Pam Bondi Tries to Clean Up Controversial ‘Hate Speech’ Is Not ‘Free Speech’ Remarks

AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File

Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to clean up her remarks on Monday promising to target Americans engaging in “hate speech,” which she said is not protected as “free speech.”

Bondi sparked a wave of criticism from both the left and right of the political spectrum when she told former White House official Katie Miller, “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie [Kirk], in our society.”

“We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that’s across the aisle,” added Bondi on Miller’s newly launched podcast. Katie Miller is married to top Trump aide Stephen Miller.

Senior Fox News analyst Brit Hume reacted to Bondi’s comments, noting, “Someone needs to explain to Ms. Bondi that so-called ‘hate speech,’ repulsive though it may be, is protected by the First Amendment. She should know this.”

Bondi addressed the criticism in a post on X on Tuesday, writing, “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime. For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over.” She added:

Under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), it is a federal crime to transmit “any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another.” Likewise, 18 U.S.C. § 876 and 18 U.S.C. § 115 make it a felony to threaten public officials, members of Congress, or their families.

You cannot call for someone’s murder. You cannot swat a Member of Congress. You cannot dox a conservative family and think it will be brushed off as “free speech.” These acts are punishable crimes, and every single threat will be met with the full force of the law.
Free speech protects ideas, debate, even dissent but it does NOT and will NEVER protect violence.

It is clear this violent rhetoric is designed to silence others from voicing conservative ideals.

We will never be silenced. Not for our families, not for our freedoms, and never for Charlie. His legacy will not be erased by fear or intimidation.

Bondi’s post, however, didn’t appear to quickly satisfy critics, who saw her post more as doubling down than walking back her remarks.
The conservative National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke reacted to the post, “This isn’t a correction or a retraction or a retreat; it’s a post hoc attempt to bend the term ‘hate speech’ to mean something that it never has.”

CNN’s Aaron Blake added, “Bondi does damage control. Apparently the line is going to be that she didn’t mean ‘hate speech’ broadly, but threats. But that’s not what she said.”

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