Attorney General Pam Bondi clashed with lawmakers during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, with the department’s handling of its Jeffrey Epstein records and its attempts to prosecute critics of President Donald Trump causing the most tension.
The oversight hearing comes as Bondi and her agency face increased pressure from the White House to deliver victories on Trump’s agenda — and frustration, including from the president himself, at what they perceive to be the slow progress and a number of setbacks in the courts.
At times, Bondi’s performance on Wednesday at the roughly four-and-a-half-hour-long seemed targeted specifically for Trump. She appeared to be reading off pre-written talking points on occasion and sang Trump’s praises, calling him “the greatest president in American history.”
Wednesday's hearingdevolved into a series of shouting matches as Democrats peppered Bondi with questions about Epstein and survivors of his abuse, many of whom attended the proceedings.
In a press conference ahead of the hearing, Epstein survivors and their family members and tore into the department's handling of the case.
“The DOJ needs to do its job. Give us the rest of the files and start the investigations,” said one survivor, Dani Bensky.
Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, explicitly took aim at Bondi, calling her handling of this “nothing short of a failure.” “Do your job, Pam,” said Roberts.
During the hearing, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., asked the women to stand up before challenging Bondi to turn to them and apologize for the department's failure to fully redact their names when the files were made public.
Bondi declined and later asked Democrats if they "apologized to President Trump, all of you who participated in those impeachment hearings against Donald Trump? You all should be apologizing to Trump for their involvement in past impeachment efforts."
Bondi, in turn, repeatedly accused Democrats of “theatrics” and said that she would not “get in the gutter with these people,” though she repeatedly lobbed personal attacks on Democratic lawmakers. She called Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, a “washed-up lawyer,” accused Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, who has been in Congress for two decades, of lacking experience.
“Thank you for the insult,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., said after Bondi said Scanlon “didn’t get anything regarding public safety.”
The insults also extended to a Republican who questioned Bondi about the Justice Department’s handling of redactions in the Epstein files. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who co-authored the bill compelling the DOJ to release its Epstein records, accused the department of over-redacting information in some cases while accidentally releasing survivors’ information in others.
“This guy has Trump derangement syndrome,” Bondi said of Massie, who has criticized the DOJ’s handling of the files. “You’re a failed politician.” Trump has endorsed Massie’s primary opponent in this year’s midterm elections.
Though Republicans at the hearing largely focused their questions on immigration and crime, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, pressed Bondi on the fact that some Epstein survivors' names were not redacted in the files. She blamed the omissions on the DOJ lawyers rushing to get the records before the Dec. 19 deadline set out by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Only a small fraction were released on the deadline, with the majority of files released earlier this month.
“We did the best we could," she said.
Roy also asked if anyone else would be charged in connection with Epstein. Bondi said there were "pending investigations," though it wasn’t clear what or who she was referencing. Last year, Bondi’s office quickly acquiesced when Trump used his social media platform to call on the Justice Department to investigate Democrats over their affiliations with Epstein.
Wednesday's hearing took place hours after NBC News reported that a federal grand jury had rejected the Trump administration's attempts to indict Democratic lawmakers over a social media video that urged members of the military and intelligence communities to follow their oaths and refuse to obey "illegal orders."
Bondi accused those she deemed “liberal activist judges” of partaking in “coordinated judicial opposition” to the Trump administration.
