On February 11, 2026, the usually staid halls of the U.S. Capitol erupted into a storm of accusations, outrage, and raw emotion as Attorney General Pam Bondi faced a House Judiciary Committee hearing dominated by the lingering scandal over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. The session, which quickly devolved into partisan crossfire, saw Bondi positioned squarely in the crosshairs—not just of Democratic lawmakers, but of Epstein survivors and their families seated silently behind her, bearing witness to the day’s drama.
Bondi, who took the helm of the Justice Department a year ago, came prepared for battle. According to the Associated Press, she launched into a passionate defense of both Donald Trump and her own stewardship, repeatedly clashing with Democrats over accusations of a weaponized Justice Department and the mishandling of sensitive Epstein documents. Her tone was defiant, her rhetoric sharp. “You sit here and you attack the president and I’m not going to have it,” Bondi shot back at lawmakers. “I am not going to put up with it.”
The hearing’s intensity was heightened by the presence of survivors of Epstein’s global sex trafficking ring, many of whom have long called for accountability and transparency. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, opened with a pointed introduction of the survivors and victims’ families in attendance, including Theresa Helm, Jess Michaels, Lara Blume McGee, Dani Bensky, Liz Stein, Marina Lacerda, Sky and Amanda Roberts (family of the late Virginia Giuffre), Sharlene Lund, Rachel B., and Lisa Phillips. Raskin’s message to Bondi was unflinching: “You’re running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the Justice Department.”
At the heart of the controversy is the Justice Department’s release of approximately three million documents related to Epstein—only half of the six million ordered by Congress under subpoena. Bondi’s justification? The remaining three million, she said, were duplicative. But Raskin and other Democrats weren’t buying it, insisting that critical victim statements and non-duplicative materials were being withheld. Raskin pressed, “You say you’re not turning over the other three million because they’re somehow duplicative. But we know that there are actual memos of victim statements in there.”
More than the quantity of documents, it was the quality—and handling—of the released files that drew the sharpest ire. Multiple news organizations, including The Associated Press, found that the files were riddled with inconsistent or missing redactions, exposing intimate details about victims, including their names and even nude photographs. Raskin accused Bondi of redacting the names of abusers and coconspirators “to spare them embarrassment and disgrace,” while failing to protect the identities of victims as mandated by law. “You published their names, their identities, their images on thousands of pages for the world to see,” Raskin charged, calling the move a mixture of “staggering incompetence, cold indifference, and jaded cruelty.”
Bondi, for her part, expressed sorrow for the suffering of Epstein’s victims and urged them to come forward with information about their abuse. She told the survivors, “Any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.” But when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal to turn and apologize directly to the victims in the audience for what the Trump administration’s Justice Department had “put them through,” Bondi refused, dismissing the request as “theatrics.”
The hearing wasn’t just about Epstein. Republicans, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, sought to redirect the conversation toward law enforcement priorities like violent crime and illegal immigration. Jordan lavished praise on Bondi, declaring, “What a difference a year makes. Under Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions—upholding the rule of law, going after the bad guys and keeping Americans safe.” Bondi herself argued that she was determined to restore the department to its foundational tasks after what she described as “years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization.”
But Democrats, emboldened by the day’s high stakes, hammered Bondi on the politicization of the Justice Department. Raskin’s opening statement was a blistering indictment, accusing Bondi of turning the DOJ into “Trump’s instrument of revenge.” He cited a pattern of prosecutions against Trump’s political opponents, the replacement of career prosecutors with loyalists, and even the controversial transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security prison—allegedly after a DOJ official spent hours ensuring she would not implicate Trump. “Abandoning victims and coddling perpetrators is what you do best,” Raskin declared.
The hearing also exposed deep divisions over the department’s broader record. Democrats pointed to the abrupt closure of investigations into killings by Trump administration agents, the blocking of evidence sharing with local authorities, and the launch of criminal probes into grieving families and political adversaries. Raskin highlighted the resignations of DOJ attorneys Danielle Sassoon and Hagan Scotten, who reportedly left rather than participate in what they saw as politically motivated actions.
Republicans, meanwhile, painted Bondi as a reformer undoing what they saw as partisan excesses of her predecessors. Jordan and others credited her with dropping federal criminal cases against Trump that they viewed as politically motivated and with focusing the department’s resources on “going after the bad guys.”
Bondi’s own role in the Epstein controversy was complicated by her earlier actions. As AP reported, she had distributed binders of Epstein files to conservative influencers at the White House in February 2025, raising expectations among Trump’s base for new revelations. When the Justice Department later concluded, in July 2025, that no Epstein “client list” existed—contradicting Bondi’s earlier suggestions—the backlash intensified, prompting Congress to demand the release of all files. Bondi later clarified she had been referring to the files in general, not a specific list.
Amid the heated exchanges, the hearing underscored the profound distrust and division that now characterizes oversight of the Justice Department. Democrats saw a department captured by political interests and indifferent to victims, while Republicans insisted Bondi was restoring integrity and focus to an agency long adrift. For the survivors seated behind Bondi, and for the public watching, the session was a stark reminder of how justice, transparency, and accountability remain fiercely contested in today’s America.
The day ended without resolution, but with the unmistakable sense that the fight over the Epstein files—and the soul of the Justice Department itself—was far from over.