Former AG Pam Bondi distances herself from Epstein files to lawmakers

Former attorney general Pam Bondi appeared on Capitol Hill on Friday to face lawmakers in a closed-door meeting and attempted to distance herself from the Justice Department’s widely criticized handling of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Bondi — whom President Donald Trump fired as attorney general in April — declined to answer questions from members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about Trump’s involvement in anything surrounding the Epstein files, according to Democratic lawmakers’ remarks to reporters after the private interview.

They said she told lawmakers that they would need to direct many of their questions to her former No. 2 — Todd Blanche, who is now the acting attorney general — suggesting that he was responsible for much of the handling of the Epstein files, not her.

Congress is currently on recess and many lawmakers on the committee did not attend.

Bondi said that “Acting attorney general Blanche was managing the entire investigation,” Rep. Robert Garcia (California), the top Democrat on the committee, told reporters during a mid-interview break.

In prepared opening remarks and on social media after the interview, Bondi defended Blanche and the Justice Department’s handling of the files. She was accompanied to the interview by Harmeet K. Dhillon, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

Dhillon told reporters that Blanche’s central role in the matter was reflective of the attorney general’s need to delegate tasks to trusted deputies.

“I praised Acting AG Blanche’s management of this Herculean task. I said his ethics are beyond reproach and that he is an incredible Attorney General,” Bondi wrote on social media after the interview.

The interview with Bondi was the culmination of months of back and forth between lawmakers and the former attorney general, who received rare bipartisan criticism for her choppy and slow release of the sex-trafficking investigatory files related to the disgraced financier.

Bondi was first subpoenaed in March, when she was still leading the law enforcement agency, to be deposed before the committee as it examined how the Justice Department handled issues surrounding the Epstein files.

But once Bondi was fired, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the Oversight Committee, allowed her to simply be interviewed by lawmakers without being sworn in and testifying under oath.

Despite protests from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, Comer agreed that the interview with Bondi would not be taped, only transcribed.

The Justice Department has said it would review the transcript before it is released, according to correspondence that the agency sent to Comer ahead of the interview.

Bondi and Blanche voluntarily briefed the committee behind closed doors in March, but Democrats balked at the terms of the appearance and walked out less than an hour after it started.

This latest interview also did not appear to satisfy Democratic lawmakers, however, and Garcia said they want Blanche to testify next in front of the committee. If the acting attorney general refuses, Garcia added, they would try to compel him by issuing a subpoena.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Friday’s interview. Dhillon did not respond to a request for comment from her or Bondi about the Democratic lawmakers’ portrayal of the meeting.

The Epstein files have been a major political headache for the Trump administration during the entirety of the president’s second term, with members of the public and lawmakers demanding more transparency regarding the Justice Department’s investigation of Epstein.

Much of that demand is a result of Trump and the allies he installed in powerful administration positions spending years spreading conspiracy theories about the case, including claiming without evidence that Democrats were covering up the truth about the Epstein investigation to protect powerful allies.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to two charges of soliciting prostitution, including one involving a minor. He was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019, during Trump’s first term, and died in federal custody that year. His death was ruled a suicide.

Judges and lawmakers say that over decades, he abused, trafficked and molested scores of girls, many of whom have come forward in court and in other public forums.

Trump and other powerful men were longtime friends with Epstein, leading to more questions and high-profile intrigue around the case.

Trump was mentioned by name multiple times throughout the hundreds of thousands of released Epstein files pages, often showing him socializing with Epstein. There were also unproved and unsubstantiated allegations against Trump in these records, although being mentioned in investigatory files does not suggest any criminal wrongdoing.

Trump and Epstein had a falling out in the mid-2000s, and Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in connection to Epstein.

Garcia told reporters: “I also personally asked the former AG five times and five different questions about her conversations with President Trump, whether he directed her at any given time on the Epstein files, what he knew, what he asked her to redact or not, and she refused to answer any questions about President Trump. In fact, she said that she would not speak or respond to any questions that [have] anything to do with President Trump.”

When Bondi became attorney general, she initially vowed to release the Epstein files. But she later backtracked, saying that there was nothing substantive to release that was not already public.

That prompted Congress to pass the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act in November, and Trump signed it into law, setting a Dec. 19 deadline for the Justice Department to release the files. The department struggled to get its arms around the massive project and find an orderly way to make the files available to the public.

In an unusual situation, Bondi attended the Friday interview with Dhillon, who was acting as counsel for the Justice Department during the interview. Dhillon directed Bondi when not to answer questions, according to lawmakers in attendance.

The Justice Department said in its correspondence with Comer ahead of the interview that the agency did not expect Bondi to also have personal counsel with her.

“I’m not going to get into my reasoning,” Dhillon told reporters after the interview when asked why she told Bondi not to answer certain questions. “We represent the Justice Department and that’s between us and the Department of Justice.”

Several Epstein survivors waited in the halls of Congress while Bondi testified.

Comer, speaking ahead of the interview this morning, said this marked the committee’s 13th interview as part of its investigation of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein investigation. He said the government failed the victims.

“It’s not just this administration. It goes back several administrations,” Comer said.