WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pam Bondi defended President Donald Trump Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from 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 and 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 defended the department's handling of the files related to the well-connected financier that dogged her tenure.
Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies Wednesday before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington as Jeffrey Epstein survivors stand at left.
She accused Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from Trump's successes, when it was Republicans who initiated the furor over the files 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 hurling 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."
Bondi repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding instead with attacks as she sought to paint them as uninterested about violence in their districts. Democrats became exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to directly answer.
"This is pathetic. I am not asking trick questions," said Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to ask Bondi whether the Justice Department questioned different Trump administration officials about their ties to Epstein. "The American people deserve to know."
In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to law enforcement with any information and about their abuse and said she was "deeply sorry" for what they suffered. She told the survivors that "any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated."
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., center, speaks Wednesday as Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
But she refused when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal to turn and face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologize for what Trump's Justice Department "put them through" and accused the Democrat of "theatrics."
Bondi's appearance on Capitol Hill comes a year into her tumultuous tenure that 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." A grand jury in Washington refused to return an indictment.
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan praised Bondi for undoing actions under President Joe Biden's Justice Department that Republicans claim unfairly targeted conservatives — including Trump, who was charged in two criminal cases that were abandoned after his 2024 election victory.
Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi over haphazard redactions in the Epstein files that exposed intimate details about victims and also included nude photographs. A review by The Associated Press and other news organizations 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 coverup right out of the Department of Justice."
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., 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."
Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies Wednesday before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Department officials said they took pains to protect survivors, but that errors were inevitable given the volume of the materials and the speed at which the department had to release them.
After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of transparency last year, the Justice Department said in July that it concluded a review and determined that no Epstein "client list" existed and there was no reason to make public additional files.
That set off a furor that prompted Congress to pass the bipartisan 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 helped promote when Bondi suggested in a Fox News interview last year that it was sitting on her desk for review. Bondi later claimed she referred to the Epstein files in total, not a specific client list.
