Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department, was responsible for overseeing the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, former Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a closed-door interview with lawmakers last month.
According to a transcript of her interview with the House Oversight Committee released Thursday, Bondi sought to distance herself from how her department handled the Epstein files as the Trump administration continues to deal with the political fallout.
“He was in charge of the process and the entire release of the Epstein files,” Bondi said when asked for her role in the department’s compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. DOJ has released approximately 3 million files compelled by Congress, but Bondi was pushed to explain why another 3 million still have not been released.
She argued the department is not withholding any documents and that the remaining files are either duplicates or privileged materials, despite bipartisan criticism that Trump’s Justice Department has withheld or overreacted documents, while accidentally sharing information of Epstein’s victims.
“To my knowledge, they’ve all been released” Bondi said.
