Pam Bondi Defends DOJ Handling Of Epstein Cases Before House Judiciary Committee

Bondi under fire

Pam Bondi testified before the House Judiciary Committee during a tumultuous congressional hearing on Wednesday, defending how the Department of Justice handled the Epstein cases while facing hostile questions on other topics.

Bondi described Epstein as a "monster" and apologized to the victims for the abuse they suffered, but Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal pressed her over what she said was a failure to meet the legal obligation to mask victims' names.

Bondi retorted to Jayapal that her questions were "theatrical" and added: "I will not lower myself to the level of this woman."

Epstein survivor Marina Lacerda told the BBC that Bondi was not willing to help the survivors, saying: "She did not answer any of our calls. She did not respond to any of our emails. She completely ignored us, just as she did today," as the hearing unfolded with several Epstein victims sitting behind Bondi.

Reporting for this sectionBBC

Files, redactions, and names

The hearing followed the Justice Department's earlier release of millions of additional files from its investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of sexual offenses, and lawmakers repeatedly referenced survivors seated behind Bondi.

Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal said that in some cases, nude images of survivors had been broadcast, while some of them had their identities protected "for decades," and she asked Bondi to apologize to the victims for how the Justice Department had handled the redactions.

Thomas Massie told Bondi he wanted to know who was responsible for the redactions and whether anyone would be held accountable for this "failure," and Bondi responded by calling it "political theater."

The BBC also reported that FBI Director Kash Patel intervened to say there was "no evidence" Epstein had supplied women to Wexner, while a legal representative for Wexner told the BBC that the U.S. Deputy Attorney General told Wexner's attorney in 2019 that Wexner was considered a source of information and was "in no way a target of the investigation."

Reporting for this sectionBBC

What the documents add

Beyond the hearing, newly released government files described more details about Epstein's interactions with wealthy and famous people after he had served a Florida sentence for sexual offenses, and about how much investigators knew about his abuse of minors when they decided not to charge him with federal counts nearly two decades ago. Clarin reported that the Justice Department under President Donald Trump said it would publish more than three million pages of documents along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images under a law designed to reveal most of the material the agency collected during two decades of investigation into the wealthy financier.

The files, published on the department's website, included communications with former White House aides, a co-owner of an NFL team, and billionaires such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk, and Clarin said the records showed Musk contacted Epstein at least twice to plan visits to a Caribbean island where much of Epstein's sexual abuses allegedly occurred. For the stakes around what the documents mean for accountability, Forbes reported that Epstein's attorneys were in discussions with prosecutors about a "proffer" in which Epstein could provide helpful information about other defendants in exchange for a more lenient sentence for himself, while the New York Times reporting described Epstein as "preoccupied" with trying to provide information about President Donald Trump.

Reporting for this sectionClarinForbes