Attorney General Pam Bondi clashed with lawmakers during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, with the Justice Department’s handling of its Jeffrey Epstein records and its attempts to prosecute critics of President Donald Trump causing the most tension.
Bondi and her agency face increased pressure from the White House to deliver victories on Trump’s agenda — and frustration, including from Trump himself, at what they perceive to be the slow progress and a number of setbacks in the courts.
At times, Bondi’s performance at the roughly 4½-hour-long hearing seemed targeted specifically for Trump. She appeared to be reading off written talking points on occasion and sang Trump’s praises, calling him “the greatest president in American history.”
Wednesday's hearing devolved 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 the issue “nothing short of a failure.”
“Do your job, Pam,” Roberts said.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., asked the women to stand up before she challenged Bondi to turn to them and apologize for the Justice Department's failure to fully redact their names when the files were made public.
Bondi declined and later asked Democrats whether 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 repeatedly accused Democrats of “theatrics” and said she would not “get in the gutter with these people,” though she repeatedly lobbed personal attacks at Democratic lawmakers. She called Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, a “washed-up lawyer” and 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 she “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 Justice Department to release the 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 Justice Department’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 about the fact that some Epstein survivors' names were not redacted. She blamed the omissions on the Justice Department 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 this month.
“We did the best we could," she said.
Roy also asked whether 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 referring to. 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 taking part in “coordinated judicial opposition” to the Trump administration.
“Weaponization has ended,” Bondi declared after she told the committee's chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that she had received his criminal referral asking for former CIA Director John Brennan to be prosecuted.
Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., questioned Bondi about the Justice Department's continued employment of Jared Wise, a Jan. 6 defendant caught on video yelling "kill 'em" at officers protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6. Wise is playing a key role in the Weaponization Working Group, which is expected to release a report focused on the Trump administration's claims of Biden-era "weaponization."
“I believe he was pardoned by President Trump,” Bondi responded. Shortly afterward, while she was being questioned by a different member, Bondi pivoted back to Neguse and accused him of not taking crime in his district seriously.
Raskin said Bondi had “turned the people’s Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge."
“Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza, and you deliver every time he tells you to go after James Comey, Letitia James, Lisa Cook and Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve Board, and members of Congress,” Raskin said.
A White House aide told NBC News that Trump has complained about Bondi to aides and allies in recent weeks, describing her as weak and insufficiently aggressive in pursuing cases against his perceived opponents. Responding to reports that first emerged in The Wall Street Journal, the White House issued a statement from Trump saying Bondi was "doing an excellent job" and passed along statements praising Bondi from Vice President JD Vance, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Bondi and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., a prominent Trump critic, did reach a moment of collegiality after Swalwell raised concerns about his family's safety. Swalwell, who has repeatedly spoken out about he received death threats, told NBC News last year that the Justice Department hadn't brought charges against people who threatened him and said he had limited his kids' being in the front yard of their home because of the threats. Swalwell asked Bondi on Wednesday why the Justice Department hadn’t brought charges against anyone.
"None of you should be threatened, ever," Bondi said, addressing all the lawmakers present. "None of your children should be threatened. None of your families should be threatened."
