On the Thursday, February 12, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast:Attorney GeneralPam Bondiclashed repeatedly with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in a fiery hearing that centered on the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking scandal. USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi joins The Excerpt to share her reporting.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
Attorney General Pam Bondi clashed repeatedly with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in a fiery hearing. Among other heated topics was the release of the Epstein documents and the redactions and lack thereof on those files. Top House Committee Democrat Representative Jamie Raskin accused the Justice Department of redacting the names of multiple men for political reasons.
Jamie Raskin:
As Attorney General, you're siding with the perpetrators and you're ignoring the victims. That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change course. You're running a massive Epstein coverup right out of the Department of Justice.
Dana Taylor:
Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, February 12th, 2026. Here to help me dig into the substance of the hearing yesterday is USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent, Aysha Bagchi. Aysha, it's so good to speak to you.
Aysha Bagchi:
It's good to be here. Thanks, Dana.
Dana Taylor:
In short, this hearing was very much a story of Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Not surprisingly, lawmakers split very much along party lines with Bondi's questioning. What did Democrats accuse her of and how did she respond?
Aysha Bagchi:
Yes. Epstein was the biggest story of the day basically in the hearing, and multiple Democrats on the committee and one prominent Republican accused Pam Bondi of basically engaging in a massive coverup when it comes to the Epstein files. This goes back quite a way because there are a lot of allies of PresidentDonald Trumpwho are in the Trump administration right now, who going back to years before Trump even retook the Oval Office, were suggesting to the American public that the FBI, the Department of Justice, knew things about Jeffrey Epstein and his potential associates, and knew things about crimes that they may have committed that they were covering up. And we even saw from Pam Bondi when she joined the Trump administration when she became the Attorney General, she suggested to the American public that there was a lot that had been covered up under the administration of Joe Biden and that her Justice Department was going to reveal.
At one point, she said in an interview that there was a client list on her desk and that things were going to come out. Later, she walked back that comment and suggested that there were just some files on her desk and she wasn't referring to the list. But Pam Bondi has been part of setting these expectations for the American people that there was something corrupt that happened under previous administrations, and that the current Trump administration was going to do something about it. And then we've seen unfold when it comes to this story, a big walk back from the Trump administration. Pam Bondi, her Justice Department, released a memo in July saying it had reviewed its files on Jeffrey Epstein and that it hadn't found anything that warranted further investigation of someone who hadn't previously been charged. Only Jeffrey Epstein and his longtime accomplice and former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, were charged by federal prosecutors in relation to sex trafficking.
Jeffrey Epstein died in a Manhattan jail before he could go to trial. And Ghislaine Maxwell was ultimately convicted of sex trafficking a minor to him. And she's serving a 20-year prison sentence. Pam Bondi's Justice Department said that there's no one else implicated in the files that should be investigated. And that further disclosures of the documents wasn't warranted. They talked about the idea of child sexual abuse materials and not wanting to release them. And basically, this sparked a lot of outrage from a wide segment of the American public, not just Democrats who normally criticize the Trump administration, also a lot of supporters of Donald Trump who have believed that there's more to this story than what the US government has revealed. And that led to members of Congress on both sides of the aisle passing an act trying to force the Justice Department's hands when it comes to releasing these documents.
The department was supposed to do that by December 19th. And on that day, basically it said, "We're not going to meet that deadline. We're going to release some documents today and we're going to release further files down the line." Finally, at the end of January, the Deputy Attorney General under Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, said it was basically completing that process and releasing in total about 3.5 million pages of documents, but withholding another about 2.5 million. And now the American public is looking at those documents and seeing a lot of redactions, a lot of things covered up, that many members of Congress don't believe comply with the transparency law trying to force this release. And so, there's this ongoing controversy about whether the Trump administration is being fully transparent with the American people. There's a context for this. Donald Trump had a long former friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. He's not alone in that among prominent people, President Bill Clinton, it's very clear, had some sort of relationship with Jeffrey Epstein as well.
Neither of them has been implicated in crimes by evidence that's come out in relation to Jeffrey Epstein. But there's just this concern that the Justice Department isn't being transparent, and that played out in a major way at the hearing. Pam Bondi defended the department's actions. She said a lot about how the department is trying to protect victims in particular. She said that they're open to investigating anyone. But it's also true that in this release of documents, the department released a lot of victim names and had to redact those later. That's something that was not supposed to happen under this transparency law, and doesn't really accord with what the Justice Department said was its commitment to protecting people who've accused Jeffrey Epstein and are at least potential victims. So Pam Bondi experienced a lot of heat on this topic. She basically defended the department's record.
There were two especially prominent names that came out in that list. One was Les Wexner, he's a former CEO of Victoria's Secret. He has been known to have had a long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Even though there's some mystery surrounding that relationship, it definitely was financial in part. And then there was a prominent businessman, his name is Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. He's a businessman, an Emirati businessman from Dubai. And his name was released as one of those six men. And he has been connected to an email exchange he had with Jeffrey Epstein about a so called torture video. So basically Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, have banded together saying that in just a short amount of time, a couple hours looking at unredacted files on Justice Department computers, they could find these six names of men who the names were redacted when the transparency law was not supposed to shield those types of people, at least according to the congressmen, who were the ones who were lead sponsors of the transparency law.
And they say, "If we could find this in two hours, what does that say for what else might have been shielded from the American people in all these redactions across more than three million pages of documents?" When it comes to the two men, Les Wexner has previously spoken up about Jeffrey Epstein a little bit. A representative of his once said that a federal prosecutor had told him that he's not a target of an investigation and basically he had provided some information about his background with Jeffrey Epstein. But Thomas Massie, the Republican from Kentucky, in the hearing suggested that there was a document in which someone from the Justice Department may have labeled Les Wexner as a potential co-conspirator in relation to Epstein at one point. And he said that that name was redacted in that document, and basically suggested to Pam Bondi that it's a signal that there may be a coverup happening here.
It's important to note Pam Bondi really pushed back against that. She said that Les Wexner's name was revealed in other documents, even if not in that one. And she expressed some skepticism as if the congressman was trying to create a controversy where there wasn't one. But his big point is that this particular document was suggesting that Wexner might have been a co-conspirator, and that was valuable for the American people to know that someone in the DOJ might have thought that at one point. And Pam Bondi also said that people weren't going after the Biden administration in the same way over the Epstein documents. And Thomas Massie fired back and said he agrees that basically he thinks there's been a coverup across multiple administrations. He said that this story is worse than Watergate. And now he's asking the Attorney General about her role and her Justice Department's role in bringing what he thinks is much needed transparency to the case.
Dana Taylor:
Democrats also excoriated Bondi over her department's failure to redact dozens of victims' names. What was her response?
Aysha Bagchi:
Pam Bondi definitely expressed sympathy for victims of Jeffrey Epstein. She said in her opening remarks that she's sorry for what they have gone through, and she defended what the Justice Department is doing here. The Justice Department has said that it is actively working to shield any victim names that were released when the files were more fully put out at the end of January. We know that many victims' names or alleged victim's names were included. The Justice Department has provided an email link where if anyone sees someone who may be a victim in the released files, you can tell the Justice Department about that and they will shield it. But this has been really frustrating for victims. I talked to lawyers for victims ahead of the Justice Department's release. Some of them said that their clients were terrified because they thought just this would happen. And the lawyers told me that they didn't think the Department of Justice had any excuse for messing up in this space because they had provided names in advance to try to make sure that these people were shielded.
So Pam Bondi really expressed a commitment to victims, but it's also true that there are many victims who are really frustrated by what's happened in this process. They think that they were improperly brought forward when they didn't want to be public, and they also think that some people are being improperly shielded from being held accountable.
Dana Taylor:
Aysha, there was also significant criticism with regards to the DOJ's handling of the investigations into the deaths of two Americans killed by immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. What were the accusations and how did Bondi respond?
Aysha Bagchi:
Members of Congress, Democrats on the committee especially, accused the Justice Department of politicizing these investigations, of not conducting a fair and free investigation into what really happened here. They noted that local law enforcement partners have basically been blocked out from the Justice Department's investigation into these cases. And there's a lot of reporting to suggest that the Justice Department has actually prevented prosecutors and investigators who wanted to look into the federal agents and whether their use of force was appropriate from being able to do so. So those sorts of accusations were leveled at Pam Bondi. It's part of a wider set of accusations that a lot of Democrats have, that the Department of Justice has become weaponized and more partisan under Pam Bondi's leadership. Pam Bondi defended her administration. She said that no one is above the law. She said that the Department of Justice continues to be committed to enforcing immigration laws and that that's a high priority of the Trump administration.
Dana Taylor:
Multiple lawmakers said the DOJ has been weaponized under Bondi to seek revenge against Trump's enemies. Raskin went so far as to call the DOJ a "vendetta factory". Aysha, what were they referring to and how did Bondi respond?
Aysha Bagchi:
Yes. They were referring to the fact that the Trump administration and the Department of Justice in particular, has targeted people whom President Trump has specifically said should be prosecuted. Basically, they're referring to concerns about the White House potentially directing prosecutions by the Justice Department. And it's important to note that there's a longstanding history, at least going back to Watergate and Richard Nixon's presidential administration, where there's supposed to be this separation between the White House and the Justice Department, in order to prevent the president, someone with political motives, from being able to interfere with justice. But we saw this with multiple indictments that have come down under this administration. President Trump posted on social media that he wanted to see his former FBI director, James Comey, charged. He posted that he wanted to see the New York Attorney General, Leticia James, charged. And basically Pam Bondi installed a prosecutor who had never prosecuted a case before, a lawyer, Pam Bondi installed her as a prosecutor to go get indictments against these two people, or at least that woman did go get these indictments. The cases were later dismissed.
We've also seen the administration try to get an indictment against members of Congress who said that members of the armed forces shouldn't obey unlawful orders from the White House. And that was a failed effort. So in these cases, there are a lot of people who are concerned that there's an improper weaponization of the Justice Department and that Pam Bondi's department is becoming an extra wing of enforcement for the president's agenda and not maintaining the type of independence that when she was confirmed to her role at her confirmation hearings, she really pledged the department would adhere to, that it wouldn't show favor and partisanship in how it administered justice.
Pam Bondi didn't say a lot in response to those accusations at the hearing. A lot of times she was asked questions in a way where these accusations would be made and then a more specific question would be asked. So to be fair, sometimes she wasn't given all the space in the world to respond to these claims, but she didn't say a lot about these particular investigations and prosecutions. Instead, she just defended the work of the Justice Department more broadly. She said that she believes that they've achieved important things when it comes to reducing violent crime in the country, when it comes to going after potential violations of immigration law. So she said she's proud of a lot of the work that they're doing. Didn't have a lot to say about these specific prosecutions.
Dana Taylor:
In her responses to questions from friendly lawmakers, Bondi brought up several topics that are under the direct purview of other cabinet departments, including the performance of the Dow Jones, fentanyl-laced vapes, and the spread of measles. What was your takeaway here?
Aysha Bagchi:
Yes, this was a strange portion of the hearing. Pam Bondi basically had a big defense of President Donald Trump and the Trump administration more broadly, really going beyond the Justice Department. She was asked questions about the Justice Department, and she responded sometimes by just praising the president. She described Donald Trump as the greatest president in American history, and she brought up this idea that he had really boosted the stock market. So that seemed more broadly perhaps geared towards saying nice things about her boss, that didn't have much to do with the work of the Justice Department and what would or wouldn't be accomplishments for line attorneys and investigators who work under her. But instead, just speaking more broadly about the administration. That might speak to the type of relationship that she wants to maintain with the president, who ultimately has the power to keep her in her position or try to find someone else.
Dana Taylor:
Aysha Bagchi is a USA TODAY Justice Department correspondent. Always good to have you on The Excerpt, Aysha.
Aysha Bagchi:
Thanks, Dana. I'm happy to be here.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan, for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Emotional appeals from Democrats to recognize Epstein victims | The Excerpt