The Department of Justice is out here trying to run the oldest play in the book. Get caught, get fired, and then claim you don’t owe anybody an explanation.
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi will not appear for her April 14 deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee as part of the panel’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, according to a spokeswoman for the committee. The DOJ told the committee she would not appear because she was subpoenaed in her capacity as attorney general and no longer serves in that role.
Translation: she got fired, and now she’s using her own firing as an excuse to not answer questions about why she deserved to be fired.
Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis wrote House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer arguing that the subpoena sought Bondi’s testimony in her “official capacity as Attorney General, rather than her personal capacity” and that because she no longer holds that office, the subpoena “no longer obligates her to appear.”
The audacity is astronomical.
Rep. Nancy Mace Isn’t Having It
Nancy Mace, who forced the vote on the subpoena last month, told Axios: “My subpoena still stands. I did it by name, not as the sitting Attorney General.” Ranking Member Robert Garcia went even further. He said “Now that Pam Bondi has been fired, she’s trying to get out of her legal obligation to testify before the Oversight Committee about the Epstein files and the White House cover-up. Our bipartisan subpoena is to Pam Bondi, whether she is the Attorney General or not. She must come in to testify immediately, and if she defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges in the Congress. The survivors deserve justice.”
So What Did She Actually Do Wrong?
Let’s start at the beginning because this story is nastier than the headlines are telling you.
The ordeal began early in her tenure when Bondi asserted on Fox News that a client list of sex predator Jeffrey Epstein was “sitting on my desk right now.” The comment took the White House by surprise, and Bondi later said she was referring generally to documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. But the comment had already sparked a firestorm online and fueled expectations that the department was finally ready to release long-rumored evidence that would implicate powerful men who may have abused girls alongside Epstein. The client list, however, didn’t exist, the department later said.
She went on national television, told the world a client list naming powerful predators was sitting on her desk, and it was a lie. Or a mistake. Either way, it was a disgrace.
It got worse from there. In February, she distributed “Epstein Files” binders to conservative influencers at the White House. Except the binders contained almost no new information. So she handed out props. Branding. Theater. All while millions of files sat unreleased, videos were missing, audio was missing, and logs were missing.
Despite a December court order requiring the release of all grand jury records in the Epstein case in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, roughly 2.5 million files had yet to be released.
The law required full transparency. She gave influencers empty binders.
Her Congressional Hearing Was a Complete Disaster
When Bondi testified before the House Judiciary Committee in February, she turned the inquiry into a shambles, hurling shocking personal insults at members of both parties. When Rep. Jamie Raskin argued that Bondi was not following hearing rules, Bondi replied, “You washed-up, loser lawyer. You’re not even a lawyer.”
This is the sitting Attorney General of the United States of America. Acting like that in a congressional hearing. On camera. About the most serious sex trafficking case in American history.
And Then There’s the Real Reason She Got Fired
Donald Trump for months had been discussing his frustrations with Bondi over what he believed was a failure to aggressively bring cases against his personal and political foes. One former Trump lawyer summed it up bluntly, saying Bondi “couldn’t bring Trump the bleeding heads of his enemies on a platter like he wanted.”
The DOJ’s dismissal of federal criminal prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James embarrassed the administration. Trump had pushed Bondi to criminally charge Comey and James, who are enemies of his.
So she was out here trying to prosecute people Trump didn’t like, failed at that too, AND bungled the biggest sex trafficking cover-up investigation of our lifetime. It is genuinely hard to do all of that at once.
The Part Nobody Is Saying Out Loud
Some members of Congress are saying the firing itself was a move. Rep. Seth Moulton suggested that Trump fired Bondi to prevent her from testifying in the House probe related to Epstein. Think about that. Fire your own attorney general one week before her scheduled deposition about Epstein, then have the DOJ argue she doesn’t have to show up because she’s no longer the AG.
The Epstein controversy became a political problem for the administration, and toward the end Bondi was largely sidelined from publicly addressing the Epstein files, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche taking on a more prominent role. That same Todd Blanche is now the acting attorney general. Blanche also spearheaded talks with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, and she was later quietly moved to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
The woman who helped traffic children for Jeffrey Epstein got transferred to a cushy prison camp after a meeting with the man who is now running the Justice Department.
60% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Epstein files, including more than one in four Republicans.
Pam Bondi is gone. But the files are still missing. The videos are still missing. The audio is still missing. And the people with answers are still running.
