Democrats on the House oversight committee walked out of a closed-door briefing from attorney general Pam Bondi about the Jeffrey Epstein files on Wednesday, leaving what California congressman Robert Garcia called “an outrageous fake hearing” after Bondi refused to commit to honoring a subpoena to testify under oath.
The committee voted to subpoena Bondi earlier this month, with five Republicans joining Democrats to demand that the attorney general answer questions about the justice department’s failure to properly release files from the federal investigations into Epstein.
Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to try to quell bipartisan frustration over the justice department’s handling of millions of files related to Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation. But less than an hour into the briefing, Democrats walked out in protest of the arrangement.
Speaking outside the hearing room, Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the Florida congressman, said: “We asked her multiple times, are you going to come and speak with us under oath? She would not say yes. Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster, would not say yes.”
“Our Republican colleagues say: ‘Is this not enough? Why don’t you want to speak to her now?’ We want her under oath because we do not trust her. Why don’t we trust her? Because she’s a liar,” Frost added. “Look at how that judiciary committee went. She was spying on members of Congress when they were in the DoJ looking at the documents unredacted … Look at what she’s done, as far as not putting documents related to Donald Trump on the website.”
Summer Lee, a Pennsylvania congresswoman, said that when she asked how the committee would respond if Bondi refused to testify, the Republican chair of the committee, James Comer, insulted her by accusing her of “bitching”.
Comer later confirmed the interaction in a social media post: “I said Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time because Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time.”
Justice department leaders had hoped the release of documents tied to the disgraced financier would put an end to a political saga that has dogged the president’s second term, but the agency remains consumed by questions and criticism over Epstein’s case and its management of the files.
Bondi has defended the department’s handling of the files and has accused Democrats of using the furor over the documents to distract from the US president’s political successes, even though some of the most vocal criticism has come from members of Trump’s own party.
The department has also sought to assure lawmakers and the public that there has been no effort to shield Trump, who says he cut ties with Epstein years ago after an earlier friendship, or any other high-profile figures close to Epstein from potential embarrassment.
The documents were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidant and girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Criminal investigations into the financier have long animated online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and others who have suspected government cover-ups and clamored for a full accounting.
