Former Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared on Capitol Hill for her long-awaited grilling over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, but she placed blame for the botched release on her former deputy Todd Blanche.
Blanche is now serving as acting attorney general after Bondi was fired by President Donald Trump about two months ago. He’s also the president’s former personal criminal lawyer.
Members of the House Oversight Committee have been waiting for months for the chance to grill Bondi after she was subpoenaed as part of its investigation.
In her prepared opening statement, before she even answered questions, Bondi threw Blanche under the bus.
“As the head of a large Department with broad responsibilities, I did not lead every aspect of this effort or conduct that document review myself,” Bondi said. “I delegated oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Blanche.”
“The team of professionals who reviewed all of the materials that we collected assured me the only materials that were withheld were either non-responsive, privileged, or duplicative,” she claimed.
Democrats responded to Bondi’s appearance by demanding that Blanche also come before the committee to answer questions, calling Bondi’s responses in the interview proof of a cover-up and “disgusting.”
They expressed deep frustration and anger when they spoke to reporters outside the closed-door session on Friday afternoon over her pointing fingers and refusing to answer multiple questions.
“Every single one of our questions got one of three responses: one, ‘not to my recollection,’ or ‘I don’t know,’ number two, ‘talk with Todd Blanche, I don’t know anything about it,’ and three, ‘I am not talking about Donald Trump,’” said Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost.
The Florida Democrat blasted Bondi for either not knowing or claiming that “Todd Blanche was running the entire operation.”
Ranking Member Robert Garcia confirmed to reporters that Democrats would submit a request to Chairman James Comer to call Blanche in for questioning and did not rule out forcing a subpoena.
They are also demanding that FBI Director Kash Patel be called in for a grilling as part of the probe.
Unlike other witnesses that have gone before the committee as part of its investigation, Bondi was not under oath, and her questioning was not conducted on camera.
Democrats blasted the deposition for not being under oath and argued it would have been if Bondi had actually complied with their original subpoena issued months ago.
Right before Bondi was subpoenaed to testify, she was fired by Trump. The Justice Department then claimed she did not need to comply with the subpoena because she was not the attorney general, despite being subpoenaed by name.
Democrats also slammed a Justice Department attorney sitting in during the grilling and acting as counsel to Bondi, despite her no longer being the attorney general.
“The fact that she is appearing as a voluntary witness today, voluntary interview is important because she’s claiming that she’s not complying with the subpoena. She’s claiming the subpoena doesn’t apply to her because she’s no longer with the Department of Justice,” Rep. Dave Min, a former law professor, said.
“But at the same time, as has been noted, you have two DOJ attorneys in there. If it’s a personal interview voluntarily done, why is the DOJ so heavily involved? It doesn’t make any sense unless you think about it as a cover-up,” he continued.
House Democrats claimed that Bondi acknowledged during the session that the Justice Department had not yet released about three million of the six million Epstein files.
Blanche had recently indicated that no more files would be released, despite the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the release of all files with limited exceptions and redactions.
Bondi also pleaded ignorance when it came to Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell being transferred to a minimum security prison right after she sat down for an interview with Blanche last year, Democrats revealed.
