Trump’s new AG pick said FBI should investigate Hamas supporters

Bondi: ‘Frankly, they need to be taken out of our country.’

By Ron Kampeas, JTA

Pam Bondi, whom President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to be his attorney general, said last year that campus protesters who express support for Hamas should face FBI questioning.

Trump named Bondi, who served as Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019, on Thursday. The nomination came after his first pick, the scandal-plagued  former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, withdrew following meetings with Republican senators, who apparently made clear that allegations of sexual predation and drug use , which he has denied, would bury him.

Bondi’s confirmation process is expected to face fewer hurdles.

On Friday, Jewish Insider uncovered an interview Bondi gave Newsmax, the conservative news outlet, last year about the spike in anti-Israel protests on American campuses following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which sparked Israel’s multi-front war.

“The thing that really was troubling to me, these students in universities in our country — whether they’re here as Americans or if they’re here on student visas — and they’re out there saying, ‘I support Hamas,’” she said in the Oct. 23, 2023, interview. “Frankly, they need to be taken out of our country, or the FBI needs to be interviewing them right away when they’re saying, ‘I support Hamas. I am Hamas.’ That’s not saying I support all these poor Palestinians who are trapped in Gaza.”

A number of protests in the weeks after the attacks included people who praised the attacks, although most of the protesters focused on condemning Israel’s counterattacks and on the suffering of Gaza Palestinians. Over the past year-plus, some hardline pro-Palestinian activists have continued to evince support for Hamas.

The Republican Party platform, released in July, calls for the deportation of noncitizens who back Hamas and terrorism, and pledges to “make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.” Trump and his advisers have also called for deporting foreign students who organize pro-Hamas protests.

The platform does not recommend the investigation of Americans who express rhetorical support for the terrorist group, as Bondi did in her interview, a path that could trigger First Amendment challenges.

Bondi, one of Trump’s earliest and most steadfast backers in his bid for the presidency, advised him during his first impeachment proceedings. She has a record of pro-Israel statements, lining her up with most of Trump’s other cabinet picks, though she has also lobbied for Qatar’s government, according to Semafor.

Some Jewish Republicans were wary of Gaetz because he voted earlier this year against emergency defense assistance for Israel and also opposed a bill that would codify an official definition of antisemitism, and invited a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union address.