'She’s definitely getting different or you could say favorable treatment': Fmr. Prosecutor on Bondi

[0:00] On Capitol Hill, Democrats are gearing up for testimony months in the making. [0:04] Tomorrow, the House Oversight Committee will question former Attorney General Pam Bondi [0:08] about her handling of the Justice Department's Epstein file release. [0:13] It will be the first time she comes face-to-face with the committee [0:16] since Democrats walked out of a closed-door briefing in March [0:20] when Bondi allegedly refused to comply with their subpoena. [0:23] Well, now they'll get their chance. [0:25] But conditions aren't ideal for Democrats [0:27] who are slamming Chairman James Comer's decision [0:30] to allow Bondi to testify without being under oath or on camera. [0:35] Let's bring in MSNOW Justice and Intelligence reporter Ken Delanian [0:38] and MSNOW Legal Analyst, former federal prosecutor Paul Butler. [0:43] Ken, how crucial is this moment for the committee's larger probe? [0:46] And what are you expecting from Bondi's testimony? [0:50] Well, certainly Democrats believe it's crucial. [0:52] They have a lot of questions for Pam Bondi [0:55] about the way she handled the release of the files, [0:57] whether they were trying to protect President Trump, [1:00] why she said that the files were on her desk. [1:04] Remember early on the Epstein client list, which actually doesn't exist, [1:08] she said it was on her desk. [1:09] So a lot of questions about the way she handled it. [1:11] How much she will say is an open question, [1:13] because as you said, she's not under oath. [1:15] It's still a crime to lie to Congress, whether you're under oath or not. [1:18] But she's, you know, she's under no obligation, really, to answer every question. [1:25] And since she's not the attorney general anymore, she may feel less of a pull to do that. [1:30] And this is, you know, frankly, a very partisan exercise with each side trying to score political points. [1:36] It won't be on camera, obviously, but Democrats, no doubt, will release the transcript shortly thereafter. [1:41] And so, look, it's another brick in the wall of this Epstein probe. [1:45] How much they'll get out of it remains to be seen, Ana. [1:48] Ken, the attorney who's representing Bondi is also raising some eyebrows. [1:53] What can you tell us? [1:55] Yeah, she is Harmeet Dillon, who happens to be the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. [2:02] And honestly, I've never seen anything like this before. [2:05] I'm currently serving senior official at the DOJ, representing someone in a private capacity. [2:10] And obviously, a lot of people have a lot of questions about that, Ana. [2:14] Earlier this month, ranking member Robert Garcia was very critical of Chairman James Comer's decision to allow this plan with Harmeet Dillon. [2:22] Here's what he said to MSNAS Lawrence O'Donnell. [2:24] Right now, we know that a DOJ attorney, Ms. Dillon, who actually runs a bunch of civil rights operations at the DOJ, [2:33] and has now been elevated at the DOJ, that she is also going to be the private counsel for the former attorney general. [2:40] Yet she works for the DOJ. [2:41] And so it's an incredibly strange setup that Mr. Comer is allowing. [2:45] So we're calling it out, and hopefully this will get resolved before the actual hearing at the end of the month. [2:50] Paul, do you agree with Garcia's assessment that this is incredibly strange? [2:54] Is this a conflict of interest? [2:57] So it's not unheard of for former employees of the Department of Justice to ask to be represented by the department in hearings like this. [3:06] Often the reason is because of finances. [3:10] It's always a good idea to have a lawyer in a hearing like this, but a lawyer could cost tens of thousands of dollars. [3:17] So Bondi would have had to specifically request DOJ's representation. [3:23] Ana, what's really weird is that it's the assistant attorney general for civil rights who's representing Bondi. [3:30] Typically, it would be a lower level DOJ lawyer with expertise in criminal law. [3:36] And Democrats are also frustrated about the fact that Bondi's answers won't be on camera. [3:42] They won't be under oath. [3:43] Comer rejected the Clintons' offer to sit for transcribed interviews, arguing that they couldn't be trusted to answer lawmakers' questions, [3:50] specifically saying that former President Clinton could refuse to answer whatever questions he wanted for whatever reasons he wanted. [3:56] And Comer's spokesperson says Bondi's different since she's been cooperative. [4:01] But, Paul, what do you make of that reasoning and the lack of consistency in handling these interviews? [4:07] Well, Bondi hasn't been cooperative. [4:09] When she was attorney general, she refused to testify before this committee. [4:13] And she only agreed the day that Congressman Garcia said that he was going to make a motion to hold her in contempt. [4:20] And she's definitely getting different, and you could say favorable treatment, not just in Hillary and Bill Clinton, [4:27] but, Ana, even former Attorney General William Barr had to testify under oath with regard to these matters. [4:34] So without being under oath, of course, she can't lie to Congress. [4:38] That would be against the law. [4:40] Could Bondi just refuse to answer questions, though, once she's in the chair? [4:44] How would you advise Democrats to approach this to get the answers they're seeking? [4:47] I expect, especially since she's been being represented by the Department of Justice, [4:53] for her to be advised by Harman Phelan not to answer a bunch of questions. [4:59] She'll claim some kind of civil immunity. [5:04] She'll say she has lawyer-client or executive privilege. [5:08] So I don't know how revealing this hearing actually is going to be, [5:13] which is unfortunate because this could be the last time that we hear from the former Attorney General [5:19] on the Epstein matter, and she was in charge of this. [5:23] We know that she says that she had over 500 GOJ employees working on the files. [5:28] So there are legitimate questions about all of the mistakes that were made, [5:33] including the fact that over 100 survivors' personal information was revealed when they were released, [5:41] including in 40 cases new images of women, some of whom may have been underage.