Bondi Spars With Lawmakers on Epstein, Targeting Trump Foes (2)

Democratic lawmakers accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of using the US Justice Department to target enemies of President Donald Trump and bungling the release of files on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein during a fiery hearing Wednesday.

“You’ve turned the people’s Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge,” said Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee in Washington. “Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza. And you deliver every time.”

Raskin cited Justice Department probes of former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and six members of Congress who recorded a video urging military service members to refuse unlawful orders. Prosecutors failed to get grand jury indictments of Comey and James, and the New York Times reported Tuesday that the department also failed to secure indictments of the lawmakers.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington on Feb. 11.

Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

“You replace real prosecutors with counterfeit stooges who robotically do the president’s bidding,” Raskin continued. “Nothing in American history comes close to this complete corruption of the Justice function and contamination of federal law enforcement.”

Bondi was making her first appearance before Congress since October and Democrats were quick to criticize her record. Bondi, backed by Republicans on the panel, touted her department’s record supporting Trump’s agenda, particularly against undocumented immigrants who have been accused of committing crimes.

“What a difference a year makes,” Republican Chairman Jim Jordan said in his opening remarks. “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.”

Bondi said that the Justice Department has pending investigations connected to Epstein but did not elaborate.

Read More: Bondi Says DOJ Has Pending Investigations Related to Epstein

During the exchange with lawmakers, Bondi continually flipped back and forth in a binder in front of her to fire back at individual lawmakers. She repeatedly praised Trump’s policies and presidency, and when she started talking about the stock market performance there was laughter in the hearing room.

“I don’t know why you’re laughing, you’re a great stock trader,” Bondi said, directing the barb to Raskin.

Epstein Files

Bondi also came under scrutiny by Democrats during the hearing over redactions of the so-called Epstein files — millions of documents related to criminal probes of the late disgraced financier. Critics claim the redactions were excessive and mishandled, including the failure to redact some victims’ information while hiding the names of alleged co-conspirators to Epstein.

Raskin introduced several women who were alleged victims of Epstein and were seated in the audience behind Bondi during her testimony.

Bondi apologized to the victims for what they experienced at Epstein’s hands. But she said she would not “play a yes-no game with you” when asked if she apologized to the victims whose names were publicly revealed in the files recently. She also chastised another Democrat for continually “going after Donald Trump, the greatest president in American history.”

Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state, said Bondi’s agency had shown a pattern of redacting the names of “powerful predators” while not protecting survivors.

“Survivors are now telling us that their families are finding out for the first time that they were trafficked by Epstein,” because the department failed to redact their names, Jayapal said.

At Jayapal’s request, Epstein survivors stood and raised their hands claiming they had not been able to meet with the Justice Department. Despite Jayapal’s demands, Bondi refused to turn around and acknowledge the survivors.

“What a massive cover-up this has been, and continues to be,” Jayapal said.

The hearing frequently digressed into shouting matches, as Democratic lawmakers tried to cut Bondi off when they thought she wasn’t answering their questions. The attorney general, in turn, flipped through her book and shot back with accusations — usually that the lawmakers didn’t care about protecting the public from undocumented immigrants who committed crimes.

Representative Jerry Nadler, Democrat of New York, got in a testy exchange with Bondi after he excoriated her for failing to indict any Epstein co-conspirators.

Rebecca Balint, a Democrat from Vermont, responded to Bondi’s accusation that she didn’t support a measure opposing antisemitism by shouting back: “Are you sure you want to talk to me about antisemitism, who lost my grandfather in the Holocaust?”

Bondi also fielded questions about Trump’s immigration crackdown, and the exodus of staff from US attorneys offices across the country.

In the wake of two fatal shootings of US citizens in Minneapolis by federal agents, Bondi doubled down on the federal presence and instead blamed state and local leaders for endangering public safety. The attorney general used the unrest to attempt to force the state to hand over voter information.

Minnesota is just one of 24 states and the District of Columbia that the Justice Department has sued under Bondi’s tenure in an unprecedented attempt to gather voter data. Election experts have alleged that the attorney general is attempting to purge voter rolls ahead of the pivotal midterm elections, and potentially laying the groundwork for legal challenges if the results don’t favor Republicans.

(Updates with new exchanges with lawmakers.)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Jimmy Jenkins in Washington at jjenkins199@bloomberg.net;
Matt Shirley in Washington at mshirley10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Elizabeth Wasserman, Steve Stroth

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