By Paul Joseph
Congressional Democrats accused US Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday of engaging in a “cover-up” of the Jeffrey Epstein files and turning the Department of Justice into an “instrument of revenge” for President Donald Trump.
According to Channels TV, Bondi, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, defended the DOJ’s handling of the release of the Epstein records and said there are “pending investigations” in the case.
She did not elaborate on the investigations during a combative hearing attended by several victims of Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking underage girls.
Bondi’s deputy, Todd Blanche, recently said no more prosecutions were expected related to Epstein, a wealthy financier who had extensive ties to top business executives, politicians, celebrities and academics.
Jamie Raskin, the panel’s ranking Democrat, criticized the slow release of the Epstein files and the redactions made to the documents.
“You’re running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the Department of Justice,” Raskin said.
“You’ve been ordered by subpoena and by Congress to turn over six million documents, photographs and videos in the Epstein files, but you’ve turned over only three million.”
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress in November, compelled the DOJ to release all documents in its possession related to Epstein within 30 days.
It required redaction of names or other personally identifiable information about Epstein’s victims, who numbered more than 1,000 according to the FBI.
But the powerful figures who were friendly with Epstein could not be shielded “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity,” the law states.
Raskin said the names of Epstein’s “abusers, enablers, accomplices and co-conspirators” have nevertheless been redacted, “apparently to spare them embarrassment and disgrace.”
“Even worse, you shockingly failed to redact many of the victims’ names,” he added.
Bondi, a close Trump ally, said hundreds of attorneys spent thousands of hours painstakingly reviewing millions of pages to comply with the law.
“If any man’s name was redacted that should not have been, we will, of course, unredact it,” the attorney general said. “If a victim’s name was unredacted please bring it to us and we will redact it.
“We were given 30 days to review and redact and unredact millions of pages of documents,” she said. “Our error rate is very low.”
Bondi repeatedly refused to directly answer questions from Democratic lawmakers during the fiery hearing and peppered her responses with personal insults.
She refused a request from a Democratic lawmaker to turn and apologize directly to the Epstein victims in the room but did say she was sorry for their suffering.
Raskin and other Democratic lawmakers criticized the Department of Justice for prosecuting Trump’s political opponents, including former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
He stated, “You’ve turned the people’s Department of Justice into Trump’s tool for revenge. Trump requests prosecutions like ordering pizza, and you comply every time he asks.”
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former partner, is the only individual currently incarcerated in relation to Epstein. She was found guilty in 2021 of sex trafficking underage girls and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
While Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, he spent months trying to block the release of documents concerning his former associate.
Eventually, a rebellion among Republicans compelled the president to approve legislation requiring the release of all records.
This decision was influenced by significant political pressure to confront what many Americans, including Trump’s own supporters, have long suspected to be a cover-up aimed at shielding wealthy and influential men connected to Epstein.
Trump’s consistent claims of ignorance regarding Epstein’s crimes have come under scrutiny, particularly due to a 2019 FBI interview found in the Epstein files with Michael Reiter, who was the police chief of Palm Beach at the time.
Reiter recounted that Trump had called him in 2006, when the sex charges against Epstein became public, to express relief, saying, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him; everyone has known he’s been doing this.
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