Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of President Donald Trump Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of the Justice Department\u2019s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing in which she postured herself as the Republican president\u2019s chief protector.<\/p>\n
Besieged by questions over Epstein and accusations of a weaponized Justice Department, Bondi aggressively pivoted in an extraordinary speech in which she mocked her Democratic questioners, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sit here and you attack the president and I\u2019m not going to have it,\u201d Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. \u201cI am not going to put up with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
With victims of Epstein seated behind her in the hearing room, Bondi forcefully defended the department\u2019s handling of the files related to the well-connected financier that have dogged her tenure. She accused Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from Trump\u2019s successes, when it was Republicans who initiated the furor over the files and Bondi herself fanned the flames by distributing binders to conservative influencers at the White House last year.<\/p>\n
The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly lobbing insults at Democrats while insisting she was not \u201cgoing to get in the gutter\u201d with them. In one particularly fiery exchange, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland accused Bondi of refusing to answer his questions, prompting the attorney general to call the top Democrat on the committee a \u201cwashed-up loser lawyer \u2014 not even a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trying to help Bondi amid an onslaught of Democratic criticism, Republicans tried to keep the focus on bread-and-butter law enforcement issues like violent crime and illegal immigration. Bondi repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding instead with attacks seemingly gleaned from news headlines as she sought to paint them as uninterested about violence in their districts. Democrats became exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to directly answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is pathetic. I am not asking trick questions,\u201d said Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to ask Bondi whether the Justice Department had questioned different Trump administration officials about their ties to Epstein. \u201cThe American people deserve to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bondi has struggled to move past the backlash over the Epstein files since handing out binders to a group of social media influencers at the White House in February 2025. The binders included no new revelations about Epstein, leading to even more calls from Trump\u2019s base for the files to be released.<\/p>\n
In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to law enforcement with any information and about their abuse and said she \u201cdeeply sorry\u201d for what they had suffered. She told the survivors that \u201cany accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she refused when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal to turn and face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologize for what Trump\u2019s Justice Department has \u201cput them through\u201d and accused the Democrat of \u201ctheatrics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bondi\u2019s appearance on Capitol Hill comes a year into her tumultuous tenure that has amplified concerns that the Justice Department is using its law enforcement powers to target political foes of the president. Just a day earlier, the department sought to secure charges against Democratic lawmakers who produced a video urging military service members not to follow \u201cillegal orders.\u201d But in an extraordinary rebuke of prosecutors, a grand jury in Washington refused to return an indictment.<\/p>\n
Turning aside criticism that the Justice Department under her watch has become politicized, Bondi touted the department\u2019s work to reduce violent crime and said she was determined to restore the department to its core missions after what she described as \u201cyears of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization.\u201d<\/p>\n
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan praised Bondi for undoing actions under President Joe Biden\u2019s Justice Department that Republicans say unfairly targeted conservatives \u2014 including Trump, who was charged in two criminal cases that were abandoned after his 2024 election victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a difference a year makes,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cUnder Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions \u2014 upholding the rule of law, going after the bad guys and keeping Americans safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi over haphazard redactions in the Epstein files that exposed intimate details about victims and also included nude photographs. A review by The Associated Press and other news organizations has found countless examples of sloppy, inconsistent or nonexistent redactions that have revealed sensitive private information.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re siding with the perpetrators and you\u2019re ignoring the victims,\u201d Raskin told Bondi in his opening statement. \u201cThat will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change the course. You\u2019re running a massive Epstein coverup right out of the Department of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky lawmaker who broke with his party to advance the legislation that forced the released of the Epstein files, also took Bondi to task for the release of victims\u2019 personal information, telling her: \u201cLiterally the worst thing you could do to survivors, you did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bondi told Massie that he was only focused on the files because Trump is mentioned in them, calling him a \u201chypocrite\u201d with \u201cTrump-derangement syndrome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Department officials have said they took pains to protect survivors, but that errors were inevitable given the volume of the materials and the speed at which the department had to release them. Bondi told lawmakers that the Justice Department took down files when they were made aware that they included victims\u2019 information and that staff had tried to do their \u201cvery best in the time frame allotted by the legislation\u201d mandating the release of the files.<\/p>\n
After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of transparency last year, the Justice Department said in July that it had concluded a review and determined that no Epstein \u201cclient list\u201d existed and there was no reason to make public additional files. That set off a furor that prompted Congress to pass the legislation demanding that the Justice Department release the files.<\/p>\n
The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represented a public walk-back of a theory that the Trump administration had helped promote when Bondi suggested in a Fox News interview last year that it was sitting on her desk for review. Bondi later said she was referring to the Epstein files in total, not a specific client list.<\/p>\n
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