The Justice Department says that Pam Bondi will not testify about the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein to a congressional committee next week because she is no longer the US attorney general.
The House Oversight Committee was told by the Justice Department that Bondi would not be at the deposition on April 14 because she was “subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General.” A committee spokesperson confirmed this to the BBC.
Last week, President Donald Trump took Bondi out of her job as the top law enforcement officer in the United States.
Some people on the committee say they will ask Bondi to answer questions later.
Nancy Mace, a Republican on the committee, said that the subpoena means Bondi has to show up, and that she is still required to do so even though she is no longer attorney general.
Mace told James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to “publicly reaffirm former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s legal obligation to appear for her deposition.”The American people deserve to know whether Congress was misled and whether information about Jeffrey Epstein and his associates is being withheld,” Mace wrote.
Democrat Robert Garcia agreed with those feelings.He wrote in a statement, “She must come in to testify right away, and if she doesn’t, we will start contempt charges.”
Bondi hasn’t said anything.
According to a subpoena letter from Comer, Bondi was formally called to answer questions about any “possible mismanagement” of the investigation into the late convicted sex offender by the justice department earlier this year.
People from all sides of the political spectrum have been putting pressure on Bondi and the Trump administration to make all of Epstein’s documents public.
Last November, Trump signed a bill into law that Congress had passed. It required the Department of Justice to make all of the information it had gathered during its investigations into Epstein public.
The agency faced criticism from both sides of the aisle after releasing millions of documents. Some lawmakers said it failed to hide some identifying information about survivors and allegedly protected the identities of people who were not victims.”Comer said of Bondi last month, “As Attorney General, you are directly responsible for overseeing the Department’s collection, review, and determinations regarding the release of files pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The Committee therefore believes that you possess valuable insight into these efforts.”
The congressional committee has already made a number of well-known people, like former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testify in the case.
