The Justice Department has told the House Oversight Committee that now-former Attorney General Pam Bondi will not appear before the committee next week to answer questions about the department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
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“The Department of Justice has stated Pam Bondi will not appear on April 14 for a deposition since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General,” a spokeswoman for the House panel said in a statement Wednesday. “The Committee will contact Pam Bondi’s personal counsel to discuss next steps regarding scheduling her deposition.”
In a letter to Oversight Chair James Comer obtained by NBC News, Patrick Davis, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for the Office of Legislative Affairs, wrote “because Ms. Bondi no longer can testify in her official capacity as Attorney General, the Department’s position is that the subpoena no longer obligates her to appear on April 14. We kindly ask that you confirm that the subpoena is withdrawn.”
A Justice Department spokesperson said the subpoena was sent to Bondi “in her official capacity as Attorney General. Because of the leadership transition at the Department, the subpoena no longer applies.”
A spokesperson for Comer, R-Ky., did not respond to a request for comment, but the panel’s statement said it still plans to call Bondi.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., blasted the postponement. “The cover-up continues, but we will fight for accountability,” he wrote on X.
The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, said, “Our bipartisan subpoena is to Pam Bondi, whether she is the Attorney General or not. She must come in to testify immediately, and if she defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges in the Congress. The survivors deserve justice.”
Asked at news conference Tuesday if he would seek to block or delay Bondi’s deposition, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “I will leave it to Chairman Comer to work out with others. I just don’t have an answer for you.”
The president announced Bondi’s removal last week, and she said in a post on X that she would be staying at DOJ for a month to help Blanche’s transition. She was under pressure to bring cases against Trump’s political enemies, but Blanche said Tuesday that no one had “any idea why the attorney general is no longer the attorney general and I’m the acting attorney general, except for President Trump.”
Bondi’s current title at the department is unclear.
Five Republicans on the committee voted with Democrats to subpoena Bondi for the deposition and answer questions under oath about how the agency has handled its investigation into the late sex offender and the release of information related to that probe.
Among the topics the committee wants to ask her about is a controversial memo from last July where the department announced no other people would be charged in the probe and that it wouldn’t be releasing any more information about the case. Lawmakers also want to ask her about the department’s subsequent failure to honor a subpoena to turn all the files over to the committee.
That failure helped lead to the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a bill co-authored by Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., that required the department to release the files publicly. Lawmakers and victims of Epstein’s have complained that DOJ is still improperly withholding some files since the passage of the act and failing to protect victims’ identities as required by the law while redacting information about possible Epstein accomplices.
The committee’s statement Tuesday that Bondi would not testify came out shortly after panel members Khanna and Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., made public a letter they sent to Comer asking him to reaffirm that Bondi would still appear for her deposition next week.
Mace, the lawmaker who first moved to subpoena Bondi, said in a post on X that “Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of Attorney General,” and “will still have to appear before the Oversight Committee for a sworn deposition.”
“The American people deserve answers, and we expect her to appear as soon as a new date is set,” Mace wrote.
Sky and Amanda Roberts, family members of late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, indicated in a statement they were unhappy about the delay, but willing to wait.
“Once again, the Department of Justice is splitting hairs. Regardless of how you cut it, former Attorney General Pam Bondi has been subpoenaed and must testify before the House subcommittee. Survivors are standing by. We are not going anywhere,” they said.
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