Bondi will be asked about the Epstein files at committee hearing
WASHINGTON— Old Av. Gen. Pam Bondi is scheduled to meet with the House Oversight Committee on Friday to discuss the Justice Department’s investigations into deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and its release of files related to that investigation.
But the circumstances surrounding his meeting with the committee raise questions about how much information the committee could actually learn about either of them.
First, the former attorney general will not testify under oath but will voluntarily submit a written interview. Bondi’s interview with the committee will take place behind closed doors, with committee members and staff in attendance, and will not be filmed. The committee said it plans to release a transcript immediately after the hearing.
And Bondi will be represented by the Paralegal at her meeting. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon’s decision raises the possibility that the Justice Department may direct Bondi not to answer some questions asked by the committee, legal experts say.
Old Av. General William Barr, former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified under oath.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the committee chairman, rejected the Clintons’ offer to provide a transcribed interview instead of sitting for the deposition out of concern that someone giving a scripted interview “might refuse to answer the questions they want for the reasons they want.”
Comer’s spokesman said Bondi was allowed to sit for a written interview rather than a deposition because the former attorney general was “cooperative.”
“Unlike the Clintons, who defied subpoenas for seven months, former Attorney General Pam Bondi voluntarily and quickly cooperated with the Committee to set a mutually acceptable date,” spokesman Austin Hacker said in a statement.
In fact, Bondi had refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena while still in office, and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the committee’s top Democrat, filed a resolution on April 29 accusing Bondi of failing to comply with the committee’s subpoena a month earlier. It was announced the same day that Bondi had agreed to have the interview transcribed.
The committee subpoenaed Bondi in March to learn more about the department’s long-running investigations into Epstein, who is accused of molesting more than 1,000 women and girls and luring some of them into having sex with powerful friends, and the department’s release of the files in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025, which mandates the disclosure of investigative records.
Asked whether Dhillon’s participation indicated that the department planned to invoke privilege and prevent Bondi from sharing some information, the department said in a statement that Dhillon and other agency officials would participate in Bondi’s interview “solely to ensure accurate representation of Department processes, facilitate necessary disclosures, and promote a complete factual record for the Committee.”
The Department added that it “routinely provides personnel” to assist with “congressional engagement, which includes the actions of past Department staff.”
But a former Justice Department ethics official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said Dhillon’s attendance at the hearings was far from routine.
Typically, such work would be conducted by a less senior attorney in the department with more direct involvement in the matter, the former official said. While Dhillon ran the department’s civil rights division, the investigations into Epstein were criminal matters.
“I don’t see where Harmeet Dhillon has the experience or the normal level of authority to be delegated this task,” the official said. “Everything about this seems unusual.”
Bondi will also need to seek official representation from the ministry.
“This doesn’t happen willy-nilly,” the former ethics official said.
The department did not say how Bondi was represented by the agency’s attorneys. Bondi said it was this week. is being treated for thyroid cancerdid not respond to a request for comment.
The presence of Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer and Republican party insider who has been talked about as a potential candidate for attorney general, could also present a conflict of interest, experts said.
“It’s unclear whether Bondi was representing the department’s interests or his own,” said Dave Rapallo, a former staff director for the House Oversight Committee.
He said that if Bondi’s statement had been given at a deposition, Dhillon would not have been able to represent Bondi because committee rules prevented agency lawyers from attending the deposition.
Bondi was fired by President Trump on April 2. He was dogged by questions about his handling of the Epstein investigation throughout his time in office.
Trump campaigned on a promise to release information about the government’s investigation into Epstein in 2024, and in February 2025, Bondi told Fox News that she had on her desk a list of clients of Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019.
However, months later, when questions arose about Trump’s relationship with Epstein, the Department of Justice announced that it was closing its investigation into Epstein and said that, in fact, no such client list existed.
Shortly thereafter, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, requiring the Justice Department to release all records from its investigation of Epstein. Trump initially opposed the law but eventually signed it.
The department released millions of pages of records in response to the law. While he was a Deputy Lawyer. Gen. Todd Blanche said in January that there were millions of pages of additional records that had not yet been made public, and the department stated that it did not plan to release those additional files.
