House Democrats walked out of a briefing with Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday and blasted her evasive answers to questions about a subpoena from the Oversight Committee.
“We asked her multiple times, ‘Are you going to come and speak with us under oath?’ She would not say yes,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said during a press conference after lawmakers left the briefing. “We want her under oath because we do not trust her.”
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House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) announced a subpoena of Bondi on Tuesday, calling on her to testify in a deposition with the panel about the Justice Department’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
According to Democrats, Bondi failed to commit to complying with the panel’s subpoena and said only that she would “follow the law.”
Bondi echoed this statement in comments to reporters, noting that she “made it crystal clear I will follow the law” during the briefing.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democrats also argued that the Wednesday briefing on Epstein, attended by Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, was effectively staged as a “fake hearing” that the public had no visibility into.
“This has been completely set up in a way that’s been irresponsible. And quite frankly, we believe a way for the attorney general to get out of her answering questions under oath and to the public, which we will not accept,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the panel.
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Democrats criticized Comer’s conduct during the closed-door briefing as well.
Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said that she asked the Republican lawmaker whether he would “compel” Bondi to testify if she didn’t comply with the subpoena, and whether he would move for contempt hearings for her in that scenario.
Lee said that Comer accused her of “bitching” rather than offering a response to her questions.
“Instead of answering as an adult, he said that I was ‘bitching,’ which is, again, something that would not be allowed if we were operating under the rules of this committee because engaging in personalities is actually something that we are not able to do,” said Lee, who also described the briefing as a “farce.” “If C-SPAN and the public were there, I’d imagine that he would not act that way.”
Comer later confirmed these remarks to reporters.
A spokesperson for House Oversight Republicans accused Democrats of using the Wednesday briefing as fodder for a “partisan stunt.”
“This was clearly the Democrats’ plan all along: to walk out of the briefing the DOJ offered to provide,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Both Attorney General Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Blanche were answering substantive questions, and Attorney General Bondi stated she would follow the law regarding her subpoena. It’s clear Democrats don’t want answers or justice for survivors; they just want theatrics for their latest partisan stunt.”
Comer also told reporters that he intends to move forward with Bondi’s subpoena, but didn’t pledge to hold her in criminal contempt if she rebuffed it.
“We’ll have to talk about it as a committee,” he said.
