During the second confirmation hearing for Attorney General Nominee Pamela Bondi, the former Department of Justice top official who led the phony “Russiagate” investigation of Donald Trump claimed America’s top law officers are responsible for “preventing” the agency’s “weaponization.”
Mary McCord, a former DOJ assistant attorney general, testified as a witness during Thursday’s hearing that “public respect” for the attorney general and the DOJ comes from “impartial adherence to the rule of law, free from improper political influence.”
“The Senate should ensure that the next attorney general is committed to taking the steps to earn that respect,” she said.
But McCord was the top national security official who led the DOJ’s hoax investigation of the Trump campaign for supposed “ties to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election,” as NBC reported. Under McCord’s leadership, the FBI used the fabricated Steele Dossier — paid for by Clinton’s campaign — to obtain a warrant to spy on members of Trump’s campaign team under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
According to a 2019 inspector general’s report, McCord — who has spent the last few years co-hosting an MSNBC podcast called “Prosecuting Donald Trump” — admitted she “was involved in certain aspects of the investigation,” including the first FISA application to spy on Trump adviser Carter Page in September and October 2016.
When NPR asked in 2019 how McCord defended the DOJ’s actions, she blamed “a failure of the FBI to apprise Department of Justice attorneys” of “pertinent facts and relevant facts that should have been provided.”
“The lawyers and law enforcement officials at the Department of Justice are critical to preventing the weaponization of the department and preserving impartial adherence to the rule of law,” McCord said during Thursday’s hearing.“For the attorney general, this means taking seriously their oath of office, which is to the Constitution … It means recusal if their impartiality regarding any particular investigation or case could reasonably be questioned. And it means reaffirming long-standing policies limiting contacts between the department and the White House on specific investigations and cases.”
McCord said the role of attorney general requires “not targeting people or associations for investigation or prosecution based on protected speech,” “not executing searches without a warrant,” and “not denying the equal protection of the law to all people within the United States.”
Bondi indicated during her first hearing on Wednesday that, if confirmed as attorney general, she will prosecute “every case … based on the facts and the law that is applied in good faith.”
While McCord has not publicly faced any consequences for her role in the Russiagate investigation or improper FISA surveillance of Trump’s team, she suggested there would be “no immunity for Attorney General [Nominee] Bondi if she were to engage in illegal activity or unconstitutional activity in carrying out a directive of Donald Trump.” McCord also maintained that, throughout her tenure, the Department of Justice “always … followed the facts and the law, and did not target any person for investigation based on political reasons.”
During the hearing Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., called out the DOJ’s political targeting of Donald Trump, particularly over the last four years.
“We’ve heard a lot about the newfound concern that my Democrat colleagues have about independence in the AG’s office,” Schmitt said. “Given the last four years, it is ironic.”
Schmitt went on to say he believes the reason Americans have lost “trust and faith in the Department of Justice” is because they “saw exactly what happened over the last four years, which [was] a very obvious attempt to try to jail a political opponent.”
He expressed his support for Bondi and for “what she can do [to] try and restore credibility to an agency that has been weaponized and politicized” to “get it back to its core function, which is objectively administering justice and taking on violent crime.”
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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