(CNN) — Attorney General Pam Bondi’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday was some of the tensest and most combative testimony we’ve seen to date from a Trump Cabinet official.
Bondi came into the hearing with the administration and DOJ facing a series of problems, including their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, the newly reported failed indictments of six Democratic lawmakers, and the killing of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis last month.
Below are some takeaways from the hearing:
1. She had a combative — but dicey — Epstein strategy
Early in the hearing, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington asked Epstein survivors in the audience to stand up. And she challenged Bondi on a difficult issue.
She asked Bondi, who had just apologized to the survivors for the abuse they suffered, to also apologize to them for the Justice Department’s failures to redact survivors’ sensitive personal information.
Bondi paused, as if considering her next move. Then, rather than apologize, she launched into a deflection about her predecessor as attorney general, Merrick Garland. The exchange quickly devolved into arguments and personal attacks.
It was a telling moment. The Justice Department has acknowledged these redaction failures. And the survivors are some of the most sympathetic figures imaginable. But Bondi decided the moment called for combativeness, not contrition.
The rest of the hearing flowed from there. Bondi was extremely combative throughout, doing whatever she could to avoid Democrats’ and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie’s questions about Epstein — in ways that might seem politically unwise.
She also refused Democrats’ repeated entreaties to address the survivors seated behind her — survivors who said DOJ had ignored them — which made for some compelling visuals.
She called a Democrat a “washed up, loser lawyer.” She berated another for attacking “the greatest president in American history,” Trump.
When Bondi claimed there was “no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime,” Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California pointed to an unsubstantiated tip about Trump from the Epstein files — something he said counts as evidence — and accused Bondi of lying under oath and called for her to resign. Bondi suggested the lawmaker should focus on “horrific crimes in California” instead.
And when another lawmaker urged her again to consider the survivors sitting nearby, rather than responding she pointed to the expired clock, saying, “Your time is up.”
She talked over her interrogators so much that Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan had to repeatedly remind her that the time belonged to the members, not her.
It seemed Bondi was playing to the “audience of one” — Trump. But that came potentially at the expense of appealing to an American public that really does want answers.
A recent poll, after all, showed Americans disapprove about 3-to-1 of the administration’s handling of the Epstein files.
The combativeness was normal for Bondi, but it risked looking out of place and like she wasn’t taking a serious issue seriously.
So many Trump officials right now seem to be choosing between doing his bidding and doing what might otherwise seem wise. And Bondi’s performance Wednesday was a case in point.
2. Massie drew some blood in a key exchange
But Bondi couldn’t just go after Democrats. After all, some Republicans have pressed her and her department on this issue.
And an exchange with Massie, the lead Republican behind the Epstein files effort, stood out when it came to actually pinning down the administration.
The Kentuckian pointed to another big redactions issue: How the administration appeared to errantly redact some men whom law enforcement at one point appeared to suspect of criminal activity with Epstein. Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California have cited six of them, including billionaire business magnate Les Wexner.
(Wexner has not been accused of a crime, and a representative has said he cooperated with law enforcement and was told he “was neither a co-conspirator nor target in any respect.”)
Bondi noted, as the administration has, that Wexner’s name appeared elsewhere in the documents. But Massie referred to that as a red herring — that the Justice Department happened to redact his name specifically where it was linked to possible crimes.
Bondi then claimed he administration un-redacted Wexner’s name “within 40 minutes.” But Massie accurately noted that only came after he and Khanna had called it out.
“Within 40 minutes of me catching you red-handed,” Massie clarified.
Bondi went on to call Massie a “failed politician” and a “hypocrite.”
While Democrats tried to highlight the administration’s missteps on this issue, Bondi was often able to muddy the waters by avoiding the question and getting into shouting matches.
Massie’s exchange actually landed.
3. A reprieve from the nastiness
For a brief moment, the lawmakers were reminded of an issue that increasingly inflicts them all. And it brought about a rare moment of real comity.
Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, who has often tussled with Trump-allied witnesses, instead focused on threats that he and his family have faced. After detailing them, he asked Bondi if they were still being investigated.
“I’m just asking for your help to protect life, because life is at risk with the environment we’re in right now,” Swalwell said.
Bondi responded: “They are being looked into, and I can give you more details on those. None of you should be threatened ever. None of your children should be threatened. None of your families should be threatened, and I will work with you.”
The exchange highlighted a sleeping giant of an issue — and one that lawmakers are often reluctant to talk about. But it’s an issue that clearly impacts both sides of the aisle. And for once there was some unity in purpose.
Of course, the two sides have also disagreed vehemently about who is more to blame for political violence — an issue that also came up at another point in the hearing.
4. The hearing pointed to the administration’s many problems.
The way these hearings usually work is that the witnesses’ allies on the committee try to guide things in a more favorable direction. So they’ll focus on issues that play to their strengths.
But those issues were hard to come by.
Some Republicans tried to focus on the Biden Justice Department having subpoenaed the call logs of congressional Republicans — which the GOP has compared to “spying” on them.
But the hearing literally came a day after we learned the Trump DOJ went a whole lot further with six congressional Democrats — actually trying and failing to indict them. These people were, yet again, people Trump suggested deserved to be prosecuted.
Bondi focused in her opening remarks on the idea of keeping people safe, citing significant declines in crime numbers. And Jordan in his opening statement focused on deportations.
But those too are issue that seem to have gotten away from the administration. An NBC News poll released earlier in the morning showed Trump’s disapproval on immigration spiking to 60%. And the administration is still dealing with the fallout from its agents having shot and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis — situations which have also emerged as major liabilities for the administration.
It was the kind of hearing that could seemingly have used a strong performance, where Bondi directly addressed the issues at hand and tried to right the ship.
But Bondi didn’t come to answer tough questions. She came to survive the hearing.
5. A couple Bondi volleys didn’t land
Bondi, as she has before, came loaded for bear to hit back at lawmakers.
But the downside of that approach is that sometimes you can miss.
Early in the hearing, Bondi rather puzzlingly suggested Democrats on the committee should instead focus on how much the stock market has surged under Trump.
“The Dow is over 50,000 right now, the S&P at almost 7,000, and the NASDAQ smashing records, Americans’ 401(k)s and retirement savings are booming,” Bondi said. “That’s what we should be talking about.”
The stock market is not usually the purview of the Judiciary Committee, which a Democrat quickly pointed out.
Later in the hearing, she attacked Democratic Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont for having voted against a resolution involving antisemitism.
But Balint is actually the granddaughter of someone who died in the Holocaust.
Balint pointed that out while shouting at Bondi and imploring her, “Are you serious?” Then Balint stormed out of the hearing.
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