US attorney general refuses to apologize to Epstein victims, spars with Democrats at hearing
Pam Bondi accuses Rep. Pramila Jayapal of 'theatrics' for asking her to ‘apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through’
WASHINGTON
US Attorney General Pam Bondi clashed with Democratic lawmakers during a tense House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday after refusing to directly apologize to victims of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal asked 11 Epstein survivors present in the hearing room to stand and raise their hands if they had not been able to meet with the Justice Department. All 11 indicated they had not.
Jayapal then urged Bondi to “turn to them now and apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through with the absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information.”
Bondi refused, instead referencing her predecessor and accusing the lawmaker of “theatrics.”
“I’m not going to get in the gutter with these theatrics,” she said, as the exchange devolved into a shouting match.
Other Democrats pressed Bondi on how many alleged co-conspirators had been indicted and criticized the department’s redaction practices in documents released under a law mandating disclosure of Epstein-related files.
Lawmakers and survivors have faulted the department for shielding certain associates’ names while failing to adequately redact identifying details of victims.
Bondi defended the administration’s record, saying more than 3 million pages of documents had been released and describing President Donald Trump as “the most transparent president in the nation’s history.”
The US Justice Department recently released more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last November.
Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He pleaded guilty in a court in the state of Florida and was convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008, but critics call the relatively minor conviction a “sweetheart deal.”
His victims have alleged that he operated a sprawling sex trafficking network that was used by members of the wealthy and political elite.
