By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The Republican-led U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday advanced President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, paving the way for the full Senate to vote to confirm the former Florida attorney general as soon as this week.

The panel approved her nomination in a 12-10 vote with Democrats opposed amid concerns over whether Bondi will resist potentially improper or illegal orders from Trump.

Bondi, 59, vowed to maintain the Justice Department's independence during her confirmation hearing earlier this month, telling lawmakers she will not inject politics into criminal or civil investigations.

"There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice," Bondi told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I will not politicize that office. I will not target people simply because of their political affiliation."

Even before her arrival, the Trump administration has already taken some steps that appear to do just that.

The Justice Department employs approximately 116,000 people.

Reuters has been able to identify so far at least 15 career employees who have been reassigned to their positions, while more than two dozen others have been fired or placed on paid administrative leave.

On Monday, the department fired more than a dozen career prosecutors who worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith's two criminal investigations into Trump's retention of classified records and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Previously, the incoming administration also fired at least five senior career officials from the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

More than a dozen senior career officials, including the top public integrity prosecutor and the senior career ethics official, have also been removed from their posts and ordered to report to a newly-created sanctuary city working group.

One of those officials, the Public Integrity Section Chief Corey Amundson, resigned from the department on Monday.

On the day Trump was sworn into office, he signed an executive order lamenting the "weaponizing" of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies and ordered the attorney general to "review the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority."

"The president has repeatedly threatened to weaponize the justice system against those he feels have wronged him, and that's a long list," Ranking Democrat Dick Durbin said on Wednesday.

"Unfortunately, we are seeing these threats emerge in real time."

Bondi, who spent decades as a prosecutor, previously represented Trump during his first impeachment trial and she also in the past has echoed some of his false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

She holds a stake in Trump's media company, the Trump Media and Technology Group, according to financial disclosures she filed with the Office of Government Ethics.

(Reporting by Sarah N. LynchEditing by Nick Zieminski)

((sarah.n.lynch@thomsonreuters.com; 202-579-0289;))