Just weeks weeks after Sen. Adam Schiff was called a “buffoon” and a “fraud” by FBI Director Kash Patel during a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, the California Democrat was similarly pilloried Tuesday by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
A heated exchange between the California Democrat and the nation’s top prosecutor encapsulates the seething tensions between the lawmaker and the Trump administration years after Schiff, as a member of the House, managed Trump’s first impeachment trial.
The DOJ is now actively investigating Schiff for mortgage fraud — allegations Schiff has vehemently denied.
“As a former federal prosecutor myself, I served in a [Justice] Department that — whether it was under a Democratic or Republican President — would never use the office to go after the president’s enemies or to hide the corruption of his friends,” Schiff said during the Senate Judiciary hearing where Bondi was testifying Tuesday. “The Department has become President Trump’s personal sword and shield to go after his ever growing list of political enemies and to protect himself, his allies, and associates.”
“If you worked for me, you would’ve been fired because you were censured by Congress for lying,” Bondi told him.
And, in response to Schiff’s questions about whether the Justice Department dropped a bribery investigation into border czar Tom Homan following Trump’s 2025 inauguration, Bondi asked Schiff, “will you apologize to Donald Trump for trying to impeach him?”
Her broadsides against Schiff were notable given the senator is the current subject of a DOJ investigation, but Bondi had barbs for multiple Judiciary Committee Democrats over the course of Tuesday’s nearly five hour-long oversight hearing.
At one point, Bondi accused Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) of misrepresenting his military record; at another moment, she suggested that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) had ties to “dark money” groups and supported legislation that would “subsidize [his] wife’s company.” Neither Blumenthal nor Whitehouse responded directly to the attacks.
She also told Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) she wished they loved their home towns “as much as you hate Donald Trump,” referring to their opposition to National Guard deployment in their respective states.
