AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Attorney General Pam Bondi testified on Capitol Hill today before members of the House. The hearing often turned combative as Democrats pressed Bondi on several issues, including the Jeffrey Epstein files and the Justice Department's targeting of President Trump's perceived enemies. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas was watching the whole thing and joins us now. Hi, Ryan.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Hi there.
CHANG: OK, can we first talk about the tone of this hearing? What did you make of the tone?
LUCAS: Well, look, I have watched a lot of congressional hearings. This one was really something else.
CHANG: Yeah.
LUCAS: It was almost like two different hearings rolled into one. And by that I mean, Bondi responded very differently, with a few exceptions, to questions from Republicans compared to how she responded to Democrats. With Republicans, she was friendly. She addressed the actual question. With Democrats, she was more often than not combative. She tried to change the subject, or she attacked the lawmaker directly. Democrats grew very frustrated at times. Here's one exchange between Bondi and the panel's top Democrat, Maryland's Jamie Raskin.
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JAMIE RASKIN: You can let her filibuster all day long, but not on our watch, not on our time. No way. And I told you about that, Attorney General, before you started.
PAM BONDI: You don't tell me anything, you washed up loser lawyer.
RASKIN: Yeah, oh, I did tell you because we saw what you did in the Senate.
BONDI: Not even a lawyer.
CHANG: Wow.
LUCAS: For the record, Raskin was a constitutional law professor. Georgia Democrat Hank Johnson described Bondi's testimony as a sort of Jekyll and Hyde act. He said she was nice to Republicans and then turned into Hyde on Democrats. Bondi did go after one Republican, though. That was Kentucky's Thomas Massie. And he's the Republican who helped spearhead the effort to get the Epstein files released.
CHANG: Exactly. OK, so the Epstein files, one of the main topics during the hearing. Now, we know the Justice Department released more than 3.5 million records from investigations into Epstein. What more did lawmakers want to know from that document dump?
LUCAS: Well, look, this has been a political weakness for the Trump administration, and so Democrats certainly were eager to focus on it today. Several times, Democrats, in fact, noted that there was a group of women in the hearing room who were victims of Epstein. At one point - several points, actually - they were even asked to stand up. But Democrats criticized the department for failing to produce all of the files by the deadline required by law.
They also criticized the numerous problems that have been found with the redactions that the Justice Department made to the files. That includes redacting the names of Epstein's suspected coconspirators, and in some instances, not redacting the names or photos of victims. Here's how Raskin summed things up.
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RASKIN: You acted with some mixture of staggering incompetence, cold indifference and jaded cruelty towards more than 1,000 victims raped, abused and trafficked. This performance screams cover-up.
CHANG: And how did Bondi respond to questions about DOJ's handling of the files?
LUCAS: Well, more often than not, she went on the attack. Here, for example, is how she responded to Thomas Massie when he pressed her about the redactions.
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BONDI: This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. He needs to - you're a failed politician.
LUCAS: That's a Republican who was asking those questions. On several other occasions, Bondi accused lawmakers of theatrics, or she tried to change the subject. At one point, though, she did try to defend the department's handling of the files. She said the department worked hard to do the proper redactions, and she said they've taken action to address problems with those potential problems when they were brought to the department's attention.
CHANG: OK, switching gears a little bit to another topic that has been a big deal during Bondi's tenure as attorney general. And that is the Justice Department's targeting of Trump's political opponents. How did that come up in the hearing today?
LUCAS: Right. Well, Bondi said that ending the purported weaponization of the department was a major accomplishment of hers. Republicans agreed. Democrats, unsurprisingly, did not. And they pointed to a long list of the president's perceived enemies who have been investigated or prosecuted by the Justice Department. That includes former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and six Democratic lawmakers, who were part of a video urging U.S. military members not to follow unlawful orders.
Several of these cases have faced challenges. The prosecutions against Comey and James were tossed by a court. And a grand jury just yesterday refused to indict the Democratic lawmakers in connection with the unlawful orders video.
CHANG: That is NPR's Ryan Lucas. Thank you, Ryan.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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