Democrats walk out in protest over ‘outrageous fake’ Epstein briefing from Pam Bondi | Pam Bondi
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee walked out of a closed-door briefing by Attorney General Pam Bondi on 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 under oath.
The committee voted to subpoena Bondi earlier this month, with five Republicans joining Democrats in demanding that the attorney general answer questions about the Justice Department’s failure to properly disclose records from federal investigations into Epstein.
Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to try to assuage bipartisan frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of millions of records related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation. But less than an hour after the briefing began, Democrats walked out of the party to protest the arrangement.
Speaking outside the courtroom, Florida Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost said: “We asked her several times: Are you going to come and speak to us under oath? She wouldn’t say yes. The filibuster, the filibuster, the filibuster, the filibuster, wouldn’t say yes.”
“Our Republican colleagues are saying, ‘That’s not enough? Why won’t you talk to him now?’ We want her under oath because we don’t trust her. Why don’t we trust him? Because she’s a liar,” Frost added. “Look at how this judicial commission went. She was spying on members of Congress when they were at the Justice Department and reviewing unredacted documents… Look what she did, right down to not putting documents related to Donald Trump on the website.”
Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee said that when she asked how the committee would respond if Bondi refused to testify, the committee’s Republican chairman, James Comer, insulted her, accusing her of “whining.”
Comer later confirmed the interaction in a social media post: “I said the Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time because the Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time. »
Justice Department leaders had hoped that the release of documents related to the disgraced financier would end a political saga that has marred the president’s second term, but the agency remains consumed with questions and criticism over Epstein’s case and his handling of the files.
Bondi defended the department’s handling of the records and accused Democrats of using the furor over the documents to distract from the U.S. president’s policy successes, even though some of the harshest criticism has come from members of Trump’s own party.
The department also sought to assure lawmakers and the public that no effort was made to protect Trump, who says he severed ties with Epstein years ago after a previous friendship, or any other high-profile figures close to Epstein, from potential embarrassment.
The documents were released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that required the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidante and girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. The criminal investigations into the financier have long enlivened online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and others who suspected government cover-ups and demanded a full accounting.
