WASHINGTON — U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi repeatedly sparred with lawmakers on Wednesday as she was pressed over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and faced demands for greater transparency in the high-profile case.
Bondi accused Democrats and at least one Republican on the House Judiciary Committee of engaging in “theatrics” as she fielded questions about redaction errors made by the Justice Department when it released millions of files related to the Epstein case last month.
The attorney general at one point acknowledged that mistakes had been made as the Justice Department tried to comply with a federal law that required it to review, redact and publicize millions of files within a 30-day period. Given the tremendous task at hand, she said the “error rate was very low” and that fixes were made when issues were encountered.
Her testimony on the Epstein files, however, was mostly punctuated by dramatic clashes with lawmakers — exchanges that occurred as eight Epstein survivors attended the hearing.
In one instance, Bondi refused to apologize to Epstein victims in the room, saying she would not “get into the gutter” with partisan requests from Democrats.
In another exchange, Bondi declined to say how many perpetrators tied to the Epstein case are being investigated by the Justice Department. And at one point, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said the Trump administration was engaging in a “cover-up,” prompting Bondi to tell him that he was suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.”
The episodes underscore the depths to which the Epstein saga has roiled members of Congress. It has long been a political cudgel for Democrats, but after millions of files were released earlier this month, offering the most detail yet of Epstein’s crimes, Republicans once unwilling to criticize Trump administration officials are growing more testy, as was put on full display during Wednesday’s hearing.
Beyond the Epstein files, Democrats raised broad concerns about the Justice Department increasingly investigating and prosecuting the president’s political foes.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Bondi has turned the agency into “Trump’s instrument of revenge.”
“Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza and you deliver every time,” Raskin said.
As an example, Raskin pointed to the Justice Department’s failed attempt to indict six Democratic lawmakers who urged service members to not comply with unlawful orders in a video posted last November.
“You tried to get a grand jury to indict six members of Congress who are veterans of our armed forces on charges of seditious conspiracy, simply for exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” he said.
During the hearing, Democrats criticized the Justice Department’s prosecution of journalist Don Lemon, who was arrested by federal agents last month after he covered an anti-immigration enforcement protest at a Minnesota Church.
Bondi defended Lemon’s prosecution.
“They were gearing for a resistance,” Bondi testified. “They met in a parking lot and they caravaned to a church on a Sunday morning when people were worshipping.”
The protest took place after federal immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis.
Six federal prosecutors resigned last month after Bondi directed them to investigate Good’s widow. Bondi later stated on Fox News that she “fired them all” for being part of the “resistance.” Lemon then hired one of those prosecutors, former U.S. Atty. Joe Thompson, to represent him in the case.
