Donald Trump wants America to move past the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, telling reporters last week that “it’s really time for the country to get on to something else” while claiming he’s been totally exonerated of any wrongdoing.
America is still interested, though, as are lawmakers, who have expressed alarm this week after viewing unredacted versions of the government’s files on the disgraced financier. “There’s a bunch of sick fucks,” Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) responded when Drop Site News asked her what she could say about the unredacted files.
The tension between Congress and the administration came to a head on Wednesday, when Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before the House Judiciary Committee. Bondi lashed out at lawmakers, refused to answer questions, and strained to defend her’s and the president’s record over the past year. Republicans defended her, even as polling shows single-digit approval for the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein saga.
Congress voted in November to compel the Department of Justice to release all of its files on Epstein. The administration had a month to comply, but the rollout has been fraught with delays, sloppy redactions, and continued efforts by the administration to skirt full compliance with the law. Chief among congressional lawmakers’ concerns are allegations that the Department of Justice and FBI redacted the names of individuals connected to Epstein to protect them from reputational harm, which is explicitly prohibited by the law that compelled the release of the files.
On Tuesday, lawmakers who had been given an opportunity to review unredacted documents said they had identified at least six men whose identities had been redacted in documents. “What I saw that bothered me were the names of at least six men that have been redacted that are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — a longtime critic of the president and the lead Republican in the bipartisan push to release the files — told reporters after visiting the DOJ. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) made similar observations in a speech on the House floor shortly after reviewing the unredacted files. “If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files.”
Bondi was combative during the hearing on Wednesday, refusing to look at Democrats while they questioned her and yelling at lawmakers who called her out for refusing to answer straightforward questions about her department’s handling of the files.
In one instance, Bondi threw the room into chaos after Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked if she would apologize to Epstein survivors — some of whom were present in the room — for the DOJ’s mishandling of sensitive identifying information, including their names and photos.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
Bondi tried to deflect by invoking her predecessor, former Attorney General Merrick Garland. When Jayapal moved to redirect Bondi back to the question, the attorney general complained to committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “I’m not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics,” Bondi yelled as Jayapal attempted to reclaim her time. “I’m not going to get in the gutter with this woman.”
Survivors in the room were asked at one point to stand and raise their hands if they had yet to be granted a meeting with Bondi to discuss their cases. All of the women present raised their hands.
Over the weekend, the anti-human-trafficking organization World Without Exploitation released a Super Bowl ad in collaboration with Epstein’s survivors. The women, appearing with black tape over their mouths, held up photos of themselves as young women and girls. The ad noted that 3 million files had yet to be released, and called attention to the liberal use of redactions by the DOJ. “After years of being kept apart, we’re standing together,” the ad said, “because we all deserve the truth.”
“Stand with us. Tell Attorney General Pam Bondi it’s time for the truth,” read a title card at the end of the video.
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee did no such thing, repeatedly allowing Bondi to rant at Democratic lawmakers or, alternatively, sing the praises of Trump.
After several bouts of verbal sparring, in which Bondi spoke over Democratic members of the committee, ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told Jordan that the Republicans “can let her filibuster all day long, but not on our watch, not on our time. No way. And I told you about that, attorney general, before you started.”
Bondi replied by angrily retorting, “You don’t tell me anything you washed-up loser lawyer — not even a lawyer.”
The lengths Bondi went to avoid confronting her department’s handling of the Epstein case veered into the absurd. At one point, she went on an extended aside about the stock market. “The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P is at almost 7,000. The Nasdaq is smashing records,” she yelled. “Americans’ 401(k)s and retirement savings are booming. That’s what we should be talking about. We should be talking about making Americans safe.”
Massie addressed Bondi’s repeated deflections when speaking to reporters outside of the hearing. “She didn’t answer anything,” he said. “She came here to talk about the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq, which seems kind of crazy to me.”
From Rolling Stone US
