Congress

It was Pam Bondi’s hearing. Kash Patel was in the hot seat.

Published

1 year ago

January 15, 2025

If you closed your eyes, you might’ve thought Kash Patel was in the witness chair.

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats spent Wednesday pummeling President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to become FBI director at a confirmation hearing for his prospective boss: attorney general nominee Pam Bondi.

Ranking member Dick Durbin of Illinois raised Patel’s commentary about QAnon conspiracy theories. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota worried about Patel’s comments about targeting the media. Several Democratic senators expressed concern about his purported “enemies list” of people he believes should be investigated or prosecuted.

It all amounted to signs that Democrats view Patel — a polarizing MAGA loyalist who served in Trump’s first administration— as an easier target than Bondi, who seems to be on a glide path to confirmation.

Democrats have widely conceded they will save their energy fighting other of Trump’s more controversial nominees than they will Bondi, who they appear to consider qualified as a former Florida attorney general. Some Democrats even thanked the nominee for productive conversations about bipartisan issues, such as combating fentanyl addiction and human trafficking.

“If they’re asking about Kash Patel, it must be going pretty well,” quipped Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The fixation on Patel by Democrats became clear early in Bondi’s confirmation hearing and remained consistent throughout her nearly 6 hours in front of the Judiciary Committee.

“My concern, on the basis of statements that President-elect Trump has made, is that he does identify people as political enemies … and there may come a day where there is pressure on you,” said Vermont Sen. Peter Welch. “I’m just going to express my hope that … when it comes to the constitution or pressure from a higher official, you’re going to choose the constitution.”

Bondi gave a full-throated endorsement of Patel, arguing he was the “right person” for the job and well-qualified. She also declined to defend or criticize his past statements, saying she was unfamiliar with them and would let him speak to them at his own confirmation hearing.

“I don’t believe he has an enemies list. He made a quote on TV that I have not heard,” Bondi said, deftly avoiding discussion of a book Patel wrote containing a long list of “Government Gangsters.”

At times, Bondi sought to remind the committee, gingerly, that she would be Patel’s superior. “Mr. Patel would fall under me and the Department of Justice and I will ensure that all laws are followed — and so will he.”

When Durbin raised Patel’s agreement with aspects of QAnon’s agenda, Bondi seemed to express relief that he would soon be in the hot seat instead of her.

“I look forward to hearing his testimony about QAnon in front of this committee,” Bondi said.

Bondi, a friend and ally of Trump for years, served as Trump’s lawyer during his first impeachment trial and assisted Rudy Guiliani in efforts to block Joe Biden’s Pennsylvania win in the 2020 election. Democratic Senators pressed Bondi on whether she believed Biden won that election, a question she repeatedly sidestepped. Bondi also declined to answer whether she would prosecute Jack Smith, the special prosecutor overseeing investigations into Trump, though she repeatedly emphasized she would be guided by facts, not politics.

In her remarks, Bondi vowed the Department of Justice would not pursue political investigations, despite Trump’s repeated calls for some of his staunchest adversaries to face prosecution.

“The partisanship, the weaponization will be gone,” Bondi said. “America must have one tier of justice for all.”

At the same time, Bondi tangled with some of Trump’s harshest critics on the committee. Her combativeness sometimes crossed lines that pending nominees rarely cross, such as when she mentioned California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff’s censure by the House for his handling of Trump-related investigations.

Schiff, a longtime representative, was elected to the Senate last year and is now serving on the Judiciary Committee.

When Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse went over his allotted time, Bondi joked that she’d like that time taken away from one of her toughest interlocutors. “Can we take a minute off Sen. Schiff?” she asked, puzzling Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, the Senate Judiciary Chair, who didn’t immediately pick up on the joke.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Bondi seemed to be trying to avoid saying anything that would provoke Trump, which sometimes complicated her ability to answer simple questions.

“She very artfully dodged questions about whether Pres. Trump lost the 2020 election, which clearly is designed for an audience of one–that’s Donald Trump,” Blumenthal told reporters toward the end of Wednesday’s hearing. “He knows she’s here. She knows he’s watching. And I think that audience is clearly a presence in the room.”

Congress

Senate Republicans want a say on Trump’s Iran deal

Published

11 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is touting a deal that would end the monthslong war with Iran — and potentially ease some of the political headwinds bearing down on Republicans.

GOP lawmakers still have lots of questions.

The absence of publicly released text for the “memorandum of understanding” Vice President JD Vance reportedly signed with Iranian officials Sunday left an information vacuum on Capitol Hill, where senators of both parties were left airing concerns about what the deal might entail.

Even most Republicans agreed: More information needs to come to Congress soon, and any agreement touching on the future of the Iranian nuclear program would have to eventually be subject to a congressional vote.

“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”

The bipartisan scrutiny of the long-brewing agreement is a legacy of the last Iran nuclear deal, consummated more than a decade ago by then-President Barack Obama amid a bipartisan uproar over trading sanctions relief and cash concessions to the Iranian regime in return for curbs on its nuclear ambitions.

Trump withdrew from the deal in his first term, and now he is back with an agreement that — pending release of the text and final negotiations yet to come — could end up looking like Obama’s deal. That has raised the hackles of both defense hawks who despised the original agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and Democrats who believe Trump never should have left it in the first place.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of those defense hawks, told reporters that he was “pulling for a deal,” while also making note of serious discrepancies in the terms that have emerged thus far.

“The MOU being described by us sounds really very good; the MOU being described by Iran sounds awful,” Graham said.

“If they can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA. If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal,” he continued, adding in a separate conversation that he was “skeptical that Iran will ever go there” to cease enrichment.

The Trump administration said it expects release of the memorandum of understanding no later than Friday.

The possibility that Congress would take any kind of vote on the agreement is also a legacy of the 2015 deal. Amid bipartisan concern about the Obama administration’s pursuit of nuclear talks, the GOP-controlled House and Senate that year passed legislation allowing for congressional review of any agreement dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.

That law, however, does not require Congress to approve a deal — it rather gives it the ability to kill a deal via a disapproval resolution that could be subject to presidential veto. That means each chamber would have to effectively muster a two-thirds majority to block Trump, something it did not come close to doing in 2015.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is “probably some expectation” that his chamber would ultimately vote on the agreement while declining to weigh in on the particulars.

“I just don’t know enough about it yet, and I don’t think even the people who follow this stuff closely up here know that much about it,” he said, adding that he expected Vance or other administration officials to brief members on the deal at some point.

The lack of specificity was par for the course on Capitol Hill Monday, with many senators expressing exasperation that text of the signed agreement has not yet been released.

“If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters.

The agreement reportedly includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, but it’s not clear to what degree Iran will be required to abandon its nuclear program. Vance indicated in a series of interviews that the administration will attempt to ensure Iran does not develop or obtain a nuclear weapon but left details regarding civilian nuclear facilities and potential uranium enrichment unaddressed.

The White House circulated talking points to Hill Republicans Monday touting the deal including that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” and “energy prices … are coming down,” according to a copy of the document reviewed by Blue Light News. The administration also argued in the memo that the agreement “beats” the Obama-era agreement.

In the absence of further details, senators mainly agreed that they wanted a chance to formally review and vote on the deal — even as some Republicans predicted the administration would find a way to avoid that happening.

“I don’t expect that to happen,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said about a vote. “They’ll try to write it around the treaty requirements, so I don’t expect we’ll vote on it.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said the administration should send the deal to Congress “if they want it to be something other than a political agreement, like the JCPOA was.”

Most congressional Republicans have been eager for Trump to find a way out of the nearly four-month war, which has driven up energy prices ahead of the November elections. Thune predicted Monday that a deal would “have a very positive impact on the economic situation in the country and that obviously will translate into the political situation in the country.”

Some of Trump’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill praised the agreement Monday.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said has had conversations with senior White House officials and he was “very hopeful.” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who is likely the next Senate GOP campaign chair, added on X: “President Trump deserves our trust and support as he works to bring peace to the Middle East.”

Democrats were largely keeping their powder dry Monday on how they would handle a vote on the agreement. Some could find it hard to oppose a deal that ends hostilities on negotiated terms roughly similar to what was secured under a Democratic president in 2015.

But plenty of Democrats questioned what was gained by the conflict.

“We still don’t know the details,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “The American people need to know exactly what’s in the deal. … We know this for certain: We are worse off than before Trump began his foolish war of choice.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Thune is ‘hopeful’ Mitch McConnell will return this week

Published

15 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he hopes his predecessor as top Republican, Mitch McConnell, returns this week from a hospitalization.

Thune said he had not yet spoken directly with the 84-year-old Kentuckian but is getting “readouts from his staff.”

Asked about McConnell’s condition or if he knew if he would be back this week, Thune told reporters, “I’m hopeful that he’ll be back this week.”

A McConnell spokesperson said Sunday that he had been admitted to the hospital but did not provide details on his condition or why he was hospitalized — a break from recent prior instances where the seven-term senator was hospitalized.

A former McConnell staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity was told the senator was doing much better Monday without any further details on what put him in the hospital.

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate to confirm Jay Clayton as soon as Thursday

Published

18 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate could vote as soon as Thursday on Jay Clayton’s nomination to serve as director of national intelligence — a lightning speed pace that will necessitate buy-in from all 100 senators.

Confirming Clayton could help shore up enough votes from Democrats to extend a government surveillance program that expired last Friday over opposition to Trump’s pick for acting director, Bill Pulte.

“He will come out of the committee Thursday, at least hopefully, and then if we get consent, we can move,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Monday about Clayton, who Trump only nominated for the job late last week.

Democrats “ought to be happy with Clayton,” said Thune, adding that he’s a “good” and “solid” pick.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, floated Sunday to CBS News that Clayton could be confirmed this week if every senator cooperates.

Senate Intelligence will hold a hearing Wednesday on Clayton’s nomination. If every member of the panel agrees, he could then get a committee vote Thursday. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member will punt Clayton’s confirmation to next week.

Confirming Clayton Thursday would, crucially, limit — and potentially circumvent — Pulte from becoming acting director of national intelligence, which Trump has slated to take place Friday, June 19.

The president’s decision to put Pulte in charge after Tulsi Gabbard’s departure at the helm of the Office of National Intelligence sparked bipartisan pushback, with Democrats saying they will withhold support for extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act while Pulte is in the acting role. Congress allowed the key government spy authority lapse last Friday without a deal.

Trump threw another curveball into a FISA extension over the weekend when he posted on social media that he was against reauthorizing Section 702 unless a GOP elections bill is attached. That bill, known as the SAVE America Act, does not have the votes to get through Congress.

Thune threw cold water Monday on tying the two issues together.

“Yeah, he’s, as you know, passionate about getting that done and wants to use every opportunity to take a shot at it,” Thune said of Trump and his desire to enact the elections bill.

But, Thune said, “we can’t get FISA done” if the policies are linked.