Rep. Ted Lieu used this week’s House Judiciary oversight hearing to press Attorney General Pam Bondi on why the Justice Department has not prosecuted high‑profile men linked to Jeffrey Epstein, including former Prince Andrew and at least one witness’s allegation involving Donald Trump.
In a tense exchange, Lieu said both Bondi and her predecessor Merrick Garland had “dropped the ball,” then accused her of lying under oath after she testified there was “no evidence” Trump committed a crime, citing an FBI tip‑line statement from a witness who said a girl told him she’d been raped by Trump and Epstein.
The clash unfolded as lawmakers from both parties expressed anger that Bondi’s DOJ missed a Congress‑mandated deadline to fully release Epstein‑related files and has kept millions of pages of documents only partly accessible despite a new transparency law.
Lieu closed by telling the attorney general she had “not held a single man accountable” and saying that if she had any decency, she would resign after the hearing—language that underscored how central the Epstein files and accountability for powerful figures have become in early fights with the Trump administration’s Justice Department. Viewers can watch the full exchange via PBS NewsHour’s clip, “WATCH: Rep. Lieu questions Attorney General Pam Bondi in oversight hearing.”
Lieu’s questioning capped one of the most combative stretches of Bondi’s short tenure, joining sharp critiques from other Democrats who accused her of prioritizing investigations favorable to President Trump while slow‑walking those that could implicate his allies. Republicans on the panel largely defended Bondi by arguing that revisiting old cases risked weaponizing the Justice Department, but the back‑and‑forth made clear that the Epstein documents—and who is named in them—will remain a running flashpoint between Congress and the new administration.