NBC's Kristen Welker likely regrets trying to paint Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt (R) into a corner Sunday on "Meet the Press." Rather than make the Republican senator squirm, Welker received an earful about some of the ways that President Joe Biden and other Democrats weaponized the Department of Justice against President-elect Donald Trump and other perceived political opponents.

Schmitt expressed support early in the interview for Trump's second pick to run the Department of Justice, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, noting that she's "smart" and "tough."

"It's a great pick."

Welker insinuated that Trump's proposed attorney general would engage in the same conduct the senator has previously criticized, alluding to Bondi's suggestion last year that elements of the DOJ that waged lawfare against Trump in the lead-up to his re-election will eventually face accountability: "The prosecutors will be prosecuted — the bad ones," and the "investigators will be investigated."

'There has to be accountability for these kinds of abuses.'

The NBC talking head noted that Schmitt previously said the DOJ should go "back to fighting crime and not settling scores," then posed the question, "How do you square those two different views?"

Unwilling to accept the premise that the two views were irreconcilable, Schmitt instead suggested that the reckoning to come isn't more weaponization but rather the return of accountability.

"Everybody's seen this weaponization of the Justice Department over the last four years. It really is a tragedy for a once-respected agency that has gone after Catholics; it's gone after parents who showed up to school board meetings under the auspices of the Patriot Act. This is in the United States of America," said Schmitt.

The senator suggested that Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland "clearly weaponized that department ... to go after their chief political opponent. I'll tell you, Kristen, the arc of that story's really terrifying if you care about the republic."

"After the midterms, Joe Biden said that there was no way President Trump would ever be back in the White House. After that speech, these zombie cases were resurrected. The number three person from DOJ went to New York, and you had the Alvin Bragg case," said Schmitt, referencing Matthew Colangelo's migration from a senior position in the Biden DOJ — acting associate attorney general, then principal deputy associate attorney general — to a supporting role trying to kneecap Trump, this time in New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office.

"The number two prosecutor in Atlanta went to the White House and coordinated," continued Schmitt, apparently alluding to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' onetime lover Nathan Wade. Wade, whom Willis made top prosecutor in Trump's Georgia election interference case, admitted to having extensive communications with the Biden White House in an Oct. 15 testimony to Congress.

"You saw all these cases resurrected. They all fell apart under the weight of the law," continued Schmitt. "And so, I do think there needs to be accountability. I think that getting it back to crime-fighting is important, but there has to be accountability for these kinds of abuses."

Welker, who appeared frazzled throughout much of Schmitt's response, pressed the senator to explain what the accountability pursued by the Trump DOJ might look like.

"I think accountability means, first and foremost, the people involved in this should be fired immediately," responded the senator. "Anybody part of this effort to keep President Trump off the ballot and to throw him in jail for the rest of his life because they didn't like his politics and to continue to cast him as a 'threat to democracy' was wrong. And so, we'll see where that goes."

Schmitt reiterated that Bondi is "a smart, capable, tough person," noting she "is going to restore respect in that department."

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