As part of President Donald Trump’s Defense team, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi took the spotlight during the Senate impeachment trial. She defended Trump’s interest in the investigation of Hunter Biden’s $50,000-a-month job at Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, describing the president’s concern as legitimate, not political.
Pam Bondi accused former Vice President Joe Biden of protecting his son. “Here’s how Hunter Biden came to join Burisma’s board in April 2014: he was brought on the board by Devon Archer, his business partner,” Bondi told the Senate.
Bondi filled her 31-minute presentation with the timelines of Burisma, its founder Mykola Zlochevsky, Hunter Biden‘s role on the board, investigations of Zlochevsky and Burisma for corruption, and Vice President Biden‘s activities in Ukraine.
“Ten days after Hunter Biden joins the board, British authorities seize $23 million in British bank accounts connected to… the owner of Bursima. Did Hunter Biden leave the board then? No,” Bondi continues. “Then, only then did the company choose to announce that Hunter Biden had joined the board.”
“Burisma was so corrupt that George Kent said he intervened to prevent USAID from cosponsoring an event with Burisma,” she said.
Bondi’s statements appeared as a response to the core of the first article of impeachment against Trump: that the president requested, demanded, or pressured Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelinskiy to probe what happened with the Bidens.
“When the House managers gave you their presentation, when they submitted their brief, they repeatedly referenced Hunter Biden and Burisma. … They referenced Biden or Burisma over 400 times. And when they gave these presentations they said there was nothing to see, it was a sham,” Bondi said. “This is fiction.”
She later accused Democrats of creating a distraction by treating all the dubious corruption surrounding Burisma and the Bidens has been debunked. “You’ve heard from the House managers that there is not anything to see here; that all of this is baseless. All that we are saying is that there was a basis to talk about this, to raise this issue. And that is enough.”
Who is Pam Bondi?
Bondi served as the 37th Florida Attorney General from 2011 to 2019. She began her career as a former prosecutor and spokeswoman in Hillsborough County, Florida, where she served as an Assistant State Attorney. Bondi prosecuted former Major League Baseball player Dwight Gooden in 2007 for violating the terms of his probation and for substance abuse.
In 2010, Bondi became the first woman Attorney General of the State of Florida, beating Democratic State Senator Dan Gelber by a 55% to 41% margin.
