OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:18 PM – Monday, January 6, 2025
Next week, Senate committees will hold confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s first two cabinet nominees: Attorney General Pam Bondi and Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth.
Beginning on January 14th, lawmakers will question Bondi, 59, and Hegseth, 44, before the Armed Services and Judiciary Committees.
“I’m enthused with her work as Attorney General of Florida and what she’s done as a prosecutor,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in regard to Bondi. “I think we’re going to find the Justice Department prosecuting and not being used as a political weapon against political enemies.
“There’s one thing that can speed up her nomination, and that is if the transition team that we’re working with of the new Trump administration would get the background investigations and the other paper—particularly the ethics reports that we ought to have,” Grassley noted.
“We don’t have any of that paper yet. I want to get it so I can schedule her hearing for the 14th.”
According to a representative of the Armed Services Committee, Hegseth’s hearing will also take place on that day.
Due to their 53-47 Senate advantage, Republicans can only lose four votes from their own party before a nomination is in jeopardy.
In the wake of the ISIS-inspired terror incident in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, Senate leaders, including Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), have demanded that Trump’s national security picks be confirmed “as soon as possible.”
Concerns regarding Hegseth’s alleged personal and professional “misconduct,” including his time at two veterans advocacy groups where he was accused of mishandling finances and binge drinking, have not deterred Trump from standing by him.
The accusations, which were made by anonymous whistleblowers, were flatly denied by a number of former senior workers, including a trustee of Concerned Veterans for America, one of the organizations. They also rejected assertions that Hegseth was fired for heavy drinking or egregious behavior.
In requests to release exonerating evidence from a California DA’s office that investigated the case, Hegseth’s attorney has also demanded the release of a file that could resolve sexual assault claims from 2017 that have resurfaced against the defense nominee following Trump’s announced nomination.
According to his lawyer, Tim Parlatore, the file is said to include evidence that the female accuser filed false claims of sexual assault against another man in a different jurisdiction.
“He breathes the military. That’s all he talks about,” Sgt. Maj. Eric Geressy, who served alongside Hegseth in Iraq in 2005, told The Post in an interview last month. “Pete’s extremely smart. He’s very articulate, he’s a critical thinker, and he’s going to learn from the experts and get a lot of good information from folks.”
Hegseth is anticipated to have the necessary votes for confirmation, sources say, despite the mainstream media actively working to resurface old allegations against him.
Bondi, who was Florida’s attorney general for two terms from 2011 to 2019, will undoubtedly receive the appointment, since, according to one GOP official, she has “impressive credentials” and is “significantly qualified for this role.”
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, more than 110 former Justice Department officials who held high positions under both Republican and Democratic presidents urged for Bondi’s prompt confirmation.
“As a career prosecutor, Attorney General Bondi will be ready from the first day on the job to fight on behalf of the American people to reduce crime, tackle the opioid crisis, back the women and men in blue, and restore credibility to the Department of Justice,” these officials told Grassley and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
In 2020, Bondi briefly served on the former president’s legal defense team during his first impeachment trial in the Senate. More recently, Bondi has been employed at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
The Senate will vote on a resolution allowing hearings by several committees reviewing the Trump nominees on January 7th. A week’s notice of a session is typically required of the panels.
Meanwhile, FBI Director-designate Kash Patel, who has been embraced by Senate Republicans and has vowed to clean up the Justice Department, is expected to be the next nominee to appear before the Judiciary Committee after Bondi, according to Grassley.
According to Grassley, he had a “very favorable” impression of the 44-year-old FBI director-nominee, and he anticipates Patel’s confirmation after Bondi.
“I expect him to make some big changes on the eighth floor of the Hoover building here in Washington, DC,” Grassley said on Friday, “and have the FBI become a law enforcement agency and not the political weapon that it’s been.”
Brooke Rollins, Trump’s nominee for Agriculture secretary, is also preparing for a confirmation hearing scheduled for January 15th, according to Politico. The Senate’s Environment and Public Works panel will consider former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin’s nomination to lead the Environmental Protection Agency sometime next week as well.
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