Bondi refuses questions over Epstein files in contentious House hearing

Attorney General Pam Bondi engaged in an angry showdown with lawmakers over the Justice Department’s release of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during her marathon testimony on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

Making her first appearance before the panel since the Justice Department said it had released all of the documents related to Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, Bondi accused the Democrats on the committee who pressed her on the handling of the files of “theatrics.”

The more than five hours of questioning yielded few, if any revelations from the attorney general, who repeatedly refused to provide answers about the Epstein files. Instead, she shouted and deflected lawmakers’ questions, one time referring to the Dow Jones and Nasdaq averages among other unrelated topics.

During the questioning, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the Republican co-sponsor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act — the law Congress passed in November to compel the department to release the files — accused Bondi of covering up the names of potential Epstein co-conspirators while failing to properly redact the files to protect victim identities.

“Literally the worst thing you could do to the survivors, you did,” Massie said, referring to an email the DOJ released that contained a list of victims’ names that were supposed to remain private. “They’re getting phone calls. A lot of these people didn’t want to be known.”

Massie then slammed the department for initially redacting Les Wexner’s information. The billionaire founder of the real estate empire that once housed Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch was once referred to as an Epstein co-conspirator by the FBI. Massie demanded Wexner’s name to be unredacted from the files.

Bondi fired back, saying Massie has “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The department’s handling of the documents has drawn harsh criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and from survivors of Epstein’s sprawling sex trafficking enterprise. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called on survivors of Epstein’s abuse who were at the hearing to stand and raise their hands. Jayapal asked Bondi to apologize to the victims for the botched redactions, but Bondi refused, pivoting instead to criticizing former Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“I’m not gonna get in the gutter for her theatrics,” Bondi said after Jayapal asked her again to apologize to the victims.

Numerous survivors were in the audience, some wearing white T-shirts with blacked-out words to represent the redactions in the files. “The truth is — Epstein survivors are still waiting,” the shirts read.

Bondi in her opening statement said she is “deeply sorry for what any victim, any victim, has been through, especially as a result of that monster,” adding the Justice Department did its “very best” to protect victims in releasing the files

At one point, the attorney general landed in a shouting match with Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., after he asked how many of Epstein’s co-conspirators have been indicted by the DOJ since the release of the files. Bondi refused to address the question.

The department missed by more than a month a congressionally mandated deadline of Dec. 19 to release the files in full, which Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche attributed to careful redaction protocol to protect victims’ identities. But the Jan. 30 release of more than three million pages of Epstein documents — which Blanche said concluded the department’s release obligations — did not conceal the identities of numerous survivors. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the committee, opened the hearing by naming the survivors. He called on Bondi to meet with them and slammed the DOJ for publishing “their names, their identities, their images on thousands of pages for the world to see.”

Appearing frustrated by Bondi’s off-topic responses and her yelling at committee members throughout the hearing, Raskin said sharply that “we’ve never had a witness who has misunderstood our rules and been unable to conform his or her conduct to our rules before.”

So far, the released documents appear to exclude much-anticipated information about Epstein’s co-conspirators, which critics said violated the stipulations laid out in the transparency act. The law gave the department 30 days to release the files in full, a deadline Bondi repeatedly blamed Wednesday for the department’s faulty redactions. At the hearing, lawmakers alleged that the department is protecting powerful people, including President Donald Trump, whose name appears many times in the documents.

In a heated exchange, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., accused Bondi of lying under oath after she refused to answer his question about whether there were any underage girls present at parties Trump is believed to have attended with Epstein. Lieu showed a video of Trump and Epstein together at party that had been released as part of the files.

“This is so ridiculous and that they are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done,” Bondi said. “There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.”

Texas Republican Chip Roy asked whether the Justice Department is planning to prosecute anyone else in relation to the Epstein case.

“We have pending investigations in our office,” Bondi said, without elaborating on the subjects of the investigations. Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel issued a memo last year saying that an extensive review of the files did not show enough evidence to charge any third parties in the case.

After the files became public, Trump called for the prosecution of several prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, whose names appear in the files.

The Epstein materials include numerous references to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other senior Trump administration officials. Lutnick last year denied maintaining contact with Epstein past 2005, but records in the files show he kept a personal and business relationship with Epstein long after the late financier’s 2008 guilty plea in Florida to state charges of soliciting prostitution with a minor.

On Tuesday, Lutnick confirmed to Congress that he had visited Epstein’s island with his wife, children and nanny in 2012.

Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., and Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., pressed Bondi on whether Trump was aware of Lutnick’s ties to Epstein when he appointed him to his Cabinet. Bondi again refused to answer, deflecting by accusing Balint of antisemitism. Lutnik is Jewish.

The Justice Department on Monday set up a reading room for members of Congress to see the unredacted files, which Bondi and other department officials have argued is a show of transparency. Massie, along with Democratic co-sponsor of the act Rep. Ro Khanna, and a handful of other lawmakers have since viewed the unredacted files.