Democratic lawmakers have grilled United States Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of the files pertaining to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, during a combative hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.
Wednesday’s hearing was entitled “Oversight of the US Department of Justice”, but the Epstein files quickly became a primary focus.
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“ As attorney general, you are siding with the perpetrators, and you’re ignoring the victims,” Democrat Jamie Raskin told Bondi at the outset.
“That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change course. You’re running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the Department of Justice.”
Since the start of his second term, US President Donald Trump and his administration have consistently faced questions about the decision to withhold or redact documents related to Epstein.
Trump himself has come under the microscope for his personal relationship to the late financier, who died in his jail cell in 2019 while awaiting federal charges.
At Wednesday’s hearing, women who had come forward as survivors of Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking ring and their families sat in the audience behind Bondi. They included Teresa Helm, Jess Michaels and Lara Blume McGee, as well as the family of the late Virginia Giuffre.
Representative Pramila Jayapal asked Bondi to apologise to Epstein’s victims. She and other Democrats criticised the Trump administration for not meeting with the survivors — and for the heavy redaction of the released Epstein files.
“Your department has shown a pattern of redacting the names of powerful predators,” Jayapal said.
She then asked the survivors to raise their hands if they had been unable to meet with the Department of Justice.
“For the record,” Jayapal added, “every single survivor has raised their hand.”
Bondi rejects criticism
Bondi responded harshly to the criticism she faced, saying that she would not “get in the gutter” with Jayapal and her fellow Democrats.
She also accused Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who helped spearhead a law forcing the release of the Epstein files, of having “Trump derangement syndrome”.
When asked whether she would investigate Trump’s links to Epstein, Bondi said that Democrats were using the Epstein affair to “deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done”.
Trump himself has faced criticism for calling the Epstein scandal a Democratic “hoax”.
But Al Jazeera correspondent Rosiland Jordan explained that Democrats were trying to leverage outrage over an issue that has transcended political parties.
After all, members of Trump’s