Bondi clashes with Democrats as she struggles to turn the page on Epstein files furor

Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington [AP Photo]

Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of Donald Trump on Wednesday (yesterday, Macau time) as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing in which she postured herself as the Republican president’s chief protector.

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.

“You sit here and you attack the president and I’m not going to have it,” Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. “I am not going to put up with it.”

With victims of Epstein seated behind her in the hearing room, Bondi forcefully defended the department’s handling of the files related to the well-connected financier, an issue that has dogged her tenure. She accused Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from Trump’s successes, even though it was Republicans who initiated the furor over the records and Bondi herself fanned the flames by distributing binders to conservative influencers at the White House last year.

A partisan brawl

The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly lobbing insults at Democrats while insisting she was not “going to get in the gutter” 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 “washed-up loser lawyer — not even a lawyer.”

Aiming 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, for her part, repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding instead with attacks seemingly gleaned from news headlines as she sought to cast them as disinterested in violence in their districts. Democrats grew exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to directly answer.

“This is pathetic. This is pathetic,” said Rep. Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to ask Bondi about different Trump administration officials revealed to have had ties to Epstein. “I am not asking trick questions here. The American people have a right to know the answers to this.”

Bondi has struggled to move past the backlash over the Epstein files since she handed out the binders to a group of social media influencers in February 2025. The binders included no new revelations about Epstein, leading to even more calls from Trump’s base for the files to be released.

In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to law enforcement with any information about their abuse and said she was “deeply sorry” for what they had suffered. She told the survivors that “any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.”

But she refused when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., to turn and face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologize for what Trump’s Justice Department has “put them through.” She accused the Democrat of “theatrics.”

A tumultuous tenure

Bondi’s appearance on Capitol Hill came a year into her tumultuous tenure, which 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 “illegal orders.” But in an extraordinary rebuke of prosecutors, a grand jury in Washington refused to return an indictment.

Turning aside criticism that the Justice Department under her watch has become politicized, Bondi touted the department’s work to reduce violent crime and said she was determined to restore the department to its core missions after what she described as “years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization.”

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan praised Bondi for undoing actions under President Joe Biden’s Justice Department that Republicans say unfairly targeted conservatives — including Trump, who was charged in two federal criminal cases that were abandoned after his 2024 election victory.

“What a difference a year makes,” Jordan said. “Under Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions — upholding the rule of law, going after the bad guys and keeping Americans safe.”

Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi over haphazard redactions in the Epstein files that exposed intimate details about victims and 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.

“You’re siding with the perpetrators and you’re ignoring the victims,” Raskin told Bondi in his opening statement. “That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change the course. You’re running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the Department of Justice.”

‘Trump derangement syndrome’

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican 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’ personal information, telling her, “Literally the worst thing you could do to survivors, you did.”

Bondi told Massie that he was only focused on the files because Trump is mentioned in them, calling him a “hypocrite” with “Trump derangement syndrome.”

Department officials have said they took pains to protect survivors, but 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 had taken down files when it was made aware that they included victims’ information and said staff had tried to do their “very best in the time frame allotted by the legislation” mandating the release of the files.

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 “client list” existed and there was no reason to make additional files public. That set off a furor that prompted Congress to pass legislation demanding that the Justice Department release the files.

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. ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, WASHINGTON, MDT/AP