BURSTRep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) on Wednesday pushed back against Attorney General Pam Bondi after the Justice Department head criticized the Texas Democrat’s comments about tech billionaire Elon Musk being “taken down” multiple times.
“To have her go on Fox News, and to then decide that she wanted to send a threat to me, it was wrong,” Crockett said during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing.
“Because here it is, she is the highest law enforcement agent in this country and people are watching and they are consuming this information, and they are believing that simply because I decided that I wanted to exercise my right to free speech — which I am not abridged from doing — that she then wanted to then politicize something that should not be politicized. I don’t like Elon Musk, I’m going to say it 50,000 times.”
Bondi has taken two recent swings at Crockett on Fox News, one on March 23 and one last week, over comments Crockett made during a livestreamed event last month in which she said that “all I want to see happen on my birthday is for Elon to be taken down.”
“And Maria, now you have this congresswoman, Crockett, who is calling for attacks on Elon Musk on her birthday? … Well, she is an elected public official, and so she needs to tread very carefully,” Bondi said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” on March 23.
A day later, Bondi said that Crockett should apologize to Tesla shareholders for her livestream comments.
“She needs to unequivocally denounce the violence, she must apologize immediately, not only to all Texans, but to our country, to the American shareholders of Tesla, because she is promoting violence,” Bondi told Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
The Hill has reached out to Crockett’s office and the Justice Department for comment.