Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi clashed during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, as Massie lambasted the Department of Justice (DOJ) for their botched handling of the Epstein files. The exchange quickly devolved into a tense back-and-forth, riddled with interruptions, accusations, and personal insults from the unruly attorney general.
Massie opened his questioning by presenting three documents he said were emblematic of the DOJ’s “massive failure” to comply with his and Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA)’s Epstein Files Transparency Act. He pointed to an email from victims’ lawyers that contained a list of names that were not supposed to be released. According to Massie, the DOJ included the email in its document production anyway, exposing survivors who had asked to remain anonymous.
“Literally the worst thing you could do to the survivors, you did,” Massie said, noting that some of the individuals were now receiving phone calls because their names had been exposed.
Massie then turned to another document titled “Child Sex Trafficking Co-Conspirators,” which he said had been fully redacted. Massie noted that the founder of L Brands, Leslie Wexner, appeared in the document as a co-conspirator, but only after he pressed the DOJ to release it.
“[Wexner] doesn’t appear in this file until I forced you to release it, where he’s listed as a co-conspirator, not to tax evasion, not to prostitution, not to money laundering—child sex trafficking,” Massie stated.
Lastly, Massie touched upon the FD-302 release. According to Massie, these are the documents that the DOJ is holding on to and over-redacting because they contain the names of the men who are implicated. “How do we know?” Massie asked. “Because the survivors gave testimony to the FBI, and it’s in there.”
“And what happens when you go to the portal at the DOJ to look at what’s behind this redaction?” Massie continued. “Another redaction. So we can’t even see them. And then there are some of these files you’ve pulled down from the website that we will never see because we can’t search the redactions.”
Bondi Dodges Questions, Hurls Personal Attacks At Massie
Massie pressed Bondi on accountability, asking who within the DOJ was responsible for releasing survivors’ names and obscuring information about alleged co-conspirators.
Bondi made excuses for herself, saying Wexner’s name appeared thousands of times in the files and insisting the redaction issue had been corrected within 40 minutes. But the exchange quickly grew heated as Massie called her out on the department addressing this issue only after Massie caught them “red-handed.”
At that point, Bondi resorted to her usual antics of hostile behavior and name-calling.
The unruly attorney general escalated the confrontation, calling Massie a “failed politician” and accusing him of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome” (TDS).
Bondi’s comments were eyebrow-raising, to say the least, not just because of her hostile behavior, but because they came from the nation’s top law enforcement official during a formal congressional hearing on a matter involving survivors of child sex trafficking.
Massie, for his part, tried to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand, stating that the Epstein cover-up spanned multiple administrations and is “bigger than Watergate.” He pressed Bondi on when the DOJ and FBI decided not to pursue charges against Wexner and why the internal decision-making documents required under his transparency act were missing from the files.
But the substance of the dispute was largely overshadowed by the combative tone of the exchange. Rather than offering a clear accounting of the department’s actions, Bondi repeatedly deflected, referenced previous administrations, and attacked Massie personally.
For many observers, this moment was emblematic of a deeper problem: an attorney general who appeared more interested in covering for the president and the Epstein class than answering questions about the government’s handling of one of the most notorious sex-trafficking cases in modern history. In an oversight hearing centered on transparency and accountability for survivors, Bondi chose confrontation over clarity—and, in the process, turned a serious inquiry into a personal feud.
