House Democrats raged at the GOP's "fake" deposition of Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday after they stormed out of the closed-door hearing.
Bondi testified before the House Oversight Committee about the Department of Justice's efforts to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law Congress passed last year that required the DOJ to release all files in its possession by December 2025. So far, the DOJ has released about half of the files in its possession, according to estimates. The files that have been released have been subject to significant scrutiny for redacting or obfuscating the information of Epstein's co-conspirators.
The Attorney General was not under oath during the hearing, as Democrats have demanded. Several Democrats spoke out against the way the hearing was conducted in an impromptu press conference.
"We asked her multiple times, 'Are you going to come and speak with us under oath?' and she would not say yes," Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said. "Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster. She would not say yes. And our Republican colleagues say, 'Is this not enough? Why don't you want to speak to her now?' We want her under oath because we do not trust her. Why don't we trust her? Because she's a liar."
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) added that there were "very few" questions asked during the event.
Maxwell also noted that Republicans conducted the deposition like a hearing, giving members only a specific amount of time to question Bondi.
"It's a fake deposition where no one can see what's going on, with zero transcription, where it's not on C-SPAN or anything, and where no one is under oath, and they are allowed to freely lie to members of Congress," Frost said.
