Pam Bondi Fumes as Democrats Grill Her on Trump’s Ties to Epstein

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly had a disastrous meeting with the House Oversight Committee on Friday regarding her bungling of the Epstein files release.

MS NOW’s Kyle Griffin reported that Bondi “lost her temper a bit at some points and grew frustrated when asked about [Donald] Trump,” something Bondi did frequently during public hearings as attorney general. Democratic committee members also expressed frustration after the meeting.

Ranking member Robert Garcia told reporters immediately after the meeting that Bondi had counsel—someone who currently worked for the Department of Justice—present with her, telling her not to answer certain questions.

“[They] stepped in and told the former attorney general that she was not gonna answer those questions, especially when we asked questions of what the president directed her to do,” Garcia said. “So the DOJ is in there right now, stomping questions about President Trump, and about what happened in the release of these files—and why so many survivors were doxxed.”

Representative James Walkinshaw also stated that Bondi avoided direct questions about whether Trump knew about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes before they were public.

“She had the opportunity to say, ‘Donald Trump certainly wasn’t aware of those crimes.’ She had the opportunity to say, ‘I know Donald Trump, and if he was aware of those crimes he would have done something,’” Walkinshaw said. “Instead, she said, ‘I don’t know.’ She also said, this is a direct quote: ‘I’m not certain of the extent of his knowledge.’ I think that’s a perfect example as to why we need Pam Bondi under oath in a real deposition, for the cameras, so the American people can see and hear her answers to our questions.”

Bondi reportedly left the meeting in haste, avoiding cameras and reporters.

The FBI has sent agents to Milwaukee to interview former election officials about the 2020 presidential election.

Bureau agents have shown up at the officials’ homes after interviewing Wisconsin’s deputy elections director, and this week, they plan to interview police officers who escorted the elections official who escorted Milwaukee’s 2020 results to the county elections office.

It seems that the Trump administration is intent on relitigating President Trump’s 2020 loss, and election officials are worried that White House officials may try to seize ballots as they did in Fulton County, Georgia, earlier this year. Milwaukee is Wisconsin’s largest city, and its balloting system makes it possible for agents to figure out who people voted for. The city would have destroyed its ballots, but has held onto them due to litigation.

“Our secret ballot is secret for a reason,” Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of Wisconsin’s bipartisan elections commission, told The Washington Post. “It’s sacrosanct. It is at the heart of our American democracy. And those people who demand to know how everyone voted are violating those core tenets of what it means to vote as an American.”

In addition to Georgia, the FBI obtained images of 2020 ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona, and is trying to get 2024 ballots from Wayne County, Michigan. These moves suggest the administration is specifically targeting metropolitan areas that voted against Trump in swing states. It raises questions as to whether Trump is trying to build a case to justify interfering in this year’s midterms or even the 2028 presidential election.

Despite being proven wrong multiple times in court, Trump insists that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. His administration is staffed with people who push his conspiracy theories and are eager to carry out his orders, like FBI Director Kash Patel. And Kurt Olsen, an attorney who worked for Trump’s campaign and tried to overturn the 2020 election results, now occupies a job in the White House monitoring election integrity. It seems that the president wants to rig elections in his favor.

Donald Trump said he will make a “final determination” regarding Iran, in a strange announcement Friday that laid out his ideals for a potential peace plan.

The pitch requires Iran to “never” have a nuclear weapon and demands the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz with “no tolls” and the termination or removal of “all water mines.”

“Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’ Say HELLO to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The president also demanded that any and all enriched uranium—which he referred to as “nuclear dust”—in Iran be extracted by the United States under the supervision of the Islamic Republic and the International Atomic Energy Agency. It would then be destroyed.

He shared that he was entering into the Situation Room in order to make a “final determination” on the matter. It was not immediately clear if Tehran had agreed to Trump’s stipulations.

It was also not clear if any of Trump’s make-or-break items had already been included in the preliminary agreement drafted this week.

“No money will be exchanged, until further notice. Other items, of far less importance, have been agreed to,” Trump noted in his post.

The U.S. and Israel have been at war with Iran since late February. The conflict is currently in its thirteenth week and has seen several potential peace deals thwarted by miscommunications and ceasefire violations.

Earlier this week, U.S. forces attacked Iranian boats and missile launch sites, violating the ceasefire mere hours after Iranian officials arrived in Qatar for discussions to end the war. The boats were reportedly attempting to lay more mines along the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. and Iran have talked more since, and a deal is closer to gaining approval from both sides, though there are several details that still have to be ironed out, The New York Times reported Thursday.

It seems that Texas Senator John Cornyn may have finally learned not to trust Donald Trump—but it’s a little late for that.

Cornyn turned to social media Friday to share an “old, but apt fable” that appeared to reflect Trump’s sudden betrayal that led to the senior senator’s defeat in the Texas GOP Senate primary.

“A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across,” Cornyn wrote. “The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: ‘I am sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s my character.’”

It seems clear that Trump (the scorpion) stung Cornyn (the frog). Or maybe, the frog is the entire Republican Party, which will now struggle to mount an effort on behalf of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who cheated on his wife, was impeached by his own party on corruption charges, and illegally targeted his donor’s enemies as state attorney general, among other transgressions.

Trump has explained his stinging defection from Cornyn was a result of the senator’s “disloyalty,” but it’s Trump who has turned on his own party, claiming he doesn’t care about midterms anyway.

As The Bulwark’s Will Saletan pointed out to Cornyn: “The reason they wrote these fables is so you’d learn them as a child, not when you’re 74.”

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi threw acting Attorney General Todd Blanche under the bus during her closed-door testimony with the House Oversight Committee on Friday, stating that she “delegated oversight” over the disastrous release of the Epstein files to him.

“These investigations span FOUR administrations … The only time federal prosecutors were permitted to launch investigations against Epstein and Maxwell was when President Trump occupied the White House. Only under President Trump were 3 million Epstein-related documents released,” Bondi said in her prepared opening statement. “This was an enormously complicated and labor-intensive process. To the best of my knowledge, the Department produced everything required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”

“As the head of a large Department with broad responsibilities, I did not lead every aspect of this effort or conduct that document review myself. I delegated oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche,” Bondi continued, making sure to place as much possible blame on the man who replaced her after she was fired in April. “The team of professionals who reviewed all of the materials that we collected assured me the only materials that were withheld were either non-responsive, privileged, or duplicative. Although not required by the Act, the Department has given Congress access to unredacted, duplicative materials in the Reading Room in an effort at maximum transparency.”

Bondi’s assertion that the DOJ abided by the Epstein Transparency Act has been widely contested, as the department has withheld and heavily redacted thousands of files. Bondi admitted to the omissions herself, saying that there were “redaction errors.”

The DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files has been marked with nothing but chaos—from the moment Bondi backtracked on her own claim that she had a client list “sitting on [her] desk right now,” to when she paraded MAGA influencers around for a photo-op with big white binders labeled “The Epstein Files: PHASE 1,” to when the department released a bunch of blacked out files and told the MAGA base that there was nothing further incriminating at all.