Ben Shapiro criticizes AG Pam Bondi's testimony: “The performative nature of it does not make the American people feel as though there is a professional in charge of the Justice Department”
Shapiro: “I do not think she's good at her job”
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From the February 12, 2026, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): Again, performative, performative, performative. I don't disagree with the stuff she's saying, but the performative nature of it does not make the American people feel as though there is a professional in charge of the Justice Department. So Eric Swalwell questioned her. Eric Swalwell, man. That dude. The representative from California who wants to run for governor over there, he asked her about political violence, and here was her response.
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SHAPIRO: So, again, this is actually, like, the high point of her testimony. Then we got to the stuff that was really the problem. So, as I said before, when it came to the revelation of what exactly the DOJ was doing on Epstein, I know for a fact from people who were in the DOJ at the time, there needed to be -- the DOJ, the FBI -- there needed to be a full scale explanation with full Q and A with the revelation of particular documents to demonstrate why the DOJ was doing what it was doing. That's the thing that needed to happen. So when you show up, you should at least be able to do that in sort of a calm, collected fashion. This is, again, why I think that William Barr, who was AG under President Trump the first time, Bill Barr, was a very good AG. I do not think the same of Pam Bondi. I do not think she's good at her job.
So here is Pam Bondi. This was the most awkward moment by far. So she was was asked about Epstein, and she promptly started doing a cable news spot about how no one should ever mention Epstein again, they should only talk about the stock market. Which, yeah -- listen. I generally agree that the coverage of Epstein, given the evidence that we have, far exceeds -- the claims made about Epstein far exceed the evidence that we have, and, thus, the coverage of Epstein far exceeds the actual evidentiary claims. With that said, I'm not sure the attorney general's job is to go out there and be like, why are you even covering this? It's -- the Dow Jones is doing great. This was, not great here. Not great at all, Bob.