Bondi clashes with Democrats as she struggles to turn the page on
Epstein files furor
[February 12, 2026]
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, ERIC TUCKER and STEPHEN GROVES
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate
defense of Donald Trump on Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from
relentless criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey
Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative
hearing in which she postured herself as the Republican president's
chief protector.
Besieged by questions over Epstein and accusations of a weaponized
Justice Department, Bondi aggressively pivoted in an extraordinary
speech in which she mocked her Democratic questioners, praised Trump
over the performance of the stock market and openly aligned herself as
in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past
impeachments and investigations.
“You sit here and you attack the president and I’m not going to have
it," Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. "I am not
going to put up with it.”
With victims of Epstein seated behind her in the hearing room, Bondi
forcefully defended the department's handling of the files related to
the well-connected financier, an issue that has dogged her tenure. She
accused Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from Trump's
successes, even though it was Republicans who initiated the furor over
the records and Bondi herself fanned the flames by distributing binders
to conservative influencers at the White House last year.
The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi
repeatedly lobbing insults at Democrats while insisting she was not
“going to get in the gutter” with them. In one particularly fiery
exchange, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland accused Bondi of refusing to
answer his questions, prompting the attorney general to call the top
Democrat on the committee a “washed-up loser lawyer — not even a
lawyer.”
Aiming to help Bondi amid an onslaught of Democratic criticism,
Republicans tried to keep the focus on bread-and-butter law enforcement
issues like violent crime and illegal immigration. Bondi, for her part,
repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding instead with
attacks seemingly gleaned from news headlines as she sought to cast them
as disinterested in violence in their districts. Democrats grew
exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to directly answer.
“This is pathetic. This is pathetic," said Rep. Becca Balint, a Vermont
Democrat who tried to ask Bondi about different Trump administration
officials revealed to have had ties to Epstein. “I am not asking trick
questions here. The American people have a right to know the answers to
this."
Bondi has struggled to move past the backlash over the Epstein files
since she handed out the binders to a group of social media influencers
in February 2025. The binders included no new revelations about Epstein,
leading to even more calls from Trump’s base for the files to be
released.
In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to
law enforcement with any information about their abuse and said she was
“deeply sorry” for what they had suffered. She told the survivors that
“any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and
investigated.”
But she refused when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., to turn
and face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologize for what
Trump's Justice Department has “put them through." She accused the
Democrat of “theatrics.”
Bondi’s appearance on Capitol Hill came a year into her tumultuous
tenure, which has amplified concerns that the Justice Department is
using its law enforcement powers to target political foes of the
president. Just a day earlier, the department sought to secure charges
against Democratic lawmakers who produced a video urging military
service members not to follow “illegal orders.” But in an extraordinary
rebuke of prosecutors, a grand jury in Washington refused to return an
indictment.
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Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary
Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington,
Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott
Applewhite)
Turning aside criticism that the Justice Department under her watch
has become politicized, Bondi touted the department’s work to reduce
violent crime and said she was determined to restore the department
to its core missions after what she described as “years of bloated
bureaucracy and political weaponization.”
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan praised Bondi for undoing actions under
President Joe Biden's Justice Department that Republicans say
unfairly targeted conservatives — including Trump, who was charged
in two federal criminal cases that were abandoned after his 2024
election victory.
“What a difference a year makes," Jordan said. "Under Attorney
General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions — upholding
the rule of law, going after the bad guys and keeping Americans
safe."
Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi over haphazard redactions in
the Epstein files that exposed intimate details about victims and
included nude photographs. A review by The Associated Press and
other news organizations has found countless examples of sloppy,
inconsistent or nonexistent redactions that have revealed sensitive
private information.
“You’re siding with the perpetrators and you’re ignoring the
victims," Raskin told Bondi in his opening statement. “That will be
your legacy unless you act quickly to change the course. You're
running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the Department of
Justice."
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who broke with his party
to advance the legislation that forced the released of the Epstein
files, also took Bondi to task for the release of victims’ personal
information, telling her, “Literally the worst thing you could do to
survivors, you did.”
Bondi told Massie that he was only focused on the files because
Trump is mentioned in them, calling him a “hypocrite” with “Trump
derangement syndrome."
Department officials have said they took pains to protect survivors,
but errors were inevitable given the volume of the materials and the
speed at which the department had to release them. Bondi told
lawmakers that the Justice Department had taken down files when it
was made aware that they included victims’ information and said
staff had tried to do their "very best in the time frame allotted by
the legislation” mandating the release of the files.
After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of
transparency last year, the Justice Department said in July that it
had concluded a review and determined that no Epstein “client list”
existed and there was no reason to make additional files public.
That set off a furor that prompted Congress to pass legislation
demanding that the Justice Department release the files.
The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a
list of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represented a
public walk-back of a theory that the Trump administration had
helped promote when Bondi suggested in a Fox News interview last
year that it was sitting on her desk for review. Bondi later said
she was referring to the Epstein files in total, not a specific
client list.
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