Pam Bondi, whom President-elect Donald Trump has tapped as his attorney general, said last year that campus protesters who express support for Hamas should face FBI questioning.

Trump nominated Bondi, who served as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019, on Thursday. The nomination came after his first election, scandal-plagued former Florida representative Matt Gaetzwithdrew after meetings with Republican senators, who apparently made it clear that allegations of sexual abuse and drug use, which he has denied, would bury him.

Bondi’s confirmation process is expected to face fewer hurdles.

On Friday, Jewish Insider revealed an interview Bondi briefed Newsmax, the conservative news outlet, last year on the rise in anti-Israel protests on American campuses following the October 7 Hamas attack, which triggered Israel’s multi-front war.

“What was really disturbing to me, these students at universities in our country — whether they’re here as Americans or whether they’re here on student visas — and they’re out there saying, ‘I support Hamas.’ she said in the interview on October 23, 2023. “Frankly, they need to be taken out of our country, or the FBI needs to interview them directly when they say, ‘I support Hamas. I am Hamas.’ That doesn’t mean I support all those poor Palestinians trapped in Gaza.”

A number of protests in the weeks following the attacks included people praising the attacks, although most of the protesters focused on condemning Israel’s counterattacks and on the suffering of Gaza Palestinians. Over the past year plus some hardline pro-Palestinian activists has continued to show support for Hamas.

The Republican Party Platform, was released in Julycalls for the deportation of non-citizens who support Hamas and terrorism, and promises to “make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.” Trump and his advisers have also called for foreign students organizing pro-Hamas protests to be deported.

The platform does not recommend investigating Americans who express rhetorical support for the terrorist group, as Bondi did in his interview, a path that could trigger First Amendment challenges.

Bondi, one of Trump’s earliest and staunchest supporters in his bid for the presidency, advised him during his first impeachment trial. She has a record of pro-Israel statements that puts her in line with most of Trump’s other cabinet picks, although she also has lobbied for the government of Qataraccording to Semafor.

Some Jewish Republicans were wary of Gaetz because he voted earlier this year against disaster aid for Israel and also opposed a bill that would codify an official definition of anti-Semitism, inviting a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union.