What Pam Bondi, Trump’s new pick, said about the DOJ prosecutors’ investigation

President-elect Donald Trump wasted little time selecting another candidate for attorney general after Matt Gaetz dropped his bid amid sexual misconduct allegations.

Pam Bondi, Florida’s attorney general for eight years, was part of Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial and supported his false claims of fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. She has remained in Trump’s orbit since then, continuing to advise him on legal matters.

Despite the shake-up, Bondi appears easily positioned to take up the mantle of Trump’s goal of overhauling the Justice Department and his pledge to retaliate against political opponents.

“For too long, the Partisan Department of Justice has been armed against me and other Republicans — No more,” Trump wrote in his official announcement about Bondi for the attorney general. “Pam will refocus DOJ on its goal of fighting crime and making America safe again.”

In August 2023, during an appearance on Fox News, Bondi criticized the criminal charges against Trump and what Fox host Sean Hannity described as a “two-tier justice system”.

“When the Republicans take over the White House and we’re back there in 18 months or less, you know what’s going to happen? The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted — the bad guys — the investigators will be investigated,” she said.

“Because of the deep state of the past term for President Trump, they’ve been hiding in the shadows,” Bondi continued. “But now they have the spotlight on them and they can all be investigated … We can clean house next term and that has to happen.”

She also suggested that action could be taken against President Joe Biden Republican accusations that Biden was personally involved in and benefited from his family’s overseas businesses, which have yet to be supported by direct evidence.

“When we have a new administration, absolutely, Sean. We have to,” Bondi said at the time.

The comments echo Trump’s oaths on the campaign trail to go after his alleged political enemies, intelligence officers, prosecutors and more.

In 2016, Trump led “shutdown” chants against Hillary Clinton, even though he didn’t go after her legally once in office. Bondi, at the 2016 convention, when the crowd chanted “Shut it down,” replied: “‘Shut it down,’ I like that.”

Bondi was also a supporter of Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, helping file several unsuccessful voter fraud lawsuits.

She appeared next door Rudy Giuliani in Philadelphia, the day after the 2020 race, in which Trump declared he “won Pennsylvania” while votes were still being counted. The state voted for President Biden by about 80,000 votes.

Critics say the comments raise questions about whether she can be trusted to enforce the law.

“As AG, would she drop cases against violent insurgents? Still pushing the Big Lie under oath?” Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat who will join the Senate next year, wrote on X. “She will have to answer those questions and more during her confirmation hearings.”

ABC News’ Soorin Kim and Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.