
Attorney General Pam Bondi fiercely sidestepped a question about President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in federal custody in 2019, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.
When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) questioned Bondi about a report that Epstein had photos of Trump with “half-naked young women” and whether the alleged photos were in the Justice Department’s Epstein files, Bondi tried to turn the tables on Whitehouse.
In a scathing attack, Bondi implied that Whitehouse should be more concerned about his own tangential link to the late disgraced financier.
“You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks, once again, trying to slander President Trump left and right, when you’re the one who was taking money from one of Epstein’s closest confidants—I believe, I could be wrong, correct me — [LinkedIn co-founder] Reid Hoffman, who was with Jeffrey Epstein on multiple occasions, and the senator sitting right next to you tried to block the flight logs from being released,” Bondi fired back.
“Yet you’re grilling me on President Trump and some photograph with Epstein? Come on,” she added.
Not backing down, Whitehouse continued pressing Bondi about the purported photos.
“The question is, did the FBI find those photographs that have been discussed publicly by a witness who claimed Jeffrey Epstein showed them?” Whitehouse asked.
“You don’t know anything about that?” he asked Bondi, to which she didn’t respond.
Whitehouse then told Bondi, “Why don’t we cut to something else,” before switching subjects.
Bondi’s heated reaction comes months after she faced backlash for stating that the bombshell Epstein “client list” was on her desk, only to later walk back that claim under the guise of a July memo released by the Justice Department and FBI that found no evidence that the document existed.
The two-page memo also concluded that Epstein was not murdered but died by suicide, which supported the FBI’s previous conclusions.
The memo caused a flurry of criticism from Trump supporters and right-wing figures who called on the administration to release more information on Epstein.
Trump has repeatedly denied having a relationship with Epstein.