Pam Bondi questioned by House panel on handling of Epstein files

Caitlin Reilly and Chris Strohm, Bloomberg News on May 29, 2026

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WASHINGTON — House lawmakers arrived for a closed-door session with former Attorney General Pam Bondi prepared to press her on the Justice Department’s decisions to withhold documents related to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Democrats and some Republicans have criticized the department for being slow to comply with a law forcing release of Justice Department files and withholding key information.

“We obviously have a lot of questions as it relates to why only 50% of the files have been released,” Representative Robert Garcia, the top-ranking Democrat on the committee, told reporters just before her interview began.

The Justice Department released 3.5 million pages of related documents out of more than 6 million pages it identified as potentially relevant, according to a Jan. 30 memo, which indicated documents may have been withheld because they were privileged, subject to protective orders, or duplicative.

“What documents remain? Why haven’t they been turned over?” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters. “I want every document. I don’t want anything held back.”

Bondi, after initially resisting a congressional subpoena, arrived for the deposition Friday morning, ignoring reporters’ questions on her way into the hearing room. The House panel is investigating the disgraced financier’s crimes and possible lapses in the law enforcement response.

President Donald Trump fired Bondi in April following a tumultuous tenure that was marked by missteps and mounting criticism, particularly involving the department’s handling of the Epstein files and response to the federal law requiring their release.

Bondi moved aggressively to reshape the Justice Department to pursue Trump’s agenda and under her watch prosecutors launched criminal investigations of the president’s perceived enemies.

Democratic and Republican members of Congress have blasted the department for missing legal deadlines to release records, making heavy redactions, leaving out materials referencing Trump, and in some cases failing to comply with legal requirements to protect the names of Epstein’s victims.

Bondi stoked controversy over the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein case by declaring shortly after she became attorney general last year that Epstein’s client list was sitting on her desk for review. In July, however, the department denied such a list existed and said it would not release additional information gathered in its investigation of Epstein.

Congress responded with the law requiring release of Epstein-related files.

Bondi oversaw a secret review process that included flagging files that mentioned Trump. She also was in charge of the department when Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for a 2021 sex-trafficking conviction, was moved to a lower-security federal prison camp in Texas last August.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida state charges of procurement of a minor for prostitution in a deal negotiated with then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta to avoid more serious federal sex trafficking charges at the time.

Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on later federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls. Authorities ruled the death a suicide.

The Epstein revelations have engulfed Trump and several of his key allies in political controversy but so far have fallen short of reviving criminal investigations inside the U.S.

Abroad, however, the revelations have rocked politics and the public in the U.K. The former royal prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and the country’s ex-Washington ambassador, Peter Mandelson, were arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office stemming from their ties to Epstein. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.