Van Hollen to Bondi: We Are Witnessing a Level of Lawlessness from This Administration That is Unprecedented in Scale and Scope

Today, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS), hosted a hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi. Video of the Senator’s opening remarks is available here and a transcript of his remarks is below:

SENATOR CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-Md.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Attorney General Bondi. The Department of Justice is supposed to play a vital role in defending our Constitution, upholding the rule of law and keeping the American people safe. Unfortunately, it is currently failing on all of these fronts. And this budget request will make a bad situation even worse.

We are witnessing a level of lawlessness from this administration that is unprecedented in scale and scope. Indeed, when asked, President Trump said he didn't know whether he was required to comply with the Constitution of the United States. Instead of defending the rule of law, DOJ attorneys are being deployed to aid and abet in lawbreaking. Like just yesterday, Madam Attorney General, when the administration took, I believe, the unprecedented step of suing all of the Maryland federal district court judges because of actions they took to protect habeas corpus and the constitutional right of due process.

To date, the administration has faced nearly 300 legal challenges in federal courts. There are currently in place a huge number of preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued by judges appointed by presidents of both parties — including appointed by President Trump. At the same time, patriotic, career civil servants have been fired for upholding their constitutional oaths. In January, the then-acting attorney general fired more than a dozen prosecutors simply because they had been assigned to work with Special Counsel Jack Smith, and dozens of others have also been wrongfully terminated. And you picked up where the acting attorney general left off when you fired the pardon attorney after she declined to restore the gun rights to a close friend of President Trump with a domestic violence conviction. Perhaps most troubling, Madam Attorney General, is you have fired attorneys like the acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation, simply for telling the truth in court. As he said yesterday, the whistleblower, in a complaint filed, "I didn't sign up to lie." That sends a terrible message to every DOJ attorney who wants to both do their job and uphold their professional ethics and integrity.

While spending taxpayer resources to defend this lawbreaking, the administration has proposed a budget that is a gift to our foreign adversaries, to the drug cartels, and to illegal firearms traffickers. Why do I say that? Let's look at each of those categories.

On your first day, you disbanded the FBI Foreign Influence Task Force office, which was established to combat secret malign influence campaigns by China, Russia, and other adversaries. On that day, you also restricted the scope of criminal charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Your budget cuts the Drug Enforcement Administration and eliminates funding for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, which coordinate interagency efforts to combat the worst drug trafficking cartels. And you are effectively dismantling efforts to go after illegal gun traffickers by attempting to dissolve the ATF.

At the same time, this budget undermines local law enforcement by stripping away funding that is critical to protecting our local schools and reducing violent crime in rural communities. And many organizations that help the victims of crimes are running out of their Fiscal Year-25 funds because, for example, the Office of Justice Programs has only posted one grant solicitation for 2025. Meanwhile, under the guise of efficiency, your budget proposes to combine and significantly cut the three distinct DOJ grantmaking agencies, including the Office on Violence Against Women, which you propose to slash by 30%. There is nothing efficient about reducing services to victims of crime.

Your budget also indicates that transparency and integrity are not priorities of the Justice Department. Over the last five months, you have decimated the Public Integrity Section. Public reports indicate that this office went from 30 attorneys to as few as five. Your budget would also slash the department’s oversight watchdog, the Office of Inspector General, by $42 million. Inspector General Horwitz told me that these cuts would result in the elimination of 140 positions, which would bring investigations to a halt and interfere with the IG's ability to conduct oversight of the department. I would note that it was an OIG investigation that helped uncover the FBI's serious mishandling of allegations of sexual abuse against former USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nasser. Why target these key areas of public integrity, oversight and accountability?

So, Attorney General Bondi, I hope you will answer our questions today. I say that because your department has failed to respond to any of the nine inquiries I have made, and have responded to only two of the 38 letters sent by my colleagues, the ranking members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Senator Durbin and Congressman Raskin. So, Madam Attorney General, we have much to discuss this morning.