Pam Bondi Can't Explain What Exactly She's Doing to Ensure Our Safety

AG Pam Bondi expressed disbelief when told that ICE agents are wearing masks and she also doesn't seem to believe that moving counterterrorism officials to immigration is endangering us.

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Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan confronted Attorney General Pam Bondi about the dangers of law enforcement officers covering their faces during immigration enforcement, arguing that this could endanger both the public and the officers by making it unclear that they are legitimate law enforcement. \

“I'm deeply concerned that the lack of identification during these activities is dangerous, both to the public as well as to the officers themselves,” Senator Peters said in a hearing on Capitol Hill. “The public risk being harmed by individuals pretending to be immigration enforcement, which has already happened. We've seen that happen, and these officers also risk being injured by individuals who think they're basically being kidnapped or attacked by some unknown assailant.”

Peters tied this endangerment of the public to the broader lack of focus on national security under Trump, “So my question for you, Attorney General Bondi, is given the number of DOJ employees currently conducting immigration enforcement activities in support of DHS, how are you going to ensure that the safety of the public and the officers if they continue to not follow required protocol to identify themselves as law enforcement?”

Bondi pivoted to the officers' concerns about being doxxed and threatened, which seems to suggest that she knows masking is happening, but then said she was unaware of it happening, but then agreed to look into the issue of ensuring proper identification.

Bondi: Senator Peters, that's the first time that issue has come to me, about them cover. You're saying that law enforcement officers, when they cover their faces. I do know they are being doxxed. As you said, they're being threatened. Their families are being threatened.

Peters: You know it's again, I get that. But they have to identify themselves. There isn't insignia oftentimes. They have to identify themselves as law enforcement. 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: Senator, I would be happy to look at that issue with you and talk to all of our partner law enforcement agencies. I can assure you that if they're covering their faces now, it's to protect themselves, but they also want to protect all citizens, and that's that's something we can work together on to ensure the safety of everyone and their families.

Peters (pointing out the obvious that it’s not safe to disguise oneself as an armed kidnapper): And it's protecting themselves too. If they identify themselves, it's not just the person, because someone's going to fight back. If you just think a strange person with their face covered, it sounds throwing you into a van. Most people will resist that.

Bondi then acted as if she’d never heard this and suggested he was thinking of a specific case, as if the news isn’t full of video and photos of armed, masked “agents” refusing to identify themselves as they kidnap people off the streets.