House Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) was completely unimpressed with former Attorney General Pam Bondi's efforts to pin all the flaws in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation on her erstwhile deputy Todd Blanche, and told MS NOW's Alicia Menendez that members of Congress ought to call her bluff.
Menendez confronted Garcia with Bondi's testimony this week, in which she claimed it's "100 percent incorrect' to say she's blaming Blanche for shortcomings in the Epstein probe, but then turned around and said "hemanaged this investigation. Andit was a Herculean task with very little error."
"Help me understand what is not said in that statement," said Menendez.
"I don't know what she's thinking," said Garcia. "I mean, give me a break!"
The reality, he continued, is that Bondi "mentioned Todd Blanche almost a hundred times and 50 of those times she directly went back and blamed Todd Blanche for all sorts of problems within the Epstein investigation. She spent her entire interview blaming Todd Blanche, saying he was in charge of the redactions," and she also "refused to take any responsibility" for the shady prison transfer deal granted to Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
If Congress really cares to know the truth, Garcia continued, "We should ask Todd Blanche, because Todd Blanche would probably know" the answer to these questions.
Ultimately, he added, "what we should have done is seen a video of a deposition under oath. But Republicansrefused to videotape the interview. They refused to put her under oath. And that is shameful ... And quite frankly, Pam Bondi is not trustworthy. She was not honest with the committee."