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Pam Bondi launched into an impassioned speech defending Donald Trump as she appeared in front of a Congressional committee regarding the handling of the Epstein files - but not before admitting the President appeared in them ‘countless’ times.
The disastrous meeting got underway on Wednesday February 11, when Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) questioned the Attorney General over reports that 1,000 personnel had been assigned to the task of identifying and scrubbing Trump's name from the Epstein files. He asked her if this was ‘accurate?’
Bondi was then forced to admit: "I believe his name has appeared countless times in the documents."
When Johnson double checked, asking, "Were the reports accurate?" Bondi quietly said, "I cannot give you an exact number.”
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The admission was just one of several tense moments during the combative congressional hearing over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, in particular the release of private information pertaining to victims despite redaction efforts.
Given the admission that Trump has appeared multiple times, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu asked Bondi whether she would investigate Trump's alleged ties to Epstein.
Bondi then slammed the suggestion as ‘ridiculous’ and launched into her own off-piste defence of the President that bizarrely referenced the recent surge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
"They are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done,” she argued. "You sit here and you attack the president, and I am not going to have it and I am not going to put up with it.”
Painting Trump as a victim, Bondi claimed he had been subjected to unfounded impeachments and investigations, and even alleged that former special counsel Robert Mueller had not discovered foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election - despite him producing evidence of it.
Calls have been repeatedly made for months to release the full Epstein files, and as part of the congressional hearings, lawmakers were able to view un-redacted versions of the files.
During the hearing, Bondi was caught on camera reviewing records of which lawmakers had gone in person to view the files, with the photograph showing her browsing the search history of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)
This unsanctioned ‘surveillance’ of congress members was widely branded as ‘wholly improper’, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) even going so far as to brand it as ‘deeply disturbing.’
"It's deeply, deeply disturbing that Pam Bondi had, and they had, preserved, essentially, search histories of sitting members of Congress on the Epstein files," the Democrat said. "They were looking at what members of Congress were looking at, and they were using that, importantly, as ammunition against them — their own search histories against them in a hearing by Pam Bondi.”
Bondi herself also came under fire over the Department of Justice’s decision to move Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell to a federal prison camp in Texas last year.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20 year sentence for sex trafficking minors, but whistleblowers have indicated she appeared to be getting ‘special treatment’ behind bars, which included access to a puppy, special meals, and her own social space.
“I was not involved in that at all,” she told lawmakers.
Topics: Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, US News, Politics
Phoebe Tonks