Bondi REFUSES to Apologize to Epstein Victims + Did FBI wipe Epstein Jail footage?

Welcome back to the Tara Palmieri show. As you can see, I'm on the road, Washington, D.C., very close to Capitol Hill, where Pam Bondi, the attorney general, is getting grilled by Democrats. For the most part, I mean, Republicans are not really holding her to account, but Democrats are all over her and over one thing, and that is the Epstein files and the Department of Justice's gross mismanagement. Now, at the same time, the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein are on the Hill in all white, standing behind Pam Bondi as a reminder that she so recklessly left their names, Jane Doe's, identified in documents, in documents for the whole world to read, exposing them, not just to their families, but to the whole world after they tried to keep the privacy of the sexual abuse that they had to endure as children. And now it is out there. And, you know, and they also are there to remind her that there have been zero prosecutions against any potential co-conspirators. This hearing is fiery, it's spicy, and it comes on the heels of another hearing. And that is Secretary of Commerce Howard Letnick, who claimed he cut off his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein years and years ago, before he even went to prison for child sex trafficking. But now we learn he actually wanted to go to the island with his wife and kids and they coordinated and he had to answer for that yesterday. So as you can see, the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein lurks in every corner of this administration. In fact, he's really calling the shots right now. Let's be honest. He may be dead, but he has risen from the grave and he is controlling Trump's administration. There is no way to get out of it. And we really discuss all of this and more in this episode of Don Lemon show and it has one of my good friends is also on it, Keith Edwards and Don Lemon and Monique. She's an amazing legal analyst. So definitely stick around for all of that. But I want to go over some news that broke overnight. I want to tell you about a newly released document from a tech worker at the Bureau of Prisons where Jeffrey Epstein was held. I'm going to have to lean in a It's a new document, and it shows an interview with a redacted tech engineer who worked in the prison. He was in the Marine Corps for four years, and he had 10 years of experience in electronics. So he was in charge of all the cameras at the Metropolitan Correctional Center where Jeffrey Epstein was held. And he advised them that the camera system was working at the time of the incident on August 10th, 2019, when Jeffrey Epstein was found dead, hung in his cell. But, you know, he said there was a system failure earlier, July 29th, and the motherboard failed on August 8th. So the hard drive failure occurred on August 10th. He recalled that there was a body alarm. I guess that was the sign that Epstein had killed himself around 6 a.m. or was killed on August 10th, 2019. And he was one of the people who responded. And he stated that he was one of the personnel who briefly, and he stated that a person who tried to resuscitate Jeffrey Epstein, he did not do it, but he's talking about what happened. It's all in this document. He said after the incident, he was asked about the camera. There were two new hard drives to install. But installing the new hard drives would mean that all the prior data would be lost. Okay. The warden wanted the video and so blank was told to start working on the system. This person who's being interviewed started working to remove the bad drives in order to rebuild the DVR. This person was advised that an FBI agent was the one who pulled out the DVR. He was also advised that he knew that by replacing both hard drives, drives the system would be wiped and that he had advised the personnel at MCC of that. So he advised them that by pulling out the DVR, the actual video of the incident would be wiped. Okay. So this document basically says that it's an interview, obviously, that was conducted by the Southern District of New York with the man who was operating all the cameras in the jail. And it suggests that the FBI agent was aware that they were wiping all the footage, that they didn't lose the evidence. They essentially were erasing it. And they obviously expect the public to move on. Now, I know this is highly conspiratorial. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I've always suspected that there was something up with Jeffrey Epstein's death. I think there are a lot of reasons for that. Could it be the fact that there is no video footage, that the guards were magically asleep? And now we're seeing images of a orange blob around the time in the area of the camera that would be facing near his jail cell around the time of where, when he was killed. The CBS 60 Minutes has done some incredible reporting on this, introducing this theory back in 2019. And you can't help but see that and think that's another inmate who was possibly paid to kill Jeffrey Epstein. And obviously Jeffrey Epstein was an extreme narcissist. A lot of these men believe that they can get out of prison again. And I could see him just killing himself. His brother, Mark, has fought to say that he was killed in prison. Obviously, if that's the case, Mark could win, you know, insurance money, settlement, et cetera. But still, this is a very, very shocking piece of information. Obviously, it is just one witness testimony, and it needs to be, you know, further investigated. But as we know, the Justice Department doesn't seem to be very interested in that. So I just wanted to share that with you before we get into this hearing, this very, very ruckus hearing on Capitol Hill. But first, I want you to hear a word from our sponsor. Look, I think we can all agree that Medicare is confusing. Talk to anyone over 65 and they'll tell you the same. 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For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial 305-515-5237 to speak with my trusted partner chapter or go to askchapter.org slash tarot. Has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McArdle, and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic, and it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. I'm a columnist of The Post, and I've been writing about economics, technology, and public policy for decades now. So every Wednesday, I'm going to talk to people who see a path forward. I'm going to talk to inventors, entrepreneurs, politicians, and okay, probably some wonky types like me, if I'm being totally honest. Congress to me was a very entrepreneurial place. It's like Shark Tank, but a lot less glamorous. When nerds get rich and powerful, they can't help but get involved in politics. I want to talk about how we can get unstuck and live up to the country's many promises. It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together, to solve problems where they are. If we believe in this country, it's worth fighting for. Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. And this released the latest tranche that was released just this week. And so we're waiting for Pam Bondi to be to be questioned. In the meantime, Jim Jordan is giving his preamble there and appears to be setting it up as this being, some sort of democratic hoax or an effort to get the president. And he is allowed to do that because he is the majority leader now. But when we get into the meat of it, we'll bring it to you. In the meantime, I want to bring in my guests who can talk about this. The first person that I want to hear from is Monique Presley, a legal analyst, political commentator, and a trial attorney. Tara Palmieri is here, a veteran journalist, author of The Red Letter on Substack, and the host of The Tara Palmieri Show right here on YouTube. And then Keith Edwards is here as a political commentator and a host on the Keith Edwards show. So welcome to all of you. Thank you. As we watch these hearings, Andy, if we can keep them up. Monique, you saw the fiasco that was Howard Lutnick yesterday. Yeah, different places. So that's exciting. I've been hearing. Well, actually, it was Katie Fang who told me StreamYard has also been glitchy, glitchy, glitchy lately. You know, I was thinking, though, what Don was talking about, like how they're calling this democratic hoax. I mean, how can they call it a democratic hoax when they all voted to release the obscene transparency files act, all of them, except for one member of Congress? I mean, it's just like insane. Is this just like their default democratic hoax? Like something goes wrong, glitch, democratic hoax, it's absurd. Like the American people are smarter than this, right? And they can't they don't even stick to it. Right. Because when when Ghislaine Maxwell decides that she's going to invoke the fifth, then the leader, Speaker Johnson is saying how that's terrible and absurd. And I'm like, you kind of got to decide where you are on this. You are the one actually running these hearings. Yeah, that was running them. That was pathetic. Like they should have known they should have done their due diligence. They should have never given her the luxury. I mean, really the ability to speak before Congress just to basically throw out this insane, almost like, I don't know, the whole like clemency or bust, basically. It was disgusting. And they should have known that before they allowed her to speak. She is a sex offender. You know, they don't get they don't they are not given the right to speak before Congress. I don't know. In history, as a sex offender, I haven't been able to sit before Congress and speak to the House Oversight Committee before. I mean, probably not that we know of, but all kinds of cooperators and collaborators and snitches and such and so on. They they get information from everywhere. And I think that they should. But like this high profile, you know, should have anticipated that it was going to be an invocation. um i don't i'm not even i mean that's her right to do the way that they did it though i agree with you was absurd for it to be to end up being that kind of voiced of time she's also like not a reliable narrator right like we can't trust a word she says either way she was charged with perjury and the only reason that they dropped her conviction is because like she um she settled just like a lesser charge they dropped it it like she basically lost her perjury charge uh conviction on a technicality She was charged with perjury already But what you hope for from people anybody who is cooperating with the government in any way is that they'll give you information that you can then independently verify. So it's not that you take her word for it because she says something. It's that you, in exchange for whatever they were thinking about promising her, Trump and company, you then say oh okay on october 3rd in 2013 right she says this person was here and then you go out and you do your due diligence and you investigate based on the information that you've been given because no nobody would just her one-on-one word for anything take her word for anything at this point but that doesn't mean that she couldn't be useful uh she's just decided the only way she's going to be useful is if she gets something out of it yeah i thought it was interesting like these house oversight Dems are now going to have their own hearings in Palm Beach and, you know, Epstein's backyard, Trump's backyard starting in April. And, you know, they're going to start with witnesses, which I think is their, their witnesses are going to be the victims, which I think is super important. And I think it's finally time that they are afforded that time. Like they should be the ones called by house oversight to testify. They are, they should, they're, they're like their testimony should not be just considered rumor, right? Or a hearsay. And then the only thing is like, can they subpoena anyone? I know Nancy Mace is sort of, I don't know that they have the subpoena power, the Democrats to actually call anyone in the House Oversight Committee. If they get someone like Nancy Mace to come along, Lauren Boebert, but they've lost Marjorie Taylor Greene. so they need somebody in in the majority but um i can hear you don you can see me and hear me yeah you're back i'm not frozen am i back you're just trying to carry on for you i think you guys are doing a good job i'm gonna go and get ready for the conference that i'm here for and just let you do it no kidding um it's interesting because i would like to hear you know you saw what happened when Jim Jordan, how he was, you know, his preamble and how he was trying to shape what was going to happen in these hearings. I just want to hear a little bit now to see how the Democrats are going to try to do it. Let's listen in just for just a little bit. ... mixture of staggering incompetence, cold indifference, and jaded cruelty towards more than 1,000 victims raped, abused, and trafficked. This performance screams cover-up. Convicted sex trafficker and groomer, Ghislaine Maxwell, opened the gates of hell to Virginia Jufre and hundreds of other victims, as Virginia recorded in her remarkable book, Nobody's Girl. But when Maxwell was subpoenaed to come testify before Congress, you and Todd Blanche quickly moved her from a higher security prison to a minimum security camp in Texas, where she's enjoyed five-star treatment including catered meals private gym time and access to a therapy puppy okay so that's jamie raskin of maryland doing that and he is the um the minority um leader here on uh this committee but it's interesting if you can talk about this monique um he's framing it as this This is an assault on, you know, what the rule of law and this is about the victims. Jim Jordan is saying, you know, this is about illegal people who come here to commit crimes. That is what we're going to face in all of these. And I love that the charts, they've got the charts there to show, to back it up. I think Democrats are going to go hard. I think they are and they should. And the Jim Jordan needs to read the room. the American people are not buying it he's not going to be able to deflect away from getting the attorney general of the United States to answer some of these questions and I I hope Pam Bondi comes in there and does what she does you know I mean you want her to stonewall why I want her to be just as much of a you know I'm trying not to cuss on um I want her to be the jerk, the obstructionist that she is because she's not going to give any fruitful answers anyway. She is a henchman. She is a flacky, a flunky, a lackey. She is going to be singing Trump's song anyway. So I would like, while the eyes and the cameras are on her, for her to be true to that and show America what she's about. because, I mean, she's not going to be in this job forever, and this is on the record, and she needs to be held accountable for the full obstruction. While, by the way, I know we're talking about it later, but while they call other people obstructionists, while they say that other people are obstructing law enforcement, right, she is the obstructor in chief. Yeah. Keith, look, you know this is going to be contentious. I have a feeling, though, it's not going to be any as many Republicans this time trying to defend her. At least their questions won't be so slanted to make her look good because this has gotten bipartisan outrage. Not enough on the Republican side, but it is going to be contentious. And how do you expect her to respond the same way? I mean, I would be shocked if Pam Bondi responds any other way than attacking and deflecting. That's all she's ever done in any of these hearings. What she normally does is she has oppo like on her debt, like in front of her where she's just instead of actually answering any questions, she brings up oppo about the person, the Democrat who's asking her a question. And so I would be surprised if that's any other strategy than that today. But I got to say that this is not only is this like a loser for Republicans, I think between this and Bad Bunny and the response to like the overwhelming pushback on the right trying to say that the Super Bowl was anything other than fantastic is showing that like the culture is really shifting and that Republicans have really squandered what was a cultural shift between Epstein and and their pushback on Bad Bunny. I just feel like they have really lost any sort of ground that they've had. Donald Trump won the popular vote. He won the popular. Do you think he'd win that today? I don't even think Donald Trump could beat Joe Biden today the way that things have been handled. So I don't know how Pam Bonney does this any other way than pushing back because Donald Trump wants a fighter. But unfortunately for her, unfortunately for us, this is a losing proposition that she's put herself into. You know, Keith, last night I watched, I don't know, I guess it came through my feed, the SNL of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey in the first hearing that Pam Bondi had to go endure over the summer over Epstein. And you're so right about how she just punched back and like, you know, she's like, you're stupid. You're an idiot, you know, and it's like that SNL is exactly probably what we are going to see again tonight. And it was just funny that the algorithm sort of like served it up to me to remind me like this is what we are going to see. And that into Trump, that kind of, you know, you know, punch back that's like considered winning. And even with Howard Lutnick, like they're standing by him, never back. Like he has so many enemies in this administration, Howard Lutnick. There are so many people that would like to see him go down. And now they think that because he is being targeted for his association with Jeffrey Epstein going to the island after he claimed he no longer spoke to him, he's probably in a safer place now in Trump's administration because he was targeted for his associations with Jeffrey Epstein. And like this is this is how the American people have to understand this story. Trump does not want any recourse. He doesn't want anything. He just wants vindication. Anyone who's associated with Jeffrey Epstein will also be protected because he thinks he's in a safer place now with the administration. Because who are we speaking with yesterday? Oh, we were speaking with Rick Wilson, who said that he believes that Susie Wiles is setting up Lutnick to be the fall guy for the administration because people want red meat and he's going to be the red meat that is to be served to the masses. uh that maybe but also like does trump let anyone has he let any soldier fall really no i mean he's basically rearranged the decks a little bit moved uh what's his name the uh waltz over to the un but that took about a month and i think for him accepting that he picked the wrong person for a position would be seen as now no longer the powerful you're fired position that he was in as the apprentice, but now an accept, you know, acceptance of that he had poor management choices. But I think in, because of the way that Trump reacts when asked about Jeffrey Epstein and the way he sees this and how they see this issue as like toxic waste that just needs to be removed every single day, not anything that needs to be, not something that needs to be actually prosecuted, held to account. And, um, that if someone else is targeted for Jeffrey Epstein, he'll see them as victims like himself and he'll protect them because he does not want to give any ground on this issue this democratic hoax if he if he fires someone over this democratic hoax then it would validate it for him it validates it yeah yeah good but but keith or monique whoever but um we have not seen christy no nor have we seen what's his name i can't remember the guy who was not Bongino but whatever his name was the other one who was in charge of the Bovino we haven't seen Bovino and we haven't seen I mean he does move people and you you um you mentioned what was his name Walt he moved him but they don't actually say they're getting rid of him they just slide him off to the side and they bring in you know the um the second and you know The second Aunt Viv from the Fresh Prince. But Don, two United States citizens, white people, had to be murdered in the streets in order for them to be sidelined. It takes a lot. Yeah. I don't think going to the island once is going to be enough for Trump, considering he's like all over the Epstein vials. Thousands and thousands and thousands. He's not going to get rid of Howard for going to the island once. If anything, he's going to like Howard's not untouchable. Okay, here's Pam Bondi. Here's Pam Bondi. Thank you for hosting me here today. I'm grateful for the opportunity to answer your questions, highlight the work of our department, and discuss the most important topic of all, keeping the American people safe. A little over a year ago, I was sworn into office as the 87th Attorney General of the United States. I came into office with the goal of refocusing the Department of Justice on its core mission after years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization. The Department of Justice's core mission is to fight violent crime, protect the American people, and defend the rule of law above all else. While our work is never done, we have made tremendous progress to make America safe again. In 2025 we saw the lowest murder rate in 125 years That nothing short of historic If you compare 25 to 24 here what you find The murder rate is down 21 percent. Robbery down 23 percent. Carjacking down 43 percent. Gun assault down 22 percent. Ag assault, burglary could go on and on. Crime is declining. This did not happen by accident. The numbers tell an important yet straightforward story. President Trump has given us the resources, the support and the leadership to protect the American people. President Trump's policies have saved lives. I cannot think of a policy outcome more important than protecting the lives of American citizens. Can you? This trend has been especially clear in Washington, D.C. and in Memphis. These are two iconic American cities that spent years in the grip of horrific violent crime. The Department of Justice surged law enforcement resources. This is Pam Bondi's preamble. We'll get back to it. She's going to be doing this for quite a minute. First, a word from our sponsors. We're back in two minutes. Okay, and we are back. And Pam Bondi is still speaking, as I said, and just giving her little dissertation about what she expects. and saying, okay, we've done all these great things. So look, her strategy seems the same, Monique, as last time. It doesn't seem any different, but we'll see. Again, my thing is, is that I think that there is, the public sentiment has changed. And whatever happens with this legally, I think in the court of public opinion, at least in the court of public opinion, the Trump administration cannot really rebound. So what's going to be different in this? I have said often I really wish that these members of Congress, the ones who were not trial lawyers, were not ever prosecutors, aren't skilled as examiners, that they would take some notes or get some training before they try to ask the questions. Because when you deal with someone who is skilled at not answering and evading and actually is shameless about it, as Keith mentioned, uses oppo against members of Congress that has nothing to do with the things they're being asked about, you really have to be able to lock down the witness. And when somebody is slippery as this, you can't let them take your narrative. You have to continually reclaim your time. You have to ask short, concise questions, unless all you're really trying to do is get America to listen to you ask a long question and then her not answer it. If you are actually looking to get some answers out of her, you've got to run it like a cross-examination and like she's a hostile witness. So that's what's going to determine what does and does not happen effectively today for these members of Congress. So there are some who were very skilled in that. Before we had a vice president, Kamala Harris, obviously, when she was on these committees, one of the things she was known for was being able to zero in on a witness. And the reason why that was the case is because she had decades of skill at doing it. So there is a skill set that is involved and it'll be interesting to see whether people like Raskin and others who who can do the job will lean into it and get that done today because that's that's what it's going to take in order. She she's a slippery little person. So Keith, Keith, take us to the public here. How much of the public is paying attention to this? And, you know, we live in the world of, you know, what people are talking about. The media sometimes is very naval gaisley, you know, just gazing and reporting on the media. We love to do it. But this appears to have gone farther than that. And people, if you look at the polling, they don't like how they handle it. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I know for sure that public sentiment is not on the side of this administration when it comes to Epstein. How many people are watching this hearing live? I would probably say probably not a large amount, but the clips were in a clip based economy. Clips are the things that are shared and travel faster than anything else now on the Internet. And so I imagine I think if I'm a Democrat right now, what I'm hoping and my goal, my strategy is to help hopefully get something to go viral, because ideally what's going to happen is though people are not watching this live, there's going to be some sort of revelatory moment that helps shape the understanding of this hearing. And I do think, though, that this is not going well for the administration. We have seen like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene yesterday was like, hey, I don't know what's going on with Trump, but here is what he's told me. So even if you've lost Marjorie Taylor Greene, like far right Jewish space laser Marjorie Taylor Greene from this conversation, then you are on the losing side of it. And so, yeah, I don't I don't understand. I don't know what Bondi's strategy is going to be other than to just try to push back, deflect. but certainly it's not going to be to tell the truth. Yeah. How is, can you, you've been, you've been covering the Epstein situation for quite some time. Tara, how is the media done on this? First, the, you know, mainstream traditional media versus new media. And then we'll dip in if, if in a bit, if we can. Yeah. So like, you know, I started covering this story really closely in 2019. I had a podcast on Jeffrey Epstein and I followed Virginia Dufresne around as she confronted people who were, you know, critical pieces of her past with Epstein and were aware of the abuse that she went through. And I followed other survivors on their quest for justice. And it was a really, you know, to me at the time, I said it was the most important work of my life. A lot of people didn't really care as much about the story anymore. They kind of saw it as a conspiracy theory, rich guy, billionaire, sex. Like it had a lot of the elements of a tabloid story, but they didn't see it as something bigger, as something political, as something that could take down heads of banks, you know, heads of institutions, um, as something that could really like rock the powers of the world. And then it's something that one of the survivors always said to me, she said to me, um, you know, this could take down the world economy when she showed me the list of men that she was trafficked. to. And I don't think people really understood that back in 2019 and 2020, or they would have been really, I think it would have been a more important issue. Then again, a lot of people, we were dealing with COVID at the time, people were burnt out on COVID. Then in the Biden years, I think it sort of fell to the wayside again. But, you know, it was the MAGA movement that kept it alive, kept the, you know, kept the story alive, fanning the flames on it. And then Trump had to answer for that in its own administration and decided that he also wanted it to go away. So, you know, now the mainstream media cares. What I love seeing is that independent media, online sleuths have like taken this story and they've run with it. Sometimes I think they do it because it's political and it makes Trump look bad. And that's fine. Like it's fine because ultimately I do think it does expose, you know, corruption and power at the highest levels. I I think having every person out there combing through these millions and millions of dollars in files is very important. And I don't think anyone can own the EPS story. And I think everybody should be going through as their civic duty. Go in there and search someone's name that you thought maybe could possibly be in there. And every file tells a story on its own. It's incredible. I'm, you know, I would have never thought then that we would be here now. And I'm I don't know about you, but I'm grateful that independent media is colliding at this moment at the same time, because I don't think traditional journalism could have handled all three million files. And I don't think they would have handled it right. Like there's no live blog on CNN right now with every single update from the files. But you can get that if you look on, you know, an independent media site. Speaking of this. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to this is something that I totally did not care about. Wasn't even on my radar. Yeah. Until maybe like a year ago. Like I and my mom, who is much more conservative than most people had been following this for a long time. Women cared. Yeah. Yeah. And so I just think it's incredibly interesting how it's totally shifted to where like now the right. like i mean libs of tiktok and i don't know all those all those twitter freaks were championing this um and now it's like totally flipped that it's the left who's really carrying which like kind of bothers me because i'm just like why does this have to be political like these are crimes crimes should be apolitical well that's the thing i think on the left though like i'm i'm totally like if reed hoffman if bill clinton whoever whoever perceived to be left or they're in these files that did something awful then they should be prosecuted the thing is on the right that's just not they don't have the same heat for trump or anyone else no and i understand why it's important again because trump is obviously a central figure and he wants us to go away like i understand conceptually why this is a more important story ever more than it ever was before because the president of the United States is at the center of this. And there has been no recourse. Across the world, Poland is opening an investigation into Epstein's Russia ties. The prime minister of the UK may have to step down. A prince lost his title. What's happened here? Nothing. Maybe Howard Lutnick is now untouchable? That's about it. Take a point. Well, I think that the issue with the MAG movement is that they were sold a bill of goods about this. You know, it's just more of it was used in order to get them to vote, but it was used only if it was going to be something that hurt people on the left. It was them waiting for their day where people who they've hated for no real good quantifiable reason were going to get their comeuppance. comeuppance and then because of incompetence like everything else with the trump administration do you remember when this person who's a witness now had all those ridiculous binders i mean it's absurd and yeah i mean it's like they had no clue oh it does make a lot of democrats look inside the house i'm not gonna lie it makes a lot of democrats look bad like epstein was a democratic donor but trump was a democrat then and like money money is money i don't i mean nobody who's taken a whole bunch of billionaire and mega millionaire money is gonna look clean because people are humans and they commit crimes and it's all incestuous. And unfortunately, there's no sides to it. Like you said, I want to hear from Pramila Jayapal real quick, please. Okay. Their identities Let me show you what actually happened First in violation of the law Now your department has shown a pattern of redacting the names of powerful predators Here behind me is one example of an email from Epstein to a man whose name was redacted. The email reads, quote, where are you? Are you okay? I loved the torture video. Only after members of Congress demanded that we see the unredacted files did the world learn the name of this individual Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayam the chairman and CEO of a company that had financial ties to President Trump's business and personal ties to Trump's adviser Steve Bannon second the survivors were not similarly protected also in violation of the law Here is another email titled Epstein Victim List. We have blurred the names of the survivors for their protection, but your Department of Justice initially released this list of 32 survivors' names with only one name redacted, along with numerous files that disclose not only the names, the emails, and the addresses of survivors, but also nude photographs, and even the identities of Jane Doe's, who had been protected for decades until your department released their names. Survivors are now telling us that their families are finding out for the first time that they were trafficked by Epstein. In their words, quote, this release does not provide closure. It feels like a deliberate attempt to intimidate survivors, punish those who came forward, and reinforced the same culture of secrecy that allowed Epstein's crimes to continue for decades. 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 know for the record that every single survivor has raised their hand attorney general bondi you apologize 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 congresswoman you set before Merrick Garland set in this chair twice attorney general No, I'm going to reclaim my time because I asked you a specific question 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 is. Members get to ask the questions. The witness gets to answer in the way they want to answer. The Attorney General can respond. That's not accurate, Mr. Chairman. Because she doesn't I like the answer. So, Mr. Chairman, I have asked Merrick Garland this twice. I am reclaiming my time and when I reclaim my time, it is mine. I'm not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics. The time belongs to the gentlelady. The gentlelady has 17 seconds. Thank you. You're not going to answer this question, so let me just say this. Chairman, I'll direct it to you. What a massive cover-up. No, I'm answering a question. Mr. Chairman, will you restore her time? The witness is interrupted. I'm not going to get in the gutter with this woman. Stop the time. She's doing theatrics. Let me have my time. The gentlelady from Washington controls the time. The gentlelady has 17 seconds. You can proceed with your final 17 seconds. 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, just only to then say that there was no list. Your deputy, Todd Blanche, met alone with Elaine Maxwell and transferred her to a minimum security prison. And now you continue 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. Chairman, the chair now recognizes the chair. I'm what you have done. The time of the gentlelady has expired. The gentlelady, you have no time to yield back. We appreciate that. We appreciate the thought. And I would argue the central issue in the last election, the presidential election, was securing the border. The gentleman from Arizona who knows something about securing the border is up for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Attorney General Bondi, for being here today. In 2022, Lafarge, which is a French cement company, pled guilty in U.S. federal court to participating in a criminal conspiracy with ISIS. let's take that conspiracy down this we know what andy biggs is going to do um i heard a lot of oh this is great oh my gosh i like that she stood her ground meaning pramila jayapal there because bam bondi tried to obfuscate and that's sort of what they did not do last time maybe they weren't prepared for that but go ahead panel what do you guys say but we we had i just talked about some tips right and i think that that was a great example of what it means to work not just to control a witness, not to allow them to evade and not answer your question and bring in other things, but to continue to reclaim your time, which when you have a witness like this, and when you've got a moderator who is part of the majority party, that's going to kind of allow for it. You have to know the rules. You have to utilize the rules. And as I think it was Keith saying, here's a great clip, right? Because this attorney general is shown that under her watch, 32 victims' names and information was released, unredacted, after they assured victims and the public that that would not happen according to their own working rules and the rules of evidence, et cetera. She shows her that it happened, as if she didn't know, but she shows her, and then gives her an opportunity to apologize. And she's so small and so Trump-lican that the notion of just turning to these people and saying for any additional pain that was caused through the redaction of 3 million pages, 6 million pages of information, she could have couched it. However, she wanted to couch it. But with him, you can't apologize. And because she doesn't ever feel like she does anything wrong, same as him. She's got to instead go back to Merrick Garland. This is very telling. The American people should get to see this. And I'm not leaving it up to the Democratic Party. I'm going to push the clips. I care about this country. Anybody with a platform who cares about informing the American people, these are the things that we should be showing them as you are here today. Thank you, Don. That's really shameful too, which she did. I mean, really, it's shameful. These women, a lot of them paid their way, getting hotels all the way from wherever they're living around the country to be in that room, to be acknowledged and to have the back of the attorney general in their face and to not be acknowledged as they stood up. I think it's a very shameful moment in American history. I'm just going to say, broadly speaking, this is all theater. I don't I think this is about getting information. Pam Bondi is not going to say anything truthful. She's going to evade or she's going to lie. So it's great that there is that moment. Like, you know, this is a visual medium. I think this is something that a lot of members of Congress don't understand. And it seems like she does is like she had people stand up. That's like a whole clip that they could play on TV. They brought out the email on, you know, the. And I'm thinking about how Mark Zuckerberg was asked to do the exact same thing when there were parents who had children, I think, who died by suicide. And he actually did stand up and turned around and said, I'm sorry. And so I think, honestly, I think a lot of folks want to avoid that moment because I think he, unfortunately, was perceived as weak for doing it. so uh i think pam bondy was probably relatively smart to not give her that moment because it doesn't i don't think it would make her look good but i do think it's great that they are basically they are controlling the scene they're controlling the stage except for the difference keith with when mark zuckerberg did it when when people were injured and he was like a party opponent this woman works for the people she was just gonna say and yeah she works for us we we well she's she's supposed to she's supposed to we are client and so in in upside down where up is down and down is up you have like a todd blanch go and and a maxwell waves the fifth and talks to him who is actually the party opponent in her criminal cases. Like he's the prosecution. But then we've got these people in the room who the United States, they were the victims. Like it's lost on her that those are her clients. It's absurd. Thank you again for watching the Tara Palmieri show from the road here in Washington, D.C. where theatrics are on display in Congress. And, you know, not a lot of answers, unfortunately. And of course, if you like this show, please head to The Red Letter. You can go to tarapalmeri.com and sign up for my newsletter, The Red Letter. It's where you can get my exclusive reporting by becoming a paid subscriber and where you can get my independent journalism. Also, just by following, subscribing, liking, rating, commenting, engaging with this show, you are keeping me in business and alive. And as we get closer and closer to the truth, I want to thank my producer, Eric Abinate. I want to thank Abby Baker, who does my social media and my research. I want to thank Adam Stewart on the graphics and Dan Rosen, my manager. See you again soon. Hi, I'm Tamsyn Fadal, journalist and author of How to Menopause and host of The Tamsyn Show, a weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond. We cover it all from dating to divorce, aging to ADHD, sleep to sex, brain health to body fat and even how perimenopause can affect your relationships. And trust me, it can. Each week, I sit down with doctors, experts, and leaders in longevity for unfiltered conversations packed with advice on everything from hormones to happiness. And of course, how to stay sane during what can be, well, let's face it, a pretty chaotic chapter of life. Think of us as your midlife survival guide. New episodes released every Wednesday. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. monitors....