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House Republicans aren’t all persuaded by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s attempt to defuse a bipartisan investigation into the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files — but some are appearing to waver.
Bondi answered a bipartisan Oversight Committee subpoena by offering a private Wednesday night briefing with her and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. The move seemed designed to assuage the five Republicans who voted with every Democrat on the panel to force her to answer questions under oath, though it didn’t fully work as intended.
Three of the five Republicans remained unconvinced. Democrats are skeptical that the GOP will ultimately compel Bondi to talk about the Epstein files under oath, but unless Bondi can win over more Republicans, she’s still in line for the same harsh intraparty questioning under oath that brought down ex-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“The important thing is to get the answers. So, you know, at the moment, the subpoena is still issued, and we’ll be looking at questions, and then we’ll see where we go from there,” said Texas Rep. Michael Cloud, one of the five GOP panel members who’d voted to force Bondi to speak under oath.
The attorney general has faced long-running backlash from the MAGA base for her handling of the investigation into the late sex offender, as well as her compliance with a law requiring the release of the vast trove of DOJ documents on Epstein’s case.
Bondi’s standing with President Donald Trump is not as shaky as Noem’s was when she testified this month that he approved a $220 million ad campaign on self-deportation — a claim Trump denied. But Bondi’s own colleagues have grown irritated with her over Epstein in the past, particularly in the runup to passage of legislation forcing the DOJ to release the files.
Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, another of the five GOP lawmakers who’d voted to subpoena her, said prior to the briefing that he had “some frustrations” with the DOJ. “And I’m going to ask questions regarding those frustrations to get some answers.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who didn’t attend the briefing, said the congresswoman wanted testimony from Bondi under oath “with time for detailed and specific questions about what the Justice Department knows, what it has sat on, and what it has buried.”
Republican lawmakers have sought to question the attorney general on a variety of different topics related to the Epstein probe, including the status of document production, the redactions of the reams of released documents, and potential criminal charges related to Epstein’s network.
But Bondi appeared to have won over two of the Republicans who’d voted to subpoena her. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., told Bondi in the briefing she was embarrassed to have voted to subpoena her and wanted to withdraw it if it were possible, according to a person in the room.
The fifth of those Republicans, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, said he wasn’t sure how much more lawmakers might learn from Bondi herself, even in another closed-door setting.
“I don’t know what else you’re going to ask her,” Burchett said of a deposition. “It’s the same stuff, same questions, over and over and over again. You’re going to get the same answer.”
Bondi, for her part, told Oversight members she would “follow the law” when asked about coming in for a deposition next month, as their subpoena states. Committee Democrats took as a sign she wouldn’t directly commit to doing so.
Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters Thursday that he still planned to move forward with the subpoena, though he added he’d never pulled one back before and had to confer with committee lawyers.
“I don’t know what is going to happen. We will talk to the other Republicans. As of now, I plan on moving forward with all of our subpoenas,” he said.
If Comer wanted to withdraw the subpoena, it would require a full committee vote. And it’s not clear he would have the votes to do so, even if Boebert were to vote to claw back the summons, given the initial 24-19 tally.
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Other GOP members of the Oversight panel are training their ire on fellow Republicans who have bucked their own party to bring in Bondi and other top Trump officials.
“Generally actual investigators don’t lead the investigation from the front page of the newspaper,” said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La. “And some of my colleagues think that’s what they should do, because they’re running for governor or whatever.”
His comments were a veiled reference to Mace, who’s currently running for governor of South Carolina and had led the effort in the panel to bring Bondi in to testify. Higgins chairs the Oversight subpanel with jurisdiction over law enforcement issues, the venue for some of Democrats’ gambits to force Epstein-related votes.
The DOJ referred a request for comment to Bondi’s remarks on Wednesday night.
Room for Disagreement
Democrats walked out of Wednesday’s briefing to protest the format, and after Comer said one of their own, Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., was “b-tching.”
They’re already calling out what they see as the DOJ’s efforts to skirt responsibility for the Epstein investigation and to get out of the subpoena, effectively placing a bet against Republicans stiffening their spines.
“What’s important right now for us is that we hold Pam Bondi accountable for the subpoena. She legally has to show up. That’s number one. Everything after that, whether it’s contempt, whether it’s anything else, all follows,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Oversight Democrat.
Nicholas Wu’s view
Oversight is in a bind here. There’s no guarantee that talking with Bondi about Epstein in a closed-door setting, even a deposition, will be more productive than the normally rough-and-tumble public hearings held by the panel.
Its closed-door deposition of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of the Epstein investigation was temporarily derailed, for example, when Boebert took a picture of Clinton that was posted to social media during the meeting.
Even so, formally withdrawing the subpoena would amount to a serious climbdown from Comer. What could happen instead is a frequent sight in congressional investigations: lengthy negotiations, especially over scheduling a deposition, that help a politically sticky problem fade from the spotlight.
But that might not work either; Epstein has more staying power than perhaps any topic in the second Trump term.
Notable
- Bondi rebounded from her last bout of Epstein-related rockiness, as we reported at the time.