Pam Bondi denies knowing Ice agents wore masks during raids despite video evidence
The attorney general, Pam Bondi, professed ignorance of reports of immigration officials hiding their faces with masks during roundups of undocumented people, despite widespread video evidence and reports that they are instilling pervasive fear and panic.
Challenged at a Wednesday Capitol Hill subcommittee hearing by Gary Peters, a Democratic senator for Michigan, Bondi, who as the country's top law officer has a prominent role in the Trump administration's hardline immigration policy, implied she was unaware of plain-clothed agents concealing their faces while carrying out arrests but suggested it was for self-protection.
'I do know they are being doxxed … they're being threatened,' she told Peters. 'Their families are being threatened.'
Bondi's protestations appeared to strain credibility given the attention the masked raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents have attracted on social media and elsewhere.
Civil rights campaigners and democracy experts have criticised the raids as evocative of entrenched dictatorships and police states, and say it is a warning sign that the US is descending into authoritarianism.
Peters said he understood officers' concerns at being doxxed but said the failure to wear identifying insignia endangered both themselves and detainees.
'The public risk being harmed by individuals pretending to be immigration enforcement, which has already happened,' he told Bondi. 'And these officers also risk being injured by individuals who think they're basically being kidnapped or attacked by some unknown assailant.
'People think: 'Here's a person coming up to me, not identified, covering themselves. They're kidnapping.' They'll probably fight back. That endangers the officer as well, and that's a serious situation. People need to know that they're dealing with a federal law enforcement official.'
Bondi reiterated her proclamation of ignorance, saying: 'It sounds like you have a specific case and will be happy to talk to you about that at a later time, because I'm not aware of that happening.'
She turned the tables later in the hearing after Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, condemned Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and the Democratic vice presidential candidate in last year's election, for comparing Ice agents with Nazi Gestapo officers.
'This is dangerous for our agents, it's wrong, and it cuts against and it undercuts the rule of law,' said Hagerty, who invited Bondi to explain how she intended to tackle 'leftwing radicals' who he said were attacking Ice agents.
In response, the attorney general said that it was protesters who were concealing their identities when assailing officers.
'Those people are the ones who have really been wearing the mask and trying to cover their identities,' she said, citing the recent demonstrations in Los Angeles, against which Donald Trump deployed national guard units. 'We've been finding them. We have been charging them with assault on a federal officer.'
Related: Appeals court likely to keep Trump in control of national guard deployed in LA
Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator from Alaska who has some voiced criticism of the Trump administration, told Bondi that her constituents were worried that resources had been transferred to immigration crackdowns at the expense of tackling violent crime.
'We don't have much of an Ice presence in Alaska,' she said. 'All of a sudden, we're now on the map. We have those that are being detained in our local jail that were flown up to the state several weeks ago to be detained up there.'
She also cited the case of a restaurant owner who had been detained by Ice agents after living in the Alaskan city of Soldotna for 20 years. 'His children are all integrated into the community,' Murkowski said.
'The specific ask is whether or not immigration enforcement is being prioritized over combatting violent crime. And senator, before you walked in, I think senators on both sides of the aisle shared that same concern.'
Bondi replied: 'It is not and it will not. A lot of it does go hand in hand though, getting the illegal aliens who are violent criminals out of our country.'
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