Pam Bondi arrives for House Oversight Committee hearing to address Epstein questions

[0:00] Hi, I'm Diane Macedo. We have breaking news. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is on Capitol Hill to be interviewed by the House Oversight Committee. [0:06] Bondi is expected to face questions about failing to fulfill her promise to publicly release the DOJ's Epstein files. [0:12] President Trump removed Bondi in April after sources said he was frustrated with her handling of the files. [0:17] Congress did force the Justice Department to release the files, but the DOJ also faced backlash for improperly redacting them. [0:24] Now the House Oversight Committee will have a chance to question Bondi about all of that. [0:27] ABC's Jay O'Brien has the latest from Capitol Hill. [0:31] Jay, this isn't exactly the hearing lawmakers wanted. [0:33] Bondi will be interviewed behind closed doors instead of having a formal deposition under oath. [0:38] So what are you hearing from lawmakers about that? [0:41] That's exactly right, Diane. It will be behind closed doors. It will be transcribed. [0:45] But there will be no video, and she's not technically under oath, although it is still illegal, of course, to lie to Congress. [0:51] The former attorney general just walked in moments ago, and I and other reporters peppered her with questions, [0:56] including, are there files that mention President Trump that have not been released? [0:59] She didn't answer that. [1:01] We also asked her, does she apologize to those Epstein survivors who have said that she mishandled the release of these Epstein files? [1:08] She didn't answer that. [1:09] As she walked into this room, there were Epstein survivors here who shouted to her to tell the truth. [1:14] Right now, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, the Republican chair of this panel, is gaggling with reporters, [1:21] and there are Epstein survivors standing right next to him, asking him questions. [1:26] And one asked, will they get answers on redactions that were made in these files that should not have been? [1:33] Information that even the Justice Department has acknowledged by removing the redaction was blacked out that should not have been in these files. [1:40] And Comer said that they're going to, of course, ask the former attorney general about that, but he's uncertain of what her answer will be. [1:46] He went on to say that he believes a series of administrations have failed these survivors. [1:51] But I asked him, is this current Justice Department failing these survivors? [1:56] Because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of Epstein files that have not been made public. [2:01] The Justice Department says that legally they are not required to release them, and they've released all records that they are legally required to make public. [2:08] Here's a little bit more of what James Comer said. [2:11] So we're going to do everything in our ability to try to get justice for the victims. [2:14] So, Mr. Chairman, there are documents that still have not been released. [2:17] It is the current Department of Justice... [2:18] Well, that's what we're going to ask about today, and we asked about that in the briefing. [2:23] And at the time, what the, if I remember correctly, what the attorney general said, the former attorney general, [2:29] was that they had turned over all the documents that they can legally turn over. [2:34] Now, we're going to find out. [2:35] Those are the questions that we're going to have. [2:37] We're going to go to the first hour. [2:38] What documents remain? [2:40] Why haven't they been turned over? [2:42] We're going to try to determine whether or not, you know, there could be more documents legally... [2:47] Now, Diane, remember, this is behind closed doors, so getting a readout of exactly what goes on in this transcribed interview will be somewhat of a challenge. [2:56] You usually just speak to lawmakers as they emerge and ask them what happened in the room. [3:00] But we do expect, we know that Democrats are going to ask about it, questions about President Trump to come up, [3:05] and questions about if information pertaining to President Trump was redacted in these files when it should not have been. [3:11] The Justice Department says that that did not occur, but that's certainly something that Democrats on this panel have been looking into. [3:18] All right, Jay O'Brien, thank you. [3:20] And ABC News contributor, former New York Congressman John Katko, has more on this. [3:26] John, hearings on Capitol Hill are known to get contentious. [3:28] We've definitely seen that with Bondi before. [3:31] But this is a meeting behind closed doors. [3:33] So how do you expect this to go down? [3:36] Well, Bondi, I think, by nature is contentious. [3:39] And she's going to be contentious with them to some extent, I'm sure. [3:42] But here's the problem with the whole thing, and Jay laid it out really well. [3:44] And that is that this still builds up a level of mistrust. [3:48] She hasn't even been subpoenaed. [3:50] Wow, we subpoenaed former presidents of the United States of America, Bill Clinton, and others to come in and testify under oath. [3:57] Now, she's not even testifying under oath. [3:59] She's just giving a statement that's going to be transcribed. [4:02] And, of course, if she utters false statements in there, she can be prosecuted. [4:06] But this whole cloak of secrecy about it is what's clouded this whole thing from the beginning. [4:11] And now you have victims in the hallway saying, please tell the truth. [4:15] And that's a pretty stark contrast, if you will, to what's going on here. [4:20] And that's kind of emblematic about how badly this investigation has been botched from the beginning by Bondi and others at the Department of Justice. [4:27] Public interest in the Epstein files is very high. [4:30] But this interview not only is behind closed doors, but unlike others, it's not going to be recorded on video. [4:36] What do you make of that decision? [4:38] Well, it just shrubs it more in secrecy. [4:41] And then if you have more secrecy, you have more distrust of the process. [4:46] Then you couple that with her saying previously that I have a list on my desk right now, and I'm going to be going through it, [4:53] indicating that there may be a list of Epstein clients, and then saying there wasn't, [4:59] and then redacting these documents to such an extent that they're useless when they're disclosed. [5:03] You know, I was a prosecutor for many years, and I did many high-document investigations. [5:09] And you have to be very careful with redactions. [5:12] And if you redact too much, a judge will throw it all out and make it go over again. [5:17] And it just seems like there's so many missteps in this investigation that no matter what they do from here on out, [5:23] people are not going to trust the process unless there's complete disclosure of everything. [5:28] And it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. [5:30] It's kind of like a steady drip that's a drip, and it should be a full open faucet of information. [5:37] What are you watching for once we get the transcript of this meeting? [5:40] Well, I'm watching for whether there's been any more, is there any more documents out there. [5:44] I mean, I'm watching for her to describe the redaction process in some way that makes sense instead of the way it looks like it's been done. [5:52] I mean, some documents have tons of stuff erased, and another similar document has nothing erased. [6:00] So you wonder what's really going on and if there are people being protected. [6:03] And quite frankly, at this point, I don't think that whatever what happens in this room or subsequently, [6:10] I don't think people are ever going to trust that this has been a full and fair disclosure of a very, very terrible time in our nation's history. [6:19] All right, John Katko, always great to have your analysis. Thank you.