Bondi, Democrats Clash at Hearing      02/12 06:26

   Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of Donald 
Trump on Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of 
the Justice Department's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly 
shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing in which she postured herself 
as the Republican president's chief protector.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate 
defense of Donald Trump on Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from 
relentless criticism of the Justice Department's handling of the Jeffrey 
Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing in 
which she postured herself as the Republican president's chief protector.

   Besieged by questions over Epstein and accusations of a weaponized Justice 
Department, Bondi aggressively pivoted in an extraordinary speech in which she 
mocked her Democratic questioners, praised Trump over the performance of the 
stock market and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she 
painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.

   "You sit here and you attack the president and I'm not going to have it," 
Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. "I am not going to put 
up with it."

   With victims of Epstein seated behind her in the hearing room, Bondi 
forcefully defended the department's handling of the files related to the 
well-connected financier, an issue that has dogged her tenure. She accused 
Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from Trump's successes, even 
though it was Republicans who initiated the furor over the records and Bondi 
herself fanned the flames by distributing binders to conservative influencers 
at the White House last year.

   The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly 
lobbing insults at Democrats while insisting she was not "going to get in the 
gutter" with them. In one particularly fiery exchange, Rep. Jamie Raskin of 
Maryland accused Bondi of refusing to answer his questions, prompting the 
attorney general to call the top Democrat on the committee a "washed-up loser 
lawyer -- not even a lawyer."

   Aiming to help Bondi amid an onslaught of Democratic criticism, Republicans 
tried to keep the focus on bread-and-butter law enforcement issues like violent 
crime and illegal immigration. Bondi, for her part, repeatedly deflected 
questions from Democrats, responding instead with attacks seemingly gleaned 
from news headlines as she sought to cast them as disinterested in violence in 
their districts. Democrats grew exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to 
directly answer.

   "This is pathetic. This is pathetic," said Rep. Becca Balint, a Vermont 
Democrat who tried to ask Bondi about different Trump administration officials 
revealed to have had ties to Epstein. "I am not asking trick questions here. 
The American people have a right to know the answers to this."

   Bondi has struggled to move past the backlash over the Epstein files since 
she handed out the binders to a group of social media influencers in February 
2025. The binders included no new revelations about Epstein, leading to even 
more calls from Trump's base for the files to be released.

   In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to law 
enforcement with any information about their abuse and said she was "deeply 
sorry" for what they had suffered. She told the survivors that "any accusation 
of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated."

   But she refused when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., to turn and 
face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologize for what Trump's Justice 
Department has "put them through." She accused the Democrat of "theatrics."

   Bondi's appearance on Capitol Hill came a year into her tumultuous tenure, 
which has amplified concerns that the Justice Department is using its law 
enforcement powers to target political foes of the president. Just a day 
earlier, the department sought to secure charges against Democratic lawmakers 
who produced a video urging military service members not to follow "illegal 
orders." But in an extraordinary rebuke of prosecutors, a grand jury in 
Washington refused to return an indictment.

   Turning aside criticism that the Justice Department under her watch has 
become politicized, Bondi touted the department's work to reduce violent crime 
and said she was determined to restore the department to its core missions 
after what she described as "years of bloated bureaucracy and political 
weaponization."

   GOP Rep. Jim Jordan praised Bondi for undoing actions under President Joe 
Biden's Justice Department that Republicans say unfairly targeted conservatives 
-- including Trump, who was charged in two federal criminal cases that were 
abandoned after his 2024 election victory.

   "What a difference a year makes," Jordan said. "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."

   Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi over haphazard redactions in the 
Epstein files that exposed intimate details about victims and included nude 
photographs. A review by The Associated Press and other news organizations has 
found countless examples of sloppy, inconsistent or nonexistent redactions that 
have revealed sensitive private information.

   "You're siding with the perpetrators and you're ignoring the victims," 
Raskin told Bondi in his opening statement. "That will be your legacy unless 
you act quickly to change the course. You're running a massive Epstein cover-up 
right out of the Department of Justice."

   Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who broke with his party to 
advance the legislation that forced the released of the Epstein files, also 
took Bondi to task for the release of victims' personal information, telling 
her, "Literally the worst thing you could do to survivors, you did."

   Bondi told Massie that he was only focused on the files because Trump is 
mentioned in them, calling him a "hypocrite" with "Trump derangement syndrome."

   Department officials have said they took pains to protect survivors, but 
errors were inevitable given the volume of the materials and the speed at which 
the department had to release them. Bondi told lawmakers that the Justice 
Department had taken down files when it was made aware that they included 
victims' information and said staff had tried to do their "very best in the 
time frame allotted by the legislation" mandating the release of the files.

   After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of 
transparency last year, the Justice Department said in July that it had 
concluded a review and determined that no Epstein "client list" existed and 
there was no reason to make additional files public. That set off a furor that 
prompted Congress to pass legislation demanding that the Justice Department 
release the files.

   The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of 
clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represented a public walk-back 
of a theory that the Trump administration had helped promote when Bondi 
suggested in a Fox News interview last year that it was sitting on her desk for 
review. Bondi later said she was referring to the Epstein files in total, not a 
specific client list.