Bondi Testimony Part One

This congressional hearing reveals a Department of Justice in crisis, led by an Attorney General who appears fundamentally unable or unwilling to distinguish between her role as the nation's chief law enforcement officer and her role as President Trump's political defender. The hearing centered on two critical issues: DOJ's catastrophic failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and broader concerns about weaponization of the Justice Department against political opponents.

The Epstein files debacle represents an extraordinary failure of basic competence and legal compliance. Congress passed a law, signed by President Trump, requiring DOJ to release all Epstein-related documents while protecting victim identities and revealing perpetrator names. DOJ did the opposite: releasing only half the required documents, publishing victim names, addresses, and even nude photographs while redacting the names of powerful men identified as co-conspirators in child sex trafficking. When confronted with documentary evidence of these failures—including an email literally titled "Victim List" with unredacted names, and FBI documents identifying Les Wexner as a co-conspirator with his name redacted—Attorney General Bondi refused to take responsibility, instead attacking questioners as having "Trump derangement syndrome" and deflecting to unrelated topics like stock market performance and California crime statistics.

Most disturbing was Bondi's complete inability to follow basic congressional hearing procedures. When members reclaimed their time after she went off-topic, she continued speaking, made personal attacks ("you're a failed politician," "washed up lawyer"), and treated legitimate oversight questions as personal affronts requiring combative defense. The contrast between her cooperative, detailed responses to Republican members versus her hostile, evasive responses to Democrats reveals an Attorney General who sees her role as serving one party rather than the Constitution. Her repeated refrain of "did you ask Merrick Garland this?" exemplifies the whataboutism that characterized her testimony—as if previous failures excuse current ones, or as if the question is whether past administrations did their job rather than whether this one is doing its job.

The hearing also revealed credible evidence of ongoing coverups and selective prosecution. Multiple members presented evidence of potential crimes in the Epstein files that DOJ has not investigated, while DOJ has aggressively pursued Trump's political enemies with cases so weak that grand juries—which famously "indict a ham sandwich"—refused to return indictments in multiple instances. The Attorney General could not or would not commit to creating a task force to investigate Epstein's co-conspirators, could not explain why zero perpetrators have been charged despite evidence of over 1,000 victims, and refused to provide Congress with lists of organizations designated as domestic terrorists under a presidential memo. This pattern suggests a Justice Department that has abandoned its core mission of equal justice under law in favor of a dual system: protection for the powerful and punishment for political opponents.

The survivors of Epstein's sex trafficking ring, present throughout the hearing, provided silent testimony to DOJ's failures. When asked if they felt DOJ had their backs, not one raised their hand. Their presence underscored the human cost of treating the Justice Department as a political weapon rather than an instrument of justice. These women, who suffered unspeakable abuse as children, have been victimized again by a department that exposed their identities while protecting their abusers, then refused to apologize or take meaningful corrective action. Attorney General Bondi's refusal to turn around and face them when asked to apologize speaks volumes about her priorities and character.

This hearing represents a dangerous inflection point for American democracy. When the Attorney General treats congressional oversight as partisan theater, when she cannot answer basic questions about compliance with federal law, when she attacks members personally rather than addressing their concerns substantively, and when she openly operates a two-tier justice system based on political loyalty, the rule of law itself is at risk. The good faith score of 0.15 reflects not just poor performance but active hostility to democratic accountability—a witness who came not to answer questions but to wage political combat, not to explain her department's actions but to defend her patron at all costs.