Bondi stonewalls on Epstein, Comey in Senate face-off

What happened

Attorney General Pam Bondi Tuesday made her first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since her confirmation hearing in January. During nearly five hours of testimony, she evaded questions from Democrats about her controversial tenure, responding with personal insults while denying their charges that she was destroying the Justice Department’s independence to serve President Donald Trump’s personal revenge agenda.

Who said what

Bondi “repeatedly dodged” questions on “pressing issues” like her department’s prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, closure of a bribery investigation of Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case files, The Washington Post said. As she “lashed out” at her Democratic questioners, Bondi’s “personalized, non sequitur attacks” were “excerpted and shared on social media in real time by administration officials.” A Reuters photographer “captured some of Bondi’s preplanned attacks on the inside of a manila folder,” USA Today said.

Bondi’s stonewalling “meant little if any fresh insight was offered about her actions and decisions” in office, The Associated Press said. Republicans generally “did not press her to provide answers,” The New York Times said, and “largely seemed unconcerned” about Trump’s “efforts to erode the department’s independence,” claiming it was politicized under President Joe Biden.

Yet one of Bondi’s “most difficult moments,” the Times said, came when GOP Sen. John Kennedy (La.) “gently asked” about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s recent comments that Epstein, his former neighbor, was “the greatest blackmailer ever.” Top Trump administration officials are “apoplectic” that Lutnick “undermined the government’s entire story” that Trump’s former friend “did not run a secret sexual-blackmail operation targeting wealthy, powerful elites,” Asawin Suebsaeng said at Zeteo. Bondi told Kennedy that nobody from the DOJ or FBI had contacted Lutnick. When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked if the FBI had found reputed Epstein photos showing “Trump with half-naked young women,” she declined to answer, instead accusing him of accepting campaign donations from an alleged Epstein associate.

What next?

Kennedy told Bondi the Senate might call Lutnick to testify about Epstein. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday that his delay in seating incoming Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) had “nothing to do with” her promise to provide the final signature to force a House vote to compel the DOJ to release its Epstein files.