House Democrats said Friday they will seek subpoenas for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel after former Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly declined to answer questions about the government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files during a closed-door transcribed interview.
The threats emerged during a break in Bondi’s transcribed interview before the House oversight committee, where lawmakers are seeking answers about decisions surrounding the release of Epstein-related records.
“She continues to push all of the investigation and the blame on Acting AG Todd Blanche. She said, and I quote, ‘Acting AG Blanche was managing the entire investigation,’” ranking Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia (CA) told reporters in the hallway. He said he would formally request Chairman James Comer (R-KY), the only Republican lawmaker to attend the interview, to subpoena Blanche and Patel later on Friday.
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) accused Bondi of stonewalling investigators and said Democrats would pursue testimony from Blanche and Patel if the committee continues to encounter resistance from administration officials.
“It’s a cover-up in broad daylight,” Frost told reporters outside the hearing room, standing near victims of Epstein, including Lauren Hersh, Sharlene Rochard, Lara Blume McGee, and others.
According to Frost, Bondi repeatedly declined to discuss conversations involving Trump and offered variations of answers such as, “I’m not going to talk about Donald Trump,” and “I’m not going to talk about any private conversations with the president.”
Frost said Democrats also became frustrated with Bondi’s repeated reliance on Blanche when questioned about the mechanics of the Justice Department’s review of Epstein-related records.
That response was consistent with Bondi’s opening statement earlier Friday, in which she emphasized that she did not personally oversee the review effort.
“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,” Bondi said in prepared remarks. “I delegated oversight over this process to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.”
Bondi told lawmakers the DOJ reviewed nearly 3 million pages of records, including thousands of videos and hundreds of thousands of images, as part of what she described as an unprecedented effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed by Trump last year. She maintained that officials involved in the review assured her that any withheld records, which include roughly 3 million remaining files, were either nonresponsive, privileged, or duplicative.
Democrats also said she punted on questions related to Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is still serving her own sentence after her 2021 jury conviction on sex trafficking charges. Following her prison interview with Blanche last year, she was subsequently transferred to a minimum security facility in Texas, causing an uproar among victims of Epstein and critics of the administration.
According to Democrats in the room, Bondi argued the Florida facility Maxwell was previously housed in was already a low-level facility, and deferred questions about that transfer to the Bureau of Prisons and Blanche. The hours-long conversation between Blanche, Maxwell, and her counsel was taped and provided publicly.
Democrats said Bondi’s repeated references to Blanche left lawmakers unable to obtain answers from the former official they had subpoenaed. Frost said the committee now needs to hear directly from Blanche and Patel.
The interest in subpoenaing Patel reflects Democrats’ broader concerns about how federal law enforcement agencies prior to the Trump administration mismanaged Epstein-related records and investigations.
Despite years of investigations and reports over Epstein’s sex trafficking activities, he was not held accountable until the first Trump administration. Former Attorney General Bill Barr obtained sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, more than a decade after his 2008 plea deal that resulted in a 13-month Florida jail sentence for prostitution-related offenses, including solicitation of a 17-year-old minor.
The interview on Friday marks the latest escalation in Congress’s long-running effort to obtain information about the government’s handling of Epstein records. Bondi has repeatedly defended the administration’s actions and argued that the Trump administration released more Epstein-related material than any previous administration.
The hearing itself was already contentious before testimony began. Democrats had objected to Bondi being allowed to sit for a transcribed interview rather than a sworn deposition, arguing the arrangement gave her greater flexibility to decline certain lines of questioning.
Republicans on the committee have attempted to dispel those concerns, arguing that other witnesses brought in for similar transcribed interviews, including former New York prison guard Tova Noel, Ghislaine Maxwell’s ex-boyfriend Ted Waitt, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, have similarly not been recorded on video.
BONDI TELLS LAWMAKERS SHE DIDN’T LEAD ‘EVERY ASPECT’ OF EPSTEIN FILES REVIEW
Comer said Friday anyone caught lying to lawmakers could be subject to potential prosecution, and vowed that the full transcript of Bondi’s deposition would be released to the public in due course.
“We’ll come and tell you what she said. We’ll release all the transcripts, and if anyone is lying to Congress, that’s a felony,” Comer told reporters earlier in the day.
