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

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defence of President Donald Trump Wednesday arsenic she tried to crook the leafage from relentless disapproval of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly shouting astatine Democrats during a combative proceeding successful which she postured herself arsenic the Republican president's main protector.

Besieged by questions implicit Epstein and accusations of a weaponized Justice Department, Bondi aggressively pivoted successful an bonzer code successful which she mocked her Democratic questioners, praised Trump implicit the show of the banal marketplace and openly aligned herself arsenic successful sync with a president whom she painted arsenic a unfortunate of past impeachments and investigations.

“You beryllium present and you onslaught the president and I’m not going to person it," Bondi told lawmakers connected the House Judiciary Committee. "I americium not going to enactment up with it.”

With victims of Epstein seated down her successful the proceeding room, Bondi forcefully defended the department's handling of the files related to the well-connected financier that person dogged her tenure. She accused Democrats of utilizing the Epstein files to distract from Trump's successes, erstwhile it was Republicans who initiated the furor implicit the files and Bondi herself fanned the flames by distributing binders to blimpish influencers astatine the White House past year.

The proceeding rapidly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly lobbing insults astatine Democrats portion insisting she was not “going to get successful the gutter” with them. In 1 peculiarly fiery exchange, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland accused Bondi of refusing to reply his questions, prompting the lawyer wide to telephone the apical Democrat connected the committee a “washed-up loser lawyer — not adjacent a lawyer.”

Trying to assistance Bondi amid an onslaught of Democratic criticism, Republicans tried to support the absorption connected bread-and-butter instrumentality enforcement issues similar convulsive transgression and amerciable immigration. Bondi repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding alternatively with attacks seemingly gleaned from quality headlines arsenic she sought to overgarment them arsenic uninterested astir unit successful their districts. Democrats became exasperated arsenic Bondi declined clip and again to straight answer.

“This is pathetic. I americium not asking instrumentality questions," said Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to inquire Bondi whether the Justice Department had questioned antithetic Trump medication officials astir their ties to Epstein. “The American radical merit to know.”

Bondi has struggled to determination past the backlash implicit the Epstein files since handing retired binders to a radical of societal media influencers astatine the White House successful February 2025. The binders included nary caller revelations astir Epstein, starring to adjacent much calls from Trump’s basal for the files to beryllium released.

In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to travel guardant to instrumentality enforcement with immoderate accusation and astir their maltreatment and said she “deeply sorry” for what they had suffered. She told the survivors that “any accusation of transgression wrongdoing volition beryllium taken earnestly and investigated.”

But she refused erstwhile pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal to crook and look the Epstein victims successful the assemblage and apologize for what Trump's Justice Department has “put them through" and accused the Democrat of “theatrics.”

Bondi’s quality connected Capitol Hill comes a twelvemonth into her tumultuous tenure that has amplified concerns that the Justice Department is utilizing its instrumentality enforcement powers to people governmental foes of the president. Just a time earlier, the section sought to unafraid charges against Democratic lawmakers who produced a video urging subject work members not to travel “illegal orders.” But successful an bonzer rebuke of prosecutors, a expansive assemblage successful Washington refused to instrumentality an indictment.

Turning speech disapproval that the Justice Department nether her ticker has go politicized, Bondi touted the department’s enactment to trim convulsive transgression and said she was determined to reconstruct the section to its halfway missions aft what she described arsenic “years of bloated bureaucracy and governmental weaponization.”

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan praised Bondi for undoing actions nether President Joe Biden's Justice Department that Republicans accidental unfairly targeted conservatives — including Trump, who was charged successful 2 transgression cases that were abandoned aft his 2024 predetermination victory.

“What a quality a twelvemonth makes," Jordan said. "Under Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its halfway missions — upholding the regularisation of law, going aft the atrocious guys and keeping Americans safe."

Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi implicit haphazard redactions successful the Epstein files that exposed intimate details astir victims and besides included nude photographs. A reappraisal by The Associated Press and different quality organizations has recovered countless examples of sloppy, inconsistent oregon nonexistent redactions that person revealed delicate backstage information.

“You’re siding with the perpetrators and you’re ignoring the victims," Raskin told Bondi successful his opening statement. “That volition beryllium your bequest unless you enactment rapidly to alteration the course. You're moving a monolithic Epstein coverup close retired of the Department of Justice."

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky lawmaker who broke with his enactment to beforehand the authorities that forced the released of the Epstein files, besides took Bondi to task for the merchandise of victims’ idiosyncratic information, telling her: “Literally the worst happening you could bash to survivors, you did.”

Bondi told Massie that helium was lone focused connected the files due to the fact that Trump is mentioned successful them, calling him a “hypocrite” with “Trump-derangement syndrome."

Department officials person said they took pains to support survivors, but that errors were inevitable fixed the measurement of the materials and the velocity astatine which the section had to merchandise them. Bondi told lawmakers that the Justice Department took down files erstwhile they were made alert that they included victims’ accusation and that unit had tried to bash their "very champion successful the clip framework allotted by the legislation” mandating the merchandise of the files.

After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of transparency past year, the Justice Department said successful July that it had concluded a reappraisal and determined that nary Epstein “client list” existed and determination was nary crushed to marque nationalist further files. That acceptable disconnected a furor that prompted Congress to walk the authorities demanding that the Justice Department merchandise the files.

The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not person a database of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represented a nationalist walk-back of a mentation that the Trump medication had helped beforehand erstwhile Bondi suggested successful a Fox News interrogation past twelvemonth that it was sitting connected her table for review. Bondi aboriginal said she was referring to the Epstein files successful total, not a circumstantial lawsuit list.

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