Attorney General Pam Bondi clarified that threats of violence are not protected speech after facing backlash after saying she would broadly target hate speech.

Attorney General Pam Bondi (pictured in August) on Tuesday clarified that threats of violence are not protected speech after facing backlash after saying she would broadly target hate speech. Photo by Al Drago/UPI UPI Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday clarified that threats of violence are not protected speech after facing backlash after saying she would broadly target hate speech. Photo by Annabelle Gordon/UPI UPI Attorney General Pam Bondi (pictured with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., earlier this month) on Tuesday clarified that threats of violence are not protected speech after facing backlash after saying she would broadly target hate speech. Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/UPI UPI

Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday backpedaled her comments about using law enforcement to target groups engaged in "hate speech" after she faced broad criticism.

Bondi made the offending comments during an earlier appearance on the podcast of Katie Miller, the wife of key White House aide Stephen Miller. Miller asked Bondi if law enforcement would be sent after groups engaged in hate speech following the recent killing of conservative political organizer Charlie Kirk.

"We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech -- and that's across the aisle," Bondi responded. She also said there is no place for hate speech following Kirk's death.

Bondi's remarks quickly spread online along with the backlash.

"There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment," the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote in a post on X. They added, "The attorney general would be wise to read the words of the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly held that the 'proudest boast' of America's free speech tradition is freedom for the thought that we hate.'"

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Conservative commentators also took issue with Bondi's remarks.

"Our Attorney General is apparently a moron," Erick Erickson, a conservative broadcaster and blogger, wrote in a post also on X. "'There's free speech and then there is hate speech.' No ma'am. That is not the law"

Some critics online responded by reposting Kirk's own words: "Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free."

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor also appeared to take a jab at Bondi during a talk Tuesday morning at New York Law School, reported Politico.

"Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself, that law school failed," she said.

Bondi on Tuesday followed up with a post on X meant to clarify her stance.

"Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment," she wrote. "It's a crime. For far too long, we've watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over."

She further wrote that threatening to kidnap or injure another person is a federal crime. That means that doxing a conservative family or making a false report to have law enforcement sent to the home of a member of Congress are not free speech, Bondi wrote.

President Donald Trump blamed Kirk's killing on "radical left" rhetoric and would target organizations he said contributed to his death. When asked about Bondi's remarks on Tuesday by ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl, Trump responded that, "She'd probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart."