Democrats storm out of Justice Department leaders’ briefing on the Epstein files
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday stormed out of a closed-door briefing by Justice Department leaders on the Jeffrey Epstein files and said they would force Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions under oath about the case that has roiled the Trump administration.
Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went to Capitol Hill to vent bipartisan frustration with the Justice Department’s handling of the situation. Millions of files related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation.
But less than an hour after the briefing, Democrats walked out to protest the regulation and said they would press for a subpoena for Bondi to appear under oath next month. Democrats said they repeatedly asked Bondi whether he would comply with the subpoena, but Bondi made no commitment on the matter.
“We want him to be sworn in because we don’t trust him,” Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost told reporters.
Republicans on the committee rejected the Democrats’ move, calling it a political showdown. They said Bondi and Blanche answered “important questions” and noted that the attorney general said he would comply with the law regarding the subpoena.
“It’s clear that Democrats don’t want answers or justice for survivors; they just want theater for their latest partisan showdown,” the Republican-led committee said in a social media post.
Justice Department leaders had hoped that the release of documents related to the disgraced financier would put an end to the political saga that has marked the president’s second term, but the agency is still Questions and criticisms about Epstein’s case and the handling of the files.
Bondi defended the department’s handling of the files and accused Democrats of using outrage over the documents to distract from Trump’s political accomplishments, even though some of the most vocal criticism came from members of the president’s own party.
The oversight committee on Tuesday. Subpoena issued for Bondi He is scheduled to appear on April 14 to answer questions under oath about Epstein’s case and investigative files. Lawmakers accused the Justice Department of keeping too many files and criticized the agency for haphazard redactions that reveal intimate details about victims.
The Justice Department called the subpoena “completely unnecessary,” noting that members of Congress had been invited to view unredacted files at the Justice Department and that department leaders were available to answer lawmakers’ questions.
The department has sought to reassure lawmakers and the public that no effort has been made to protect President Donald Trump, who said he cut ties with Epstein years ago following an earlier friendship, or other high-profile figures close to Epstein from potential embarrassment. Justice Department leaders also rejected allegations that they ignored victims and insisted that while there was no evidence in the files to warrant prosecuting anyone else, they would remain committed to investigating if new information emerged.
“I’m not trying to defend Epstein – I don’t,” Blanche said this week in an interview with Katie Miller, who is married to Trump’s top adviser Stephen Miller. “I defend the work that this department is doing today, right now, which is already going after every single perpetrator, and if there is a narrative that we are ignoring the victims of Epstein, that is wrong.”
The documents were explained as follows: Epstein Files Transparency Actlaw passed after Months of public and political pressure which requires the government to do this open your files It’s about the late financier and his confidant and one-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Criminal investigations into the financier have long galvanized online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and others who suspect a government cover-up and are clamoring for a full accounting.
After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of attorneys with reviewing the records to determine what needed to be redacted or blacked out. The Ministry of Justice announced in January that more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, as well as more than 3 million pages of documents, would be released.
