House Democrats on the Oversight Committee walked out of a closed-door briefing with Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday, departing before asking a single substantive question about the Justice Department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein files.
Attorney General Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche arrived on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon for a briefing with members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The closed-door session took place one day after the Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Bondi to testify.
Bondi and Blanche went to Capitol Hill to try to quell bipartisan frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of millions of files related to Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation.
Within half an hour of their arrival, Democratic lawmakers had walked out of the room.
Democrats noted that Bondi was not under oath, gave no opening statement, and did not commit to honoring her subpoena.
Before the walkout, a confrontation erupted between House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania.
Lee told Comer: “Mr. Chairman, there are no cameras here. You don’t have to perform. We were told this was a briefing.”
Lee pushed back, saying: “I would like C-SPAN. I would like you to bring the transcribers. I would like you to go through with the decorum and with the rules.”
Comer responded by asking: “Are you trying to find information, or trying to embarrass the attorney general?”
Comer told Lee, “You wasted three minutes of everybody’s time kind of b*tching,” drawing audible gasps in the room. Every Democratic lawmaker on the committee walked out of the briefing shortly after.
Comer later confirmed the exchange, writing on X: “I said Democrats were b*tching and wasting everyone’s time because Democrats were bitching and wasting everyone’s time.”
After leaving the briefing, Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the committee’s ranking member, immediately addressed reporters. Garcia called the session a “fake hearing,” adding that Bondi was not under oath and did not give an opening statement.
“It’s outrageous, it’s infuriating and it continues this White House coverup of the Epstein files,” Garcia said.
Garcia also said that Bondi refused “on multiple occasions” to agree to testify for a transcribed interview under oath that could later be made available to the public. “We won’t participate in a fake hearing that’s not under oath and not transcribed,” Garcia posted to X.
Bondi addressed reporters following the briefing. “One congresswoman screamed: ‘C-SPAN wasn’t in there, so she didn’t want to ask questions.’ Yet all day long, they’ve been on social media saying they had all these questions,” Bondi said.
When asked directly about the subpoena, Bondi said, “I made it crystal clear I will follow the law.”
Comer stated: “I’ve never seen members storm out of a briefing with the attorney general, and the entire leaders of the Department of Justice are there to answer questions, and they don’t ask a single question.”
Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee claimed the walkout was “all staged.”
On Thursday, Comer called the moment a “low point” in the committee’s investigation. “The way the Democrats behaved was clearly a premeditated stunt to go out with their fake outrage,” Comer told reporters.
“They said Pam Bondi wasn’t answering their questions. They didn’t ask any questions.”
Comer accused Democrats of political grandstanding. “This for us, for the Republicans, it’s about getting answers,” Comer said. “For the Democrats, it’s a political game, and they just demonstrated that today.”
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert posted to X: “If this was truly about the victims, my Democrat colleagues would have stuck around and continued to ask questions. Sadly, they consider this an opportunity for press, not for justice. Totally pathetic.”
