Democrats grill Pam Bondi on Epstein files as she touts stock market in hearing

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WASHINGTON – House Democrats assailed Attorney General Pam Bondi for not prosecuting alleged co-conspirators of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and she responded by saying they should focus instead on the rising stock market and falling crime.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York, sparked the fiery clash by asking how many of Epstein’s accomplices she had indicted, which is none. But Bondi responded by noting the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 50,000, the S&P 500 neared 7,000 and the Nasdaq “is smashing records” under President Donald Trump.

“You all should be apologizing,” Bondi said. “You sit here and you attack the president. I’m not going to have it. I’m not going to put up with it.”

The antagonism at the House Judiciary Committee had a history.

Nadler, who previously served as chairman of the committee, investigated Trump during his first term. Bondi was one of the lawyers representing Trump in his first impeachment over his dealings with Ukraine, when he was acquitted in a Senate trial.

The current top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, prosecuted Trump during his second impeachment over the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, when the Senate also acquitted him. Raskin assailed Bondi for failing to release all of the government’s Epstein files as Congress directed while inadvertently revealing the names of women who accused Epstein of abuse.

“You acted with some mixture of staggering incompetence, cold indifference and jaded cruelty toward more than 1,000 victims raped, abused and trafficked,” Raskin said in his opening statement. “This performance screams coverup.”

Raskin, a former 25-year professor of constitutional law, told Bondi to answer questions rather than filibuster.

“You don’t tell me anything, you washed up loser lawyer,” Bondi told Raskin, a Harvard Law School graduate. “You’re not even a lawyer.”

The Epstein files have been a flashpoint throughout the first year of Trump’s second term because some women who accused Epstein of abuse contend more should be done to prosecute the powerful business and political leaders who socialized with him. Trump, former President Bill Clinton and others are mentioned in the files without credible accusations of wrongdoing.

Congress approved a law directing the Justice Department to release all of its Epstein documents by late December with the names of women who accused him of abuse redacted. But some women’s names were exposed among 3 million pages released so far.

The department has withheld 2.5 million pages, which some lawmakers say contain the names of potential co-conspirators who should be investigated. Bondi invited women in her opening statement to report their allegations to the FBI.

But in response to Nadler’s questions about the “disgusting criminality” in the Epstein files, Bondi argued lawmakers should focus on the rising stock market benefiting the American public’s retirement accounts. She added that crime rates and border crossings have plummeted under Trump.

“That’s what we should be focused on – all the great work that this president has done,” Bondi said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bondi cites rising stock market in response to criticism over Epstein