Former Attorney General Pam Bondi said “I don’t recall” at least 34 times during her closed-door interview with members of Congress investigating Jeffrey Epstein, a transcript of the meeting reveals.
Bondi, who was fired by Donald Trump in April, repeatedly told the House Oversight Committee that her deputy Todd Blanche was “in charge” of the “entire release” of the so-called Epstein files, a chaotic document dump of millions of pages and images stemming from the federal government’s investigations into the dead sex offender.
She also sought to get ahead of any allegations that she was “placing blame” on her successor at the Department of Justice and offered a full-throated endorsement of his position as acting attorney general.
“Todd Blanche is one of the most highly ethical individuals I know, and I think he is making an incredible Acting Attorney General. And he managed this investigation — and it was a Herculean task — with very little error,” she said, according to a transcript of her interview released Thursday. “And Todd did an excellent job, in my opinion, and is doing an excellent job as our Attorney General. I’m not blaming anything on Todd.”
But Bondi — who faced intense bipartisan scrutiny for the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files — repeatedly said she could not remember significant details when it came to questions about survivors, redactions in the documents, and the Justice Department’s work on the case while she was in office.
She also said she could not recall whether the Justice Department ever investigated high-profile administration figures, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, about their ties to Epstein, or if the Justice Department was investigating lawmakers who searched for the president’s name in unredacted copies of the files that have been made available to them.
Bondi claimed that she only learned about a controversial prison transfer for Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell after she had been moved to a minimum-security prison following her jailhouse interview with Blanche last summer.
Maxwell, she said, “should die in prison.”
“She was a monster, just like Jeffrey Epstein,” she said. “She recruited these young women to a life of prostitution and abuse. And I often think the women that do that are just as bad, if not worse, than the men, because she participated in it.”
Blanche, the president’s former criminal defense attorney now poised to be formally nominated for attorney general, “was in charge of the process and the entire release of the Epstein files,” Bondi said.
The Justice Department has released approximately 3 million files following legislation passed by Congress and signed by Trump that compelled their release.
But lawmakers asked Bondi why another 3 million documents still have not been released, sparking allegations of a government-wide cover up to protect powerful public figures accused of exploiting and abusing young women and girls
“To my knowledge, they’ve all been released,” Bondi said.
The release of the files and bipartisan pressure to investigate figures in Epstein’s orbit erupted into a massive political liability for the president and his allies, and the president removed Bondi from her post days before she was initially scheduled to testify to the committee.
The Justice Department sought to block her appearance after she left office, though she later agreed to participate in a closed-door, transcribed interview on May 29 after threats from Democratic lawmakers to hold her in contempt for defying a bipartisan subpoena.
During her sworn testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in February, Bondi repeatedly deflected questions about Epstein to talk about the stock market and chastised Democrats who questioned her.
“The Dow is over 50,000 right now,” she said after she was questioned about potential indictments against Epstein’s co-conspirators.
The Nasdaq is “smashing records” and Americans’ retirement accounts are “booming,” she said. “That’s what we should be talking about.”
After last week’s interview, Epstein survivor Maria Farmer said Bondi’s “continued evasion of questions about her grave mishandling of the release of the Epstein files was not surprising — it’s a pattern of behavior.”
“At every turn, Bondi has ignored and disregarded the will of Epstein survivors who have waited for justice for decades and even now, as a private citizen, she refuses responsibility for her missteps and failures,” Farmer said in a statement shared with The Independent.
On Thursday, the Republican-led committee referred former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine and hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
The referral follows the committee’s interview with Epstein’s former assistant Sarah Kellen on May 21. In their letter Blanche, Comer and four other House Republicans urged the Justice Department to use “all available tools” — including providing “immunity for certain witnesses” — to investigate Kellen’s allegations.
Lauren Hersh, co-founder and CEO of World Without Exploitation, which represents Epstein survivors, called the letter an “important step” in the investigation.
“It provides further proof that there are clear investigative leads in the files and underscores the importance of continued transparency, accountability, and a thorough review of all available evidence,” she said.
