Senate panel presses AG Bondi over president's $33.6 billion DOJ budget proposing 7% cut

Chairman Jerry Moran opened the Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Justice Department's fiscal year 2026 budget by saying the president has requested $33,600,000,000 for the Department of Justice and that the request represents a reduction of roughly $2,500,000,000, or about 7% from FY2025 enacted levels.

The budget, said Moran, would reduce roughly 5,100 positions across DOJ, including attorneys, special agents, deputy U.S. marshals and professional staff. "I commend the attorney general for efforts to streamline the department, achieve operational efficiencies, and find savings for the American taxpayer," Moran said, while adding that he was "concerned by the depth of some of the proposed cuts," especially to law enforcement components and DOJ grant programs.

Why it matters: senators said the cuts affect federal law enforcement capacity and grant programs that state and local agencies use to respond to violent crime and support victims. Attorney General Pamela Bondi defended the request as necessary to focus DOJ on core public-safety missions and to return resources to street-level law enforcement. "My primary objective as attorney general is to return the department to its core mission of keeping Americans safe and vigorously enforcing the law," Bondi told the subcommittee.

Bondi outlined enforcement priorities the administration says the budget will support, including continued efforts against fentanyl distribution, transnational gangs and human trafficking. She said the department plans to consolidate overlapping components and ‘‘emerge . . . as a leaner organization better equipped to make American people safe from threats at home and abroad.’'

Senators pressed Bondi about specific program reductions the request would make. Committee members raised examples cited in the hearing record: a proposed $111,000,000 reduction tied to DEA funding, a proposed $100,000,000 reduction in prior-year appropriations, a $42,000,000 proposed cut to the Office of Inspector General, and a near-30% decrease in funding for the Office on Violence Against Women from roughly $713,000,000 in FY2025 to about $505,000,000 in FY2026 as discussed by Chairwoman Susan Collins.

Bondi said some grant notices would be posted on a rolling basis "very shortly," and that the department has an appeal process for grants that were cut; she invited senators to contact her office about specific grant decisions. Regarding staffing numbers and component consolidations, she emphasized the department will ‘‘look at those grants on a case by case basis" and said the administration will continue to seek efficiencies while maintaining public-safety work on the street.

The hearing included sustained questioning on whether the proposed reorganizations and cuts would reduce capacity to address narcotics trafficking, firearms trafficking and national-security threats. Bondi repeatedly emphasized recent enforcement actions, citing DEA seizures and arrests across multiple operations and saying the department had seized tens of millions of fentanyl pills and thousands of kilos of powder since January, which she said undergirds the need for concentrated enforcement.

Ending: Senators asked for follow-up written responses and asked DOJ to provide additional detail on grant notices, staffing impacts, and the legal basis for reorganizations. The subcommittee recessed with requests that the department respond to additional questions for the hearing record within 30 days.