Oppose the Nomination of the Honorable Pamela Jo Bondi to be Attorney General of the United States
Defend The Vote joined The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and a coalition of 90 organiations in a letter to the Senate in opposition to Pam Bondi’s nomination to Attorney General.
Dear Senator:
On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights coalition with a diverse membership of more than 240 national organizations working to build an America as good as its ideals, and the undersigned 91 organizations, we write to express strong opposition to the nomination of the Honorable Pamela Jo Bondi to serve as the next attorney general of the United States.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was created more than 150 years ago in part to enforce the Reconstruction Amendments aimed at abolishing slavery, ensuring equal protection under the law, and securing voting rights for Black Americans. Today, the department continues its historic role as the nation’s signature agency for the enforcement of our federal civil rights laws and for upholding the principles of equality and justice that are foundational to American democracy. This enduring mission of the DOJ requires that anyone who leads the department have demonstrated their commitment to defending the civil and human rights of all people and to ensuring the DOJ is fair and independent. In our democracy, the attorney general is the people’s lawyer, not the president’s lawyer, and has a sacred duty to enforce our nation’s laws without prejudice and with an eye toward justice. She must be seen by the public — every member of the public, from every community — as fair and independent.
This is particularly important given the known threats to our multiracial democracy and our civil rights proposed in Project 2025, the America First Policy Institute’s “America First Agenda,” and the president’s previous term in office and past statements. Unfortunately, after a careful review of Ms. Bondi’s record, and after hearing her responses to questions before the Senate Judiciary Committee, we have concluded that she will not vigorously enforce our country’s civil rights laws as they were intended and that she will not uphold the agency’s longstanding independence from undue political influences.
To start, Ms. Bondi’s active participation in and support of President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election ought to be disqualifying. Her record and her responses in the hearing reflect many positions that render her unfit for this role, including her inability to be independent and her troubling record on voting rights, LGBTQ rights, access to health care, the census, environmental justice, and immigration.
Lack of Independence & Politicization of the Justice Department
Our next attorney general must serve all of us, not the whims of one person. Ms. Bondi’s history of unflinching loyalty to Trump suggests she possesses neither the independence nor the integrity to serve as attorney general. For example, her vigorous defense of Trump during his first impeachment,[1] her support of his false election fraud claims,[2] and her accusations that those prosecuting Trump are “weaponizing the legal system”[3] render her unable to lead the department, which relies on adherence to the rule of law above all else.
In addition, Ms. Bondi is the principal legal advisor for AFPI, which states in its “America First Agenda” that “[a]gencies should be free to remove employees for any nondiscriminatory reason, with no external appeals.”[4] This position would go even further than Project 2025’s egregious proposal by eliminating civil service protections for nearly all federal workers and forcing them to serve the president’s political aims instead of the public interest. Given Ms. Bondi’s longtime fidelity to Trump and her work to further his political agenda through her work at AFPI, there is significant cause for concern that if she is confirmed to this position, the DOJ would terminate career lawyers just for disagreeing with the Trump administration’s policies.
Voting Rights
Efforts to Overturn the 2020 Election: Ms. Bondi’s shameful actions and statements following the 2020 election ought to, on their own, disqualify her from serving as attorney general of the United States. As a chief lawyer for Trump in the 2020 election, Ms. Bondi fueled unfounded and dangerous lies about voting conspiracies and election fraud. On the day after Election Day, she appeared at a Trump campaign press conference[5] with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and falsely claimed that Trump had won Pennsylvania, despite the fact that nearly 1 million absentee ballots had yet to be counted.[6] She challenged these valid absentee ballots in Pennsylvania, calling them “fake.”[7] Claiming that dead people had received ballots, Ms. Bondi appeared on Fox News the next day, stating that “We do have evidence of cheating” and “we are not going anywhere until they declare we won Pennsylvania.”[8] In fact, Trump lost Pennsylvania in 2020, and Ms. Bondi’s false allegations of voter fraud were resoundingly rejected by both the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.[9]
During the hearing, Senator Padilla asked Ms. Bondi: “Do you have any evidence of election fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election?”[10] After he repeatedly asked, yes or no, whether she had evidence, she refused to answer.[11] When asked whether she would retract her previous statements about Trump winning Pennsylvania in 2020, she again would not answer, only offering to share what she claims she saw in Pennsylvania.[12] As Senator Padilla importantly noted, “Your job will be to protect voters and election workers, not to undermine and dox them.”[13] It is deeply troubling that on multiple occasions her remarks harkened back to her role as a chief lawyer for Trump in the 2020 election, when Ms. Bondi fueled the big lie and attempted to undermine our democracy. It is noteworthy that Ms. Bondi immediately descended on Philadelphia the day after the election, as it was one of several cities with large Black populations — in addition to Atlanta, Detroit, and Milwaukee — where Trump and his lawyers focused their attempts to disenfranchise Black voters.[14]
Indeed, during the hearing, Ranking Member Durbin asked Ms. Bondi whether Trump lost the 2020 election, and Ms. Bondi would only say that “President Biden is the president of the United States” and that Trump was “overwhelmingly elected in 2024.”[15] Senator Hirono followed up on this question, and Ms. Bondi once again would not answer, simply saying that “Joe Biden is the president of the United States.”[16] As Senator Hirono said of Trump’s election loss, “it’s disturbing that you can’t give voice to that fact.”[17] Underscoring these concerns, Ms. Bondi also falsely claimed there was a “peaceful transition of power” in 2020.[18] An attorney general nominee who considers armed violence against Congress and the disruption of our democracy as “peaceful” has no place at the DOJ.
It is disqualifying that Ms. Bondi actively participated in and supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Her actions raise serious doubts about her devotion to the rule of law, her professional legal judgment, and her ability to run a law enforcement agency without undue influence from Trump. Notably, several other lawyers associated with this effort have been disciplined and even disbarred for their actions.[19]
Anti-Voting Rights Litigation at the America First Policy Institute: Since 2021, Ms. Bondi has chaired the Center for Litigation at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), and she serves as co-chair of AFPI’s Center for Law and Justice. Under her leadership, AFPI has filed a number of lawsuits that would disenfranchise a significant number of voters. For example, in 2024, AFPI sought to grant a local Georgia election board official the authority to unilaterally delay or deny the certification of elections.[20] A Republican-appointed state court judge denied AFPI’s claim, stating that “Election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results” and concluding that “[i]f election superintendents were, as plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so — because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud — refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced.”[21] Because 60 percent of Fulton County residents are people of color, Ms. Bondi’s argument would have disenfranchised huge numbers of voters of color.
In 2024, AFPI filed a lawsuit seeking to block President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 14019, which promoted a whole of government approach to integrating non-partisan voter registration activities throughout agency programs, consistent with the bipartisan National Voter Registration Act of 1993.[22] In this lawsuit, AFPI falsely claimed that, among other things, the EO was “structured to increase voting in 2024 by noncitizens, likely including a significant number of illegal aliens.”[23] Trump-appointed Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk denied AFPI’s motion for a temporary restraining order on the ground that the AFPI had no standing and had provided no direct evidence to support its claims.[24]
Voter Disenfranchisement: Ms. Bondi’s troubling record on voting rights extends to her tenure as Florida’s attorney general. She sat on the state Clemency Board, which is responsible for reinstating the civil rights of those with a felony conviction, among other things. In 2011, she voted to change the state clemency laws to make it more difficult for people who had completed criminal sentences to have their voting rights reinstated, rolling back years of bipartisan reform.[25] These changes included a requirement to petition the board for reinstatement and imposed a minimum five-year waiting period before their applications were considered.[26] At the time she wrote: “I fundamentally and philosophically oppose the concept of the automatic restoration of civil rights.”[27] When a federal court held this process unconstitutional in 2018, Ms. Bondi appealed the order[28] and secured a reversal.[29]
In 2025, as the nation prepares to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the landmark Voting Rights Act that the DOJ is charged with enforcing, it is unacceptable that the department could be led by someone with such a disturbing record on the right to vote — the right that so many brave Americans throughout our country’s history risked their lives, and died, to secure.
Read the full letter here
