Bondi Melts Down When Morelle EXPOSES Her on Jan. 6 Pardons

🐍 The Art of Evasion: Pam Bondi’s Refusal to Define the Limits of Presidential Pardon

The highest echelons of government are expected to provide clarity on the law. Yet, during a recent congressional hearing, the Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi, executed a masterful performance of strategic avoidance, refusing to state a basic, long-settled legal principle regarding the scope of a presidential pardon. The contentious exchange with Rep. Joe Morelle exposed a deliberate reluctance to articulate a politically inconvenient truth, ultimately placing partisan narrative above legal fidelity.

The Legal Question: Immunity or Expiation?

Rep. Morelle initiated the critical line of questioning by highlighting a serious legal maneuver underway: several January 6th defendants, who received presidential pardons, are now attempting to argue in court that those pardons function as a blanket shield, covering crimes entirely separate from and committed after the events of January 6th, such as illegal firearm possession discovered months later.

Morelle’s question was simple and foundational: Does a pardon cover separate offenses committed unrelated to the original pardoned crime?

The legal answer is unambiguously no. As Morelle himself quoted from the Department of Justice’s own text, a pardon is an “act of grace which removes the punishment from a crime a person has committed.” It mitigates or sets aside punishment; it does not overturn a conviction, and critically, it does not erase future crimes or grant permanent immunity. A pardon is retrospective, not prospective.

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The Strategy: Deflection and Denial

Instead of affirming this core tenet of law, Attorney General Bondi immediately resorted to an escalating series of evasions:

Deflection to Authority: She stated that the pardon power “rests with the president, not the department of justice,” a point no one was disputing. This was the classic move of answering a question the questioner did not ask.

The “Pending Litigation” Shield: Bondi claimed she “cannot discuss pending litigation.” This shield is often valid, but the question was not about the facts of a specific case; it was a request for the Attorney General’s legal opinion on a matter of constitutional and statutory interpretation—a duty central to her role as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

Partisan Whataboutism: When pressed to answer the legal principle, Bondi abandoned the law altogether and made a brazenly partisan pivot, asking if Morelle was “referring to Joe Biden pardoning his son… or the refer January 6th.” This diversion to Hunter Biden and unrelated death row commutations was a transparent effort to turn a legal inquiry into a political mudbath, shifting focus away from the uncomfortable implications of the January 6th pardons.

Morelle quickly called her out, stating, “I’m not asking about either side. I’m asking you’re the chief law enforcement officer of the United States… I want to know what your views are on the extent to which pardons cover potential crimes committed by individuals who have been pardoned but unrelated to January 6th.”

The Consequences of Silence

Bondi’s continued refusal to articulate the clear, established limits of the pardon power is not neutrality; it is a profound act of political loyalty over public duty. By failing to state the obvious—that a pardon for one crime does not create a shield for subsequent, unrelated criminal acts—she lends tacit support to the dangerous legal argument being advanced by the pardoned defendants.

Morelle’s final, scathing assessment was spot on: he called her evasiveness “the height of filibustering” and condemned it as “demeaning to your responsibilities and your job.”

The broader implication is deeply troubling: a refusal to define the limits of a pardon suggests a willingness to entertain the idea that a president can create an untouchable class of political allies who operate above the law. This completely undermines the foundational principle of a justice system built on equal application of the law. The silence from the Attorney General’s chair on a matter of such basic constitutional clarity is the most eloquent answer of all: accountability was dodged, and in the process, the integrity of the office was compromised to serve a partisan narrative.