionette

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, co-president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Not Above the Law coalition Lisa Gilbert testified as a witness at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Pam Bondi to be Attorney General of the United States.

Gilbert’s testimony focused on Bondi’s decades of lobbying for big corporations and foreign governments, the threat Bondi poses to the Justice Department’s integrity, and the evidence suggesting she will use her role as attorney general to advance the interests of the ultra-wealthy, not the American people.

“If Pam Bondi’s nomination as Attorney General proceeds, we fear she will instead be a driven loyalist to Donald Trump and take actions that reflect the needs of the entities she so recently represented,” Lisa Gilbert said during her testimony before Congress. “The Senate should refuse to confirm Pam Bondi to be attorney general of the United States.”

Tweet with clip of testimony

Last week, Public Citizen released a report, “Conflicted Justice,” digging into Bondi’s lobbying work on behalf of 30 clients—from large corporations and government contractors to a foreign government—and the conflicts of interest those clients would pose if she were confirmed. Bondi is also included in Public Citizen’s “Trump Appointees Corporate Conflicts of Interest” tracker, which lists out the business ties, personal financial interests, and former lobbying clients of many of Trump’s hand-picked nominees.

Gilbert is available for interviews following her testimony to provide further insight into Bondi’s long history of putting corporations and the wealthy ahead of the people she serves. Contact eleach@citizen.org to schedule time to chat with her.

Some excerpts of Lisa Gilbert’s testimony about the Pam Bondi’s threat to the Department of Justice and the rule of law:

• “The attorney general must be seen by the public as a fair arbiter of our legal system, whose sole duty is to serve them. Unfortunately, the attorneys general who served under President Trump in his first term failed to live up to this high standard. From their validation of President Trump’s subversion of voting rights and our democracy, to their inhumane separation of immigrant families at the border, to their abuses of our criminal justice system, they all too often served as Trump loyalists rather than independent law enforcement officials; and Pam Bondi is cut from this same cloth.

• “The attorney general oversees enforcement of our nation’s voting rights laws, among many other duties. Bondi’s record of making false claims of voter fraud and working to limit voter access is more than sufficient reason to reject her nomination.

• “We should expect an Attorney General Bondi to serve as a Trump loyalist at the expense of the Department’s independence and integrity. Bondi helped defend Trump during the first impeachment trial and has numerous troubling conflicts of interest from her time as a lobbyist.”

• “Bondi’s broad representation of, and lobby registration for, corporate interests is much more than a list of specific potential conflicts, but instead reflects an overall sense of priorities that cannot be cured by recusals. It constitutes a net of potential conflicts from which there is no realistic escape. A well-functioning Justice Department should be tough on corporate crime and work to improve the lives of our communities. This level of corporate entanglement speaks to exactly the wrong incentives.”

• “This nation needs a Justice Department that will do everything in its power to crack down on corporate crime and fight for voting rights, criminal justice, LBGTQ equality, disability rights, environmental justice, reproductive freedom, the rights of working people, and other pressing civil and human rights issues. The ability of the Attorney General to represent the interests of the American public must not be compromised. We depend on the DOJ to vigorously enforce our laws, hold corporate wrongdoers accountable, and protect the rule of law.”