WASHINGTON — Former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi is scheduled to meet with the Home Oversight Committee on Friday to focus on the Justice Division’s investigations into deceased intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and its launch of recordsdata associated to that investigation.
However the circumstances surrounding her assembly with the committee increase questions about how much the committee will really study about both.
For one, the former legal professional normal will not be underneath oath in a sworn deposition however will present a transcribed interview, which is voluntary. Bondi’s interview with the committee will occur behind closed doorways with members of the committee and employees and will not be filmed. The committee says it plans to launch a transcript quickly after the listening to.
And Bondi will be represented at her interview by Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, which authorized specialists say raises the prospects that the Division of Justice may direct Bondi to not reply some questions posed by the committee.
Former Atty. Gen. William Barr, former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all gave sworn depositions.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the committee, rejected the Clintons’ provide to present a transcribed interview, somewhat than sit for a deposition, out of concern that somebody giving a transcribed interview may “refuse to reply no matter questions he wished for no matter causes he wished.”
Comer’s spokesperson mentioned Bondi was allowed to sit for a transcribed interview, somewhat than a deposition, as a result of the former legal professional normal was “cooperative.”
“Not like the Clintons who defied subpoenas for seven months, former Legal professional Common Pam Bondi voluntarily and rapidly cooperated with the Committee to establish a mutually agreeable date,” spokesperson Austin Hacker mentioned in a press release.
Bondi had, in actual fact, refused to adjust to the committee’s subpoena whereas she was nonetheless in workplace, and the rating Democrat on the committee, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Lengthy Seaside), filed a decision on April 29 to maintain Bondi in contempt for not complying with the committee’s subpoena a month earlier. Bondi’s settlement to present a transcribed interview was introduced the similar day.
The committee subpoenaed Bondi in March to study extra about the division’s long-running investigations into Epstein — the financier accused of abusing greater than 1,000 ladies and women and directing a few of them to have intercourse together with his high-powered pals — and the division’s launch of recordsdata in response to the 2025 Epstein Recordsdata Transparency Act, which mandated disclosure of the investigative information.
Requested whether or not Dhillon’s participation indicated that the division deliberate to invoke privilege and bar Bondi from sharing some info, the division mentioned in a press release that Dhillon and different company officers would attend Bondi’s interview “solely to guarantee correct illustration of Division processes, facilitate any vital clarifications, and help a whole factual file for the Committee.”
The division added that it “routinely supplies employees” to help with “congressional engagement involving previous Division employees actions.”
However a former DOJ ethics official, talking on the situation of anonymity for worry of retribution, mentioned that Dhillon’s participation in the proceedings was something however routine.
Sometimes, any such work can be dealt with by a much less senior legal professional at the division who had extra direct involvement with the subject material at hand, the former official mentioned. Dhillon oversees the division’s civil rights division, whereas the investigations into Epstein have been felony issues.
“I don’t see the place Harmeet Dhillon has the expertise or the regular stage of authority that this might be delegated to,” the official mentioned. “Every part about this appears uncommon.”
Bondi would additionally want to have submitted a proper request for illustration from the division.
“It doesn’t simply occur willy-nilly,” the former ethics official mentioned.
The division didn’t say how Bondi got here to be represented by the company’s attorneys. Bondi, who mentioned this week she is being handled for thyroid most cancers, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The presence of Dhillon — a San Francisco legal professional and Republican get together insider who has been talked about as a possible choose for legal professional normal — may additionally current a battle of curiosity, specialists mentioned.
“It’s unclear if she is representing the pursuits of Bondi, the division, or herself,” mentioned Dave Rapallo, a former employees director of the Home Oversight Committee.
He mentioned that Dhillon wouldn’t have been in a position to characterize Bondi if her testimony was offered in a deposition as a result of the committee’s guidelines stop company legal professionals from attending depositions.
Bondi was fired by President Trump on April 2. She was dogged by questions about her dealing with of the Epstein investigation all through her time in workplace.
Trump campaigned on the promise of releasing info about the authorities’s investigation into Epstein in 2024 and in February 2025, Bondi informed Fox Information that she had on her desk a listing of purchasers of Epstein — who died in federal custody in 2019.
However months later, as questions swirled about Trump’s relationship with Epstein, the Justice Division introduced that it was closing its investigation into Epstein and mentioned that, in actual fact, no such shopper checklist existed.
Quickly after, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) launched the bipartisan Epstein Recordsdata Transparency Act, requiring the Justice Division to launch all of the information from its investigation into Epstein. Trump initially opposed the laws however finally signed it into regulation.
The division has launched thousands and thousands of pages of information in response to the regulation. Whereas Performing Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche mentioned in January that there are thousands and thousands of further pages of information that aren’t but public, the division has indicated that it doesn’t plan to launch these further recordsdata.
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