“This is unprecedented”: Bondi’s conduct in hearing draws ire of lawmakers and legal scholars

Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing severe backlash from lawmakers and legal experts alike after a fiery hearing on Wednesday in front of the House Judiciary Committee.

The hearing quickly devolved into a tense, at times explosive event, with Bondi and mostly Democratic lawmakers trading verbal attacks over the handling of the Epstein files by the Department of Justice, and questions of the department’s role in acting on behalf of President Donald Trump.

Bondi accused Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., of “theatrics” when she asked Bondi to apologize to a group of Jeffrey Epstein survivors for the DOJ’s “absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information.” The attorney general also got into a tiff with Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., calling him a “washed-up, loser lawyer” after Raskin accused her of using her time to “filibuster.”

When Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a leading Republican voice in releasing the Epstein files, pressed Bondi on redactions for suspected Epstein associates, she went on the attack. “This guy has Trump derangement syndrome … You’re a failed politician,” she said.

Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., faced an accusation of antisemitism from Bondi after asking her about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick‘s alleged ties to Epstein. The result was explosive.

“You want to go there? Are you serious?” Balint yelled at Bondi. “Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust! Really? Really?” Balint then stormed out as Bondi laughed.

Justice Connection, a Washington, D.C.-based network of former DOJ employees, criticized Bondi’s conduct throughout the hearing. “Upstanding AG’s respond to congressional oversight with facts, not ad hominem attacks,” the group said in a statement. “AG Bondi’s lack of decorum at today’s hearing demeans the office and further undermines trust in DOJ’s independence.”

While Bondi continued to trade jaded barbs with lawmakers over personal and professional attacks, perhaps the most legally damning accusation came from Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.

Lieu questioned Bondi why no investigation had been launched into the former Prince Andrew, even after disturbing photos of him with a victim surfaced in the latest batch of the Epstein files. He asked her if Trump was involved in any similar actions with Epstein. Bondi called the question “ridiculous.”

“There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime, everyone knows that,” Bondi declared.

“I believe you just lied under oath,” Lieu said. He pointed to an FBI witness statement of a limo driver in 1995 who allegedly overheard Trump talking on his cell phone to someone named “Jeffrey” about “abusing some girl.” The driver said he knew an alleged victim, though she “had her head blown off” in what police refused to call a suicide.

“No one at the Department of Justice interviewed this witness. You need to interview this witness immediately,” Lieu said, calling on Bondi to “resign right after this hearing.”

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Bennett Gershman, a professor at Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law, said that proving Bondi committed perjury would “depend on the evidence and whether it is reliable.”

“If there is evidence in the files that the DOJ has reviewed, obviously that evidence would contradict her wrong testimony, which would be proof of perjury,” Gershman told Salon, cautioning that even so, proving it would be “a complicated process.”

Prosecutors would need to determine what statement she made, whether it was false, whether it can be proven, and whether that proof can be presented to a jury.

“It’s not easy,” Gershman said, himself a former prosecutor. “She has no special immunity. Any witness who testifies falsely under oath is chargeable with perjury.”

Following the hearing, both Republican and Democrat lawmakers sounded off on Bondi. Raskin accused her of a “phenomenal disrespect of Congress,” while Rep. Steve Cohen, R-Tenn., said Bondi’s performance was [for] … a one-person audience: Donald Trump.”  Massie said Bondi “didn’t answer anything,” and Jayapal said her conduct was “vile” in an interview with the Meidas Touch Network.

“She showed how small and cruel she is,” Jayapal said.

At the same time, photos began to emerge from the hearing showing Bondi with what appear to be documents detailing Jayapal’s online search history into Epstein while using a DOJ computer. In order to view some unredacted files, lawmakers must use a computer at one of the department’s satellite offices in Washington. Apparently, those searches are being logged. One document in Bondi’s possession read “Jayapal Pramila Search History,” and showed Epstein files reviewed by the congresswoman.

Gershman said such surveillance from the DOJ is “unprecedented.”

“I have never heard of anything like this happening before,” he told Salon. “We talk about the separation of powers, and here you have the DOJ surveilling, monitoring what these members of Congress are doing.”

Jayapal called Bondi’s tactics “totally inappropriate” in a statement on X. “That is outrageous, and I intend to pursue this and stop this spying on members.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also called it “inappropriate,” though he stopped short of assigning blame, calling it “an oversight.” Raskin referred to it as “this outrageous abuse of power.”

“It is the perfect set-up for [the DOJ] to spy on members’ review, monitoring, recording, and logging every document we choose to pull up,” Raskin said Wednesday in a statement.

For Gershman, the situation has led him to question the DOJ’s integrity under Trump. “What is shown is the incredible deference that this DOJ has to President Trump. It appears to be President Trump’s private lawyers, his lackeys, doing investigations of his perceived enemies,” he said.

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