Bondi Faces Fire Over Epstein Files and DOJ Tactics (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: It has been a significant week in the chase for truth and justice in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, a Trump cabinet official admitted to being on the pedophile's island after lying about it. Ghislaine Maxwell floated a quid pro quo promising to clear Donald Trump and Bill Clinton if she is granted clemency. Republicans began to see the unredacted files only to find even more redactions. And the Justice Department spied on those lawmakers making searches, something that caused even Speaker Mike Johnson to condemn the administration. And speaking of the DOJ, Pam Bondi acted more like a campaign surrogate than the attorney general. She refused to answer basic questions about her handling of this case and of the files.

[00:00:46] Speaker 2: Excuse me, I'm going to answer the question.

[00:00:48] Speaker 3: Answer my question.

[00:00:49] Speaker 2: No, I'm going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question.

[00:00:53] Speaker 3: Your theatrics are ridiculous. I believe you just lied under oath. There is ample evidence in the Epstein file.

[00:00:59] Speaker 2: Don't you ever accuse me of a crime. I believe you.

[00:01:01] Speaker 4: I told you about that, attorney general, before you started.

[00:01:04] Speaker 2: You don't tell me anything.

[00:01:05] Speaker 3: Oh, I did tell you because we saw what you did in the Senate. You're not even a lawyer.

[00:01:11] Speaker 1: That episode may have pleased an audience of one, and even that is uncertain, but it backfired with MAGA.

[00:01:20] Speaker 5: Pam Bondi is a horrible speaker. She made an absolute ass of herself. This is one of the most embarrassing things I have ever witnessed from a lawmaker.

[00:01:30] Speaker 3: I personally lost all faith in our justice system. It is a system of injustice. I ain't cutting Trump any slack. Now that we know that they've covered up the co-conspirator documents, I would say it's shocking to the conscience that Trump called it a hoax.

[00:01:46] Speaker 6: Shocking. You watch, this is going to bring the country down. It's your fault, not mine.

[00:01:50] Speaker 3: This is either a cover-up or it's incompetence, and I want somebody to go to jail for it.

[00:01:58] Speaker 1: Usually a Pam Bondi performance like that would be just fine in MAGA World, but I think it actually says a lot about this Epstein situation, that it didn't work this way. They still do want some answers, and the fact that she was stonewalling and yelling and all the theatrics about a sex pedophile ring, to MAGA's credit, that really rubbed them the wrong way.

[00:02:22] Speaker 7: Don't you dare accuse Pam Bondi of doing her job. Because that's really at the heart of the problem here. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General of the United States. She does not represent Donald Trump. She does not represent Bill Clinton. She represents the people, and in this case, the victims of the Epstein scandal. The most arresting image for all the toxicity, and honestly, the last time I saw something that toxic, Britney Spears was involved. But for all of that ridiculousness, the most arresting image of the entire hearing was when all those Epstein's victims stood up, and Pam Bondi refused to look at them in the face. Pam Bondi refused to look at her clients in the face. The people she's supposed to be representing and defending, she couldn't look them in the face, and that is going to be the story of that hearing, no matter what Pam Bondi said and how she yelled and carried on.

[00:03:16] Speaker 8: I think one of the most striking moments was when she brought up the Dow, because what did that have to do with Epstein survivors and victims and the case, right? So it was all about performing for Donald Trump, and that's because he rewards that. What did he do after her testimony? He praised her. She stuck it to the lunatic leftists, right? So she absolutely had him in mind, and every deflection was very obvious to people, and that's the problem. You worked folks up, you said you were going to fight the elites, and then you go in there and you actually don't get the job done. It looks as if you're hiding things. It's not about red and blue anymore. It's about justice.

[00:03:54] Speaker 1: Arthur, before you jump in, let me just disclose to the audience that you once represented Ghislaine Maxwell.

[00:03:59] Speaker 6: Yes, we handled her appeal from her trial, but putting my lawyer's hat on, and I don't mean to correct you, but as being an attorney, those are not her clients. In other words, a criminal defense attorney has to zealously represent his or her client. A prosecutor is in a much more luxurious position. They have a quasi-judicial function. They are the ones who decide, do we prosecute a case or we don't prosecute a case? They don't just take someone for their word. They have to do an investigation, and they figure it out. So her role is not what my role would be if someone hires me. I have to fight for them no matter what. A prosecutor's role is...

[00:04:37] Speaker 7: Is she investigating Donald Trump? Is that really what we think is happening?

[00:04:41] Speaker 6: I don't think Donald Trump is the target here. The target was Jeffrey Epstein, and he's dead. The only person in jail is a woman, Ghislaine Maxwell.

[00:04:52] Speaker 7: So you're saying that Pam Bondi has no job, that she has no role in this?

[00:04:55] Speaker 6: No, she's an investigator. All I said is those are not her clients.

[00:04:58] Speaker 1: But can I say, in this paradigm, Pam Bondi's working on behalf of the people collectively, and justice as a concept, which would involve, we know for a fact they're victims, right? And many of those women say they have been victimized. Okay, how do we know that for a fact?

[00:05:19] Speaker 6: I'm not questioning you, I'm asking you a question. How do we know for a fact?

[00:05:23] Speaker 1: Because Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were both prosecuted for victimizing girls and women. Okay, so let me be a lawyer once again.

[00:05:36] Speaker 6: In your open, you refer to him as a pedophile. You realize that he's not a pedophile. A pedophile is someone, in the law, is someone who goes after a prepubescent person. So he's never been accused of going after someone who's a prepubescent.

[00:05:50] Speaker 1: Some of the victims in the documents, according to Jamie Raskin, who saw the documents in the classified setting, were as young as nine years old. Okay, that's a new fact to me. So I'm just saying, we are talking about a range of victims who can be extremely young in some cases, but I don't, Arthur, there's no question there are victims here, okay? Pam Bondi's job is to determine whether there is justice to be had. And those victims are sitting in that room and they're saying, hey, we think there is more here, please do more. And rather than saying, you know, we're going to do our best to make sure that we leave no stone unturned, that no one is going to get away with something if they are still around and they've committed a crime. But instead, she did what she did. And people are, I mean, people on the right are disgusted, people on the left are disgusted. This is not about politics.

[00:06:46] Speaker 4: She did what she did because Pam Bondi is a triple threat. She is inept, incompetent, and incapable. And that's what we saw in that hearing. And it's what I've been saying for months at this table and elsewhere. She has botched this. Bondi has botched this from the very beginning. They do not communicate well with the American people, even internally and externally, to say, hey, here's what we're redacting, here's why we're redacting it, here's when the next tranche of documents are going to come. You recall a couple weeks ago I said this was just the beginning of our national nightmare. And it's proving to be true. This nightmare is going on and it's not going to stop until President Trump swaps her out, just like he swapped Tom Homan in to Minnesota. He's got to get her out and someone in the job that knows what they're doing. But I do want to follow up to what you said. Did you once ask why the Biden administration didn't look those survivors in the face? Even one time. And don't roll your eyes, because it is. No, we don't just erase that.

[00:07:49] Speaker 7: We're not going to play whataboutism over the X thing. It is a whataboutism. The person in charge right now is Pam Bondi and the Trump administration. And they should be investigating it. If you want to talk about things that I think Merrick Garland should investigate, you don't want to get me started on who I think Merrick Garland should have in jail right now. Because if Merrick Garland was doing a good job, Trump wouldn't have even been able to run for president.

[00:08:11] Speaker 4: Incredibly skilled deflection.

[00:08:13] Speaker 7: I'm not deflecting.

[00:08:14] Speaker 4: You are, because you won't answer the question. Did you wonder why the Biden administration did not seek justice for those survivors for four whole years?

[00:08:22] Speaker 7: They didn't not seek justice. I'm not deflecting from the question. I'm disagreeing with your incorrect premise. They did seek justice. I didn't think Merrick Garland went hard enough. I didn't think Merrick Garland did a great job. I do not think that Pam Bondi is doing a great job. I do not think Donald Trump is doing a good job. Is that a full enough answer? Nobody involved here is doing enough to defend the Epstein victims. Are you satisfied with that answer? Sure. Okay.

[00:08:45] Speaker 1: Good job. Pam Bondi, when she went up to the Hill, she had these images of the search history of the members who went up to the DOJ to take a look at the unredacted files. She seemed to be convinced that this was, I guess, a defensive measure, if any of those issues came up while she was on Capitol Hill. But here's what Mike Johnson said about the appropriateness of that.

[00:09:07] Speaker 9: My understanding is that their computer is set up where the DOJ was allowed access to the files, and I think members should obviously have the right to peruse those at their own speed and with their own discretion, and I don't think it's appropriate for anybody to be tracking that. So I will echo that to anybody involved with the DOJ, and I'm sure it was an oversight. That's my guess.

[00:09:32] Speaker 1: I don't think a printout of a specific congressperson's note is an oversight. That's the first thing. But why do you think, Natasha, that the DOJ decided to do that? I mean, again, it seems like a defensive move, like they're trying to protect themselves from something.

[00:09:49] Speaker 8: I honestly have no idea. I don't know why they would do that. But it certainly feeds into a narrative that, again, this is not a straightforward investigation. It's not one that's focused on victims. It's extremely politicized, and the people who should be front and center, who should be held accountable, are redacted, are protected, are essentially not being put forward to have to answer difficult questions. But it is interesting that Mike Johnson gave the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure that it was just an oversight. It's not really anyone's fault.