U.S. Senator Katie Britt Questions Attorney General Pam Bondi on Youth Online Safety, Antisemitism, Crime Rates

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) participated in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where she asked Attorney General Pam Bondi a number of questions regarding the safety of children and teens on social media online, including questions about the Department’s efforts to address sextortion, the problem of illegal offshore online gambling, and the sale of illegal drugs online. Senator Britt also questioned AG Bondi on the Department’s continued efforts to combat antisemitism in the United States and the uptick in crime plaguing cities and directed at law enforcement officers around the nation.

Senator Britt began her questioning by addressing the utilization of social media by bad actors to take advantage of children and teens: “I have sat across from a number of parents who have talked to me about their child either falling victim to sextortion (or) different schemes that are online. We also know that there is an element of human trafficking that comes here. What are you doing to hold bad actors accountable, to track them down and to keep our kids safe?”

AG Bondi responded, “[W]e have made countless cases around this country, and many of them have involved global international defendants in fact, we’ve been extraditing some of them back, as many as we can get. We’re bringing them back to this country. That’s how we’re holding them accountable and locking them up for as long as we humanly can lock them up. And Director Battelle, our national security division, have been working tirelessly on that. We have entire units working on that.”

“I know that, for instance, we had a Judiciary Subcommittee hearing where we heard from parent after parent whose child had, you know, bought something online … It was laced with fentanyl and they died. If that was happening on a store front and a small business in America, we would shut that storefront down. We must do more to hold, not only the bad actors online, but also the people who allow it to happen accountable,” Senator Britt concluded.

In her second line of questioning, Senator Britt focused on illegal offshore gaming operations targeting minors, particularly young men: “When it comes to betting and being involved in this illegal gaming … will you commit to me to taking a look at what is exactly happening offshore and also how they are utilizing different spaces to actually go after our children, getting them addicted and ultimately pulling them in?”

AG Bondi expressed her commitment to working with Senator Britt to protect minors from the illegal offshore gaming operations.

Senator Britt questioned AG Bondi on her efforts to combat illegal Chinese vapes, to which she responded,“What we’ve been doing is we have been going around this country and we have been raiding these vape shops that are carrying these illegal drugs and shutting them down.”

Senator Britt reflected on the second anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks, focusing her subsequent line of questioning on addressing the rise in antisemitism in the U.S.: “[T]his morning I had an opportunity to listen to stories of some individuals that had been held hostage. Some of the families that will never get their loved ones back, and some that are hoping that there is a resolution soon and they once again get to embrace their family member that they have not seen in over 700 days … [I]n addition to this horror and nightmare that they have been living for the past two years, we have seen a rise in antisemitism here on our soil … can you talk to me about the work that DOJ is doing to combat that rise in antisemitism and to hold offenders of that … accountable?”

In her final line of questioning, Senator Britt asked AG Bondi about widespread crime in American cities, especially in the wake of a mass shooting in Montgomery over the weekend, “I do want to just talk a little bit about crime in American cities. We had a horrific event occur in Montgomery, Alabama, over the weekend … two people are no longer with us and 12 people injured. My heart breaks for every one of the victims and their families and the community at large. I’d like to know a little bit about your interagency work, and talk to me about things that you find, because we have to find solutions in this space. This cannot keep happening.”

You can view Senator Britt’s full line of questioning here.

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