Attorney General Pam Bondi provoked a broad backlash this week after announcing she would “absolutely target” protesters engaging in “hate speech” — and claiming she had authority to investigate businesses that refused to print memorial vigil posters for the conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The comments by Ms. Bondi on Monday appeared to reflect a broader effort by the Trump administration to punish anyone who has celebrated Mr. Kirk’s killing or even people who denounced his killing but continued to criticize his political stances.
It is not clear under what authority Ms. Bondi planned to bring “hate speech” cases when the First Amendment provides sweeping protections for free speech that does not directly incite violence. She seemed to back away from a broad interpretation of her remarks on Tuesday morning, writing on social media that “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime.”
Ms. Bondi was roundly pilloried for her initial remarks by a slew of conservative pundits, authors and lawmakers on social media within minutes of delivering them on two right-wing media outlets, after avoiding expansive public discussion beyond expressing outrage over the killing and support for Mr. Kirk’s young family.
Many of her critics pointed to a May 2024 social media post by Mr. Kirk himself, laying out clearly that while “ugly speech,” “gross speech” and “evil speech” existed, there was no such thing as hate speech under the Constitution.
“Someone needs to explain to Ms. Bondi that so-called ‘hate speech,’ repulsive though it may be, is protected by the First Amendment,” Brit Hume, the longtime Fox News host, wrote on social media.
“She should know this,” he added.
Ms. Bondi’s comments came as other top Trump administration officials — among them Vice President JD Vance — have called on ordinary people across the country to seek vengeance against those who have criticized Mr. Kirk by calling their employers in an effort to get them fired.
The naming-and-shaming campaign has led to countless people from various walks of life — teachers, medical personnel and members of the armed forces — being dismissed from their jobs or placed on suspension.
While some Republicans have called out violence committed by people on both sides of the nation’s left-right binary, the president and many in his administration have blamed the violence solely on their opponents.
In an interview on Fox News’s “Hannity” late Monday, Ms. Bondi suggested that she might direct the Justice Department’s civil rights division to “prosecute” businesses if they turned away customers who wanted to print pictures of Mr. Kirk for memorial vigils, citing the case of an Office Depot employee in Michigan who was fired for rejecting such an order.
“Businesses cannot discriminate,” she told Mr. Hannity, saying she had referred the Office Depot case to Harmeet K. Dhillon, the head of the civil rights division.
“We can prosecute you for that,” she added.
Ms. Bondi’s assertion that the Justice Department might seek charges against a business for refusing to serve customers for political reasons could run afoul of a Supreme Court decision that barred state authorities from punishing a Colorado baker for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
A senior Justice Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay internal discussions, said Ms. Bondi’s comments, while expansive, were intended to address only the Office Depot incident and did not signal a broader effort to go after noncompliant businesses.
Earlier on Monday, in a podcast interview with Katie Miller, the wife of the top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Ms. Bondi suggested there might be limits on anti-Kirk speech after his killing during an informal debate with supporters, and critics, at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.
“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society” for hate speech, Ms. Bondi said.
Ms. Miller followed up by asking if Ms. Bondi would like to see “more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech and putting cuffs on people.”
The attorney general responded by saying, “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech — and that’s across the aisle.”
“Get rid of her. Today. This is insane,” wrote Matt Walsh, a right-wing influencer with nearly four million followers on X. “Conservatives have fought for decades for the right to refuse service to anyone. We won that fight. Now Pam Bondi wants to roll it all back for no reason.”
Despite the cascade of criticism, President Trump seemed to defend Ms. Bondi’s remarks in comments to reporters, twisting and personalizing them into a self-serving attack on the media.
When Jonathan Karl of ABC News asked Mr. Trump about Ms. Bondi’s hate speech comments, he went after Mr. Karl.
“We’ll probably go after people like you,” Mr. Trump said, “because you treat me so unfairly — it’s hate.”
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
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