This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers sparred with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files. Bondi repeatedly refused to answer questions and personally attacked the Democrats on the committee. This is part of the exchange between Bondi and Democrat Jerry Nadler.
REP. JERROLD NADLER: So, I have just — so, I really have just one question for you. How many of Epstein’s co-conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you even investigating?
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: First, you showed a — I find it —
REP. JERROLD NADLER: How many have you indicted?
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: I — excuse me! I’m going to answer the question!
REP. JERROLD NADLER: Answer my question.
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: No! I’m going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question. Your theatrics are ridiculous.
REP. JERROLD NADLER: No, you’re going to answer the question the way I asked it.
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: Chairman Jordan —
REP. JERROLD NADLER: How many have you indicted?
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: I’m not going to get in the gutter with these people. But I’m going to answer the question.
AMY GOODMAN: Attorney General Pam Bondi went on to claim the Trump administration has been the most transparent presidency.
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: This administration released over 3 million pages of documents, over 3 million, and Donald Trump signed that law to release all of those documents. He is the most transparent president in the nation’s history. And none of them — none of them — asked Merrick Garland over the last four years one word about Jeffrey Epstein. How ironic is that? You know why? Because Donald Trump — the Dow — the Dow right now is over — the Dow is over 50,000 — I don’t know why you’re laughing. You’re a great stock trader, as I hear, Raskin. The Dow is over 50,000 right now, the S&P at almost 7,000, and the Nasdaq smashing records. Americans’ 401(k)s and retirement savings are booming. That’s what we should be talking about.
AMY GOODMAN: She was talking to New York Congressmember Jerry Nadler but referred to Raskin, the ranking member of the committee, Jamin Raskin, the congressmember from Maryland.
A number of Jeffrey Epstein survivors attended the House hearing. Democratic Congressmember Pramila Jayapal of Washington addressed the survivors during the hearing.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: To the survivors in the room: If you are willing, please stand. And if you are willing, please raise your hands if you have still not been able to meet with this Department of Justice. Please note for the record that every single survivor has raised their hand.
Attorney General Bondi, you apologized to the survivors in your opening statement for what they went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. Will you turn to them now and apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through with the un — absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information?
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: Congresswoman, you sat before — Merrick Garland sat in this chair twice.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Attorney General Bondi —
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: Twice. No, can —
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — I’m going to reclaim —
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: Can I finish my answer?
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: No, I’m going to reclaim my time, because I asked you —
REP. JIM JORDAN: The attorney general can answer —
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — a specific question —
REP. JIM JORDAN: The attorney general can respond to your question.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: —that I would like you to answer, which is: Will you turn to the survivors — this is not about anybody that came before you. It is about you taking responsibility for your Department of Justice and the harm that it has done to the survivors who are standing right behind you and are waiting for you to turn to them and apologize for what your Department of Justice has done.
REP. JIM JORDAN: Members — members get to ask the questions; the witness gets to answer in the way they want to answer it. The attorney general can respond.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: That’s not accurate, Mr. Chairman. It is my time.
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: Because she doesn’t like the answer. So —
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Mr. Chairman —
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: Why didn’t she ask Merrick Garland this —
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: I have asked a question.
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: — twice, when he sat in my chair?
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: I am reclaiming my time. And when I reclaim —
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: I will continue to answer.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — my time, it is my —
REP. JAMIE RASKIN: Mr. Chairman, the gentlelady has reclaimed her time.
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: I’m not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics. …
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: What a massive cover-up this has been and continues to be. Donald Trump made the release of the Epstein files the center of his political campaign because he thought it would benefit him. Then you got into office, Attorney General, claimed to have a client list, only to then say —
PARLIAMENTARIAN: Regular order.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — that there was no list. Your deputy —
REP. JIM JORDAN: The time —
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — Todd Blanche —
REP. JIM JORDAN: Time of the —
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — met alone —
REP. JIM JORDAN: Time of the gentlelady has —
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — with Ghislaine Maxwell —
REP. JIM JORDAN: Time of the gentlelady has expired.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — and transferred her to a minimum-security prison. And now you continue —
REP. JIM JORDAN: Time — the time of the gentlelady has expired.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — the cover-up. And I wish that you would turn around to the survivors who are standing right behind you and, on a human level,
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: Chairman.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — apologize to them —
REP. JIM JORDAN: The chair now recognizes the —
ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: Unprofessional.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: — for what you have done.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Congressmember Pramila Jayapal questioning Attorney General Pam Bondi.
At the hearing, Bondi appeared to have a printout of Congressmember Jayapal’s history of searches of the Justice Department’s database of the Epstein files, which the Department of Justice just opened to congressmembers. Photos from the hearing show Bondi with a black binder that shows the words “Jayapal Pramila Search History” and a list of documents whose members line up with the — with the number of Epstein files.
Congressmember Pramila Jayapal joins us now from Washington, D.C.
There is so much to talk about here. Why don’t you start off with this burn book? What on Earth was she looking at, that this Reuters photographer caught as you were speaking?
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Amy, good morning. It’s good to be with you.
What she had was a printout of the search history when I went to the Department of Justice annex to look at the unredacted — supposedly unredacted Epstein files. And in that room, where there are only four computers, and there were two people monitoring everything we did, you actually — they had to log you in. And apparently they logged you in with separate IDs and logins, so that then Pam Bondi could go back and look at exactly what you searched, which is a violation of the separation of powers between the DOJ and Congress, the administration and Congress. And essentially, they were spying on us.
She had that printout in her burn book. I don’t know how she intended to use it. I don’t know if she had it on every member. But I have already begun working on changing the protocol, working with Jamie Raskin and others, as well, on this to change the protocol, because the Department of Justice should not be able to spy on us. We should be able to look at those files without anybody knowing what we searched and without that being used against us in some way. It’s certainly not going to stop me from continuing to review the files, but it is absolutely outrageous, and it has to stop, and we need a new procedure.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Jayapal, can you explain how you actually do search these files? Where do you go? What is the scene? Why do they — are they able to track you?
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Well, you go to an annex of the Department of Justice, and there’s a small room there. And I mean small. There’s four computers set up there. You have to get logged in by a Department of Justice person. You have to make an appointment ahead of time. And because there are so many members that want to see those files, you know, sometimes you only get an hour, an hour and a half. I actually spent almost two hours there.
But for each search, it’s a huge set of files, and so it’s most effective if you search by document number, and that means you have to know what document numbers you’re looking for. You can search by keywords, which I also did, but it is much more difficult, because if you search by a keyword, you may get, you know, 10,000, 15,000 documents.
I will tell you, Amy, that even though those are supposed to be unredacted, that we’re looking at, only some of the files are unredacted. There are documents that are uploaded, perhaps from the FBI, that maybe Kash Patel had redacted, maybe the FBI had redacted before that, maybe attorney generals had redacted. The Department of Justice was supposed to unredact those. We are supposed to have access to everything unredacted. But that is not the case. So, even when you go into the supposedly unredacted document, you find big redactions. I also tried to access some attachments that looked very important and had lists of co-conspirators. I could not get those attachments. They were not on the email. They were not available to us.
And so, it’s a very painstaking process to search these, and there’s also a lot of information we still don’t have within the files that have been released, not to mention the 50% of files that still haven’t even been released, in violation of the law.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you explain the question about why co-conspirators were redacted? I mean, you had late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel, after she said, “We have the most” — you know, every other few minutes, she was talking about President Trump being the greatest whatever and the most transparent president in history. And then, he asked — Kimmel asked then, “Exactly why was his name taken out, redacted, like a thousand times?” That was Trump, that is. But explain who the co-conspirators are. You had Massie, for example, the Republican congressmember, saying, “Why did they redact Les Wexner’s name?” And exactly who he is, his significance, the former head of Victoria’s Secret and Limited?
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Yes, that’s right. And I started my questioning by putting up two posters behind me. One was an example of a victim list. It was titled “Victim List.” And there were 32 names on that list, and only one was redacted. And the law requires that all the victims’ names are redacted. Clearly, that was not just a mistake where they missed the list. It was titled “Epstein Victim List.” And one name was redacted. So that was intentional.
On the other side, there was an email from a name that was redacted — actually, it was from Jeffrey Epstein to a name that was redacted. And that one was about a torture video. And that name of a predator was redacted. And so, only because members of Congress demanded to unredact that name did we find out that it was a sultan who had ties to Donald Trump’s financial businesses and ties to Donald Trump’s personal adviser, Steve Bannon. That name was redacted.
And so, I asked her, “How is it that you can have these two violations of the law?” And, of course, you know, she didn’t want to acknowledge it. But that was the moment when I turned to her and asked her to turn to the survivors and apologize, because so much of their personal information was put out there — contact numbers, addresses, names, even nude photographs. And Jane Does who were in the files, who had — whose identity had been kept secret for 10, 20 years through these investigations, they were suddenly outed. And you were finding Epstein victims who were explaining to their families for the first time that they were part of this giant sex trafficking ring.
So, on every level, this was outrageous, but I also think, Amy, that it was intentional, intentional to not redact survivors’ names so that others would feel intimidated, and intentional to redact predators’ names because they were trying to protect those powerful interests.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain. They’ve talked about the, you know, retention of these 3 million — they released 3 million. There’s about two-and-a-half, 3 million pages to go. They’ve talked about, well, there are investigations underway. But hasn’t Blanche, the deputy attorney general, and Bondi said, actually, they’re not investigating anyone? And explain that.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Exactly right. Her deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, who, by the way, I should remind everybody, is the guy that went to Ghislaine Maxwell, interviewed her on his own, and then facilitated the transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was absolutely a co-conspirator, one of the top, you know, most horrific individuals in this whole sex trafficking scheme. He transferred her to a minimum-security prison. He is the one who said that there’s nothing in here to prosecute. You know, “You can’t prosecute somebody just for partying with Epstein.” That is not what is in the files. What is very clear is that there are co-conspirators. There’s extensive information about those individuals, about their relationships.
And this was a giant sex trafficking ring. It was global. There are people from around the world that were part of this. And these were rich, powerful, wealthy people, mostly men, who groomed, raped, abused, manipulated young girls, sometimes references to young girls as young as 8, 9 years old. It is absolutely disgusting. And they joked about it. I read a lot of emails where they were joking about pedophiles, where they were joking about, you know, the littlest one being the naughty — the naughty one. I mean, all kinds of horrific things that make your stomach turn and make you realize that even though governments around the world are bringing down princes and ambassadors and maybe even prime ministers, here in America, this Department of Justice, under Donald Trump and Pam Bondi, his personal attorney, not the people’s lawyer, they are not doing the investigations into these predators that need to be — that need to be done for justice.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Jayapal, before you go, you founded the nonprofit OneAmerica, now the largest immigration advocacy organization in Washington state, before you were a congressmember. I just want to ask you about the whole issue, of course, of ICE surging through the country. You’re the ranking member also of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Security, Integrity, and Enforcement, spearheaded a letter demanding ICE rescind its July memo denying bond hearings to certain detained immigrants. Explain what you’re calling for and the overall picture of what you’re confronting today.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Yeah, this has been, you know, one of the issues that I focus the most amount of time on, because what is happening with ICE and CBP being surged, and all of the things that DHS is doing to deny people due process, to deny people bond hearings, which is part of due process, and in contravention, by the way, of over 200 judges across the country, including some that were appointed by Donald Trump, saying this violates due process — you cannot just randomly stop people on the street and pull them out of their cars by their hair, not even give them any due process — and this includes U.S. citizens, residents and people who are here in the process of immigration — and then say that they don’t get to have any due process. That’s why there are so many habeas petitions being filed in courts across the country. They’re jamming up the courts. The judges are ruling and saying, “You have to release these people,” and the Department of Homeland Security is refusing to do that. So, that’s what the bond letter was about.
But on every level, Amy, this is a massive violation of constitutional rights, of the Fourth Amendment — to be free of search and seizure — and a massive pipeline into the for-profit detention system, which is really an incarceration system, where today, right now, we have 73,000 people every single night being incarcerated in these for-profit facilities. And a tiny percentage, depending on what statistics you look at, anywhere from 5 to, maybe at the highest level, 14% — that’s ICE’s own statistics — have any kind of a violent criminal offense. Eighty-five percent of people are simply there, in many cases, as the judges are saying, illegally detained, with no due process and many other violations of their rights.
AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds. You’ve said ICE and CBP must be fully dismantled. Are you willing to shut down the government over this?
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: I mean, I think that’s what’s going to happen tomorrow, because we have said that these are out-of-control agencies. They don’t need to exist. They didn’t exist, as you know, prior to 9/11. That’s when you and I first met, when I was doing that work. And these are creations that have been funded and funded and funded, with zero accountability, and now they’re being used as Trump’s deportation machine. So, yes, we need to dismantle those agencies completely.
In the meantime, because we don’t have control of both chambers of government, we need to, at minimum, refuse to fund those agencies anymore without massive reforms. And I don’t think we’re going to get them. So, yes, I think the government is probably going to shut down around DHS funding, because the American people, Democrat, Republican and independent, do not like what is happening today and will not stand for it, because this affects all of us. You erode the rights of some group of people, and you erode them for everybody.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Congressmember Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, speaking to us from Washington, D.C.
Coming up, we look at President Trump’s meeting with the Israeli prime minister and speak to the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. The Oscar-nominated screenwriter of his new film has been jailed in Iran. And we’ll also speak with Congressmember Becca Balint. She walked out of the hearing with Pam Bondi after Bondi accused her of being antisemitic. Congressmember Balint’s grandfather died in the Holocaust. Back in 20 seconds.
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AMY GOODMAN: “People Have the Power” by Patti Smith, joined by musician and activist Michael Stipe at Democracy Now!’s 20th anniversary. On Monday, February 23rd, Democracy Now! will be celebrating our 30th anniversary at Riverside Church, again with Michael Stipe, and also Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Maria Ressa, Wynton Marsalis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mosab Abu Toha and more. Check out democracynow.org for tickets and more information.
