Inside Attorney General Pam Bondi's Epstein files testimony - Manual RedEye

On Wednesday, Feb. 11, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi gave testimony before the House Judiciary Committee regarding files related to Jeffrey Epstein where she defended the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of them.

The heated hearing surrounded the DOJ’s choice to release the files after the set deadline on Dec. 19, 2025, as well as the files’ inclusion of victim names and unexplained redaction of other individuals’ names. Victims’ names were included despite the law stating the DOJ must retract victims’ names and images of victims.

During the testimony, Bondi took questions from both Republicans and Democrats. Her testimony lasted nearly five hours and involved many hostile exchanges.

At one point, Rep. Ted Lieu accused Bondi of lying under oath after stating that there was no evidence proving President Donald Trump had committed a crime. Bondi responded to this allegation by saying, “Don’t you ever accuse me of a crime.”

“Under Article I, Congress has the power of oversight. And if you come before them and you don’t answer the questions in good faith, in a way you are abdicating your responsibilities,” Tim Holman (Social Studies) said.

When Rep. Pramila Jayapal requested that every survivor in the room raise their hand if they had not been able to speak with the DOJ, every survivor present raised their hand, according to Jayapal.

Rep. Jamie Raskin requested during opening remarks that Bondi address and acknowledge the victims present, something that representatives stressed she had failed to do thus far.

When Jayapal asked Bondi to apologize to victims present for the actions of the DOJ, she refused. However, she apologized for “what any victim, any victim, has been through,” calling Epstein a “monster.”

“It’s really appalling that she wouldn’t apologize for the obvious mishandling of events, and that she wouldn’t admit to the failure on behalf of the department when clearly there were mistakes made in the way that they went about releasing the field and the timeline that they did it on and that she wouldn’t apologize to the victims, I think is really sad and disheartening,” said Josephine Wright (11, J&C), vice president of the Young Democrats club at Manual.

“My views do not represent the club or any other organization. They’re just my own personal views in my capacity as a private citizen,” Wright said.

House members were particularly disconcerted to see that Bondi seemingly had a book of members’ search history and receipts.

“It is totally inappropriate and against the separations of powers for the DOJ to surveil us as we search the Epstein files. Bondi showed up today with a burn book that held a printed search history of exactly what emails I searched. That is outrageous and I intend to pursue this and stop this spying on members,” Jayapal said in a social media post.

According to recent polling, the majority of Americans, regardless of party affiliation, report that the handling of the files has resulted in lower trust in government leaders.

“Obviously, huge numbers of Democrats and independents are very critical of how they’re releasing it and how they’re behaving, but of all the issues that I’ve seen, this has the lowest rating amongst their own base. So even Republicans feel like they are hiding information. So the manner in which they’ve done this has not met the letter of the law, and it’s also not been politically advantageous to them in any way,” Holman said.

Bondi’s testimony was broadcast live for citizens to watch on platforms such as YouTube, CNN, C-SPAN and more.

“ I don’t know that it was effective in any way politically. I can’t imagine that anybody was persuaded in a positive way by that testimony. I don’t think anybody sat down that had doubts about the Epstein revelations and was like, ‘Oh, I feel better about them now,’” Holman said.

Following the hearing, Trump praised Bondi, writing in a Truth Social post, “AG Pam Bondi, under intense fire from the Trump Deranged Radical Left Lunatics, was fantastic at yesterday’s Hearing on the never ending saga of Jeffrey Epstein.”

“[The testimony] will hopefully affect the public and make the public more willing to fight for justice for the victims,” Wright said.

As of now, the Democrats of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee plan to continue review of both the files and the DOJ’s handling of the investigation.