If the Biden administration needs to be indicted for its unprecedented treatment of parents and conservatives and for its unheard-of weaponization of the Department of Justice, Missouri’s two senators provided the probable cause this week.

In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s nomination for federal AG, Eric Schmitt and Josh Hawley – both former Missouri AGs and practiced prosecutors – issued stinging verbal indictments of the outgoing administration.

Their remarks constitute a detailed outline for historians – and a master class for any contemporaries who fail to fathom the voter outrage and desperation that led to President Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the Nov. 5 election.

Below is the video, along with written excerpts, from Eric Schmitt’s introduction of Bondi.

On the independence of the AG

It appears as though Trump Derangement Syndrome is alive and well. 

The focus of these questions today are disturbing. I don’t think my Democrat colleagues learned very much from the Nov. 5th election. The American people rejected all this. Their obsession with President Trump didn’t bode well for them electorally. And I think if they stay on this path, they’ll be in a permanent minority. But that’s up to them to them to decide.  

I do want to comment a little bit, I guess, on this newfound religion on independence from the attorney general. I will remind my colleagues that the last three Democratic attorneys general for the United States of America were perhaps the most politically biased AGs we’ve had in modern political history in the United States. 

And there are some receipts.  

Eric Holder described himself as Obama’s ‘heat shield’ and ‘wingman.’ This committee moved forward, and one of my colleagues referenced that the attorney general shouldn’t be the wingman of the president. Eric Holder’s bragged about it. He bragged about it.  

Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton on the tarmac in a private meeting while she was investigating Hillary Clinton. And Merrick Garland probably gets however many gold stars you want to give for the most politicized, weaponized Department of Justice we have ever seen.  

I think part of leadership is understanding the moment that you’re in and the landscape. We’ve never seen anything like this. And there is a story to be told. The arc of this story begins when Joe Biden gave a speech demonizing half the country, calling them threats to the republic, threats to democracy, these MAGA Republicans. ‘And I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure President Trump never gets back into the White House.’ 

Miraculously, these zombie [court] cases are resurrected. And let’s talk about a couple of those. 

You’ve got, of course, Jack Smith, the overzealous and disgraced special prosecutor who time and time again has been slapped down by courts for overcharging and taking an overtly political position. He, by the way, in his postmortem this week, even acknowledged that it was unusual for him to be tasked with going after the political opponent of the president United States. It didn’t stop him, though. 

The Supreme Court did, thankfully. 

On the DOJ’s lawfare

But you had Jack Smith take on these unprecedented actions. You had a raid at Mar-a-lago, staged photos at Mar-a-lago for boxes of documents – which, by the way, boxes of documents were in Joe Biden’s garage from his Senate days. And by the way, somebody who didn’t register like you did under FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act], Hunter Biden was staying in.  

We don’t know if he’s compromised or not because that investigation was dropped. 

And give me a break that ‘justice was meted out fairly for Hunter Biden.’ It wasn’t. The Department of Justice went out of its way in documents to try to get him absolved of all potential crimes in the plea deal. It was only when the judge asked questions that unwound that, and they got back to the gun charge. But then President Biden did the dirty work himself; it was always going to be Plan B. 

You had Jonathan Su, Biden’s deputy White House counsel, coordinated with the DOJ, and Jay Bratt, on those classified document cases. Matthew Colangelo – who’s that? The number three guy at DOJ, goes to where? Alvin Bragg’s office. Alvin Bragg then resurrects the zombie case in lawfare at a local level. 

Why would the No. 3 person go do that? Maybe there was coordination. Maybe there was coordination by the way, with the No. 2 assistant DA in Atlanta in the Fani Willis case who was meeting with the White House. Why would the White House care about a case in Atlanta? 

Well, the truth is, as everybody knows – it was on full display – this was the worst case of lawfare we’ve ever seen. If this was happening in another country, our State Department would be warning us about it. It’s Banana Republic stuff. 

And one of the reasons why I’m so glad that you’ve been put up and nominated for this position is that I think you have the ability to level-set.  

So, when the Democrats ask you questions about your independence, it is beyond ironic that we’re sitting here today because of the lack of independence from Merrick Garland – and Eric Holder bragging about being Obama’s wingman. 

I think getting the Department of Justice back to its core function of taking on violent crime, protecting the constitutional rights of Americans, but taking on violent crime, is really important.

We heard one of my Democrat colleagues ask you the question that you’re not gonna pursue a case because of a name, but because of the crime. I would argue that the current Department of Justice adopted Lenin’s claim, which was ‘show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.’

And they did everything they could to throw President Trump in jail for the rest of his life because they didn’t want to lose at the ballot box. That is not what this country’s about. That is not what this republic is about. But they did it.

And it’s up to you now to restore the integrity of that agency of the Department of Justice, and I have full confidence that you will.