Join the Slatest to get essentially the most insightful evaluation, criticism, and recommendation on the market, delivered to your inbox each day.

As measured by the Pete Hegseth customary (“what number of pushups are you able to do” with out being alleged to have gotten hammered at work, or to have dedicated sexual assault), Pam Bondi acquitted herself coolly and virtually masterfully at her affirmation hearings. The principle takeaway from her efficiency, although: If an rebellion occurs in a forest, and Pam Bondi isn’t there to listen to it, did it actually occur? This was Bondi’s recurring response to essentially the most horrifying facets of her personal report and the report of the president who appointed her: She heard no evil, and definitely noticed none. It’s thus scurrilous gotcha-ism to ask her to debate it.

Did she hear Donald Trump’s phone name to Georgia’s secretary of state asking him to search out extra votes? No, she by no means listened to it. Did she hear Trump’s feedback about prosecuting Liz Cheney? She by no means heard that. Does she learn about Trump’s pledge to prosecute Jack Smith? She doesn’t. His risk to go after Merrick Garland? No concept. What does she consider Kash Patel’s much-vaunted enemies checklist? Oh. Did he say that on TV? Patel’s threats to shutter the FBI? She doesn’t know. Pardons for these convicted for the Jan. 6 rebellion? She dare not decide a matter that will come earlier than her. And did Trump lose the 2020 election? Biden is the president. No actually, did Trump win the 2020 election? She noticed some STUFF on the bottom in Pennsylvania. You may have NO concept. What does she know past a shadow of a doubt? There was a “peaceable transition” after the 2020 election.

The factor about this crew of Trump 2.0 fans? Their virtually uncanny toolbox of denial methods—Hegseth’s “nameless smears” and Bondi’s “wait, Trump mentioned what now?”—reveals the sport right here: Deal with all the pieces Donald Trump has mentioned about what he plans to do with the Justice Division, the FBI, the army, and the police because the cute rantings of somebody’s loopy uncle, and deal with all the pieces reported within the press, ever, as a demonstrable lie. As a result of it was within the press. Senate Democrats, who’ve carried out an admirable job of mentioning that Bondi has been an unreconstructed shill for Trump, don’t fairly appear to grasp that the issues they ask about and the media experiences that they quote bounce off the nominee as de facto falsehoods.

Requested by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse about her well-known quote about “prosecuting the prosecutors,” Bondi was emphatic. Learn in its entirety, her quote wanted to be positioned in its true context: “The Division of Justice, the prosecutors will probably be prosecuted, the dangerous ones,” Bondi had defined on Fox Information final 12 months. It’s solely the “dangerous ones” who will probably be prosecuted, she soothed at her listening to. What’s a foul prosecutor? Unclear. We will let the loopy uncle resolve.

What’s putting about this new set of affirmation hearings, and people that can probably comply with, is that the only real determinant for an appointment in 2025 is loyalty to Trump. To not the GOP. To not conservative authorized values. To not some inchoate idea of separation of powers or to an old-school imaginative and prescient or to the unitary govt. The unitary govt is Trump. To be eligible to serve in Donald Trump’s Cupboard one must have proven fealty to Donald Trump. Which signifies that throughout these hearings one must mouth platitudes about establishments and theories of justice and independence and liberty and justice for all, and rape disaster facilities on the border, with out ever disavowing a single phrase spoken by Donald J. Trump, or acknowledging his actions to put aside the final election, or statements made by his loyalists, or statements made by oneself with a purpose to curry favor. One is concurrently auditioning for only one individual and likewise saying no matter must be mentioned with a purpose to show that nothing Donald Trump has ever mentioned or carried out is actual, or true, or salient. Bondi occurs to be very good at this. By the top of the afternoon Senate Democrats appear to be conceding that justice and liberty and independence are the secret. Bondi nonetheless believes Trump gained in 2020 and that Biden is the president. It’s terrifying to witness.