Bondi's scramble to blame Blanche for Epstein debacle undermined by ex-DOJ official
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi's attempt to deflect responsibility for the Justice Department's mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein files has been soundly rejected by a former DOJ official, who emphasized that Bondi was a documented participant in the obstruction from day one — not a passive bystander.In a column for MS NOW, former director of the Justice Department's Office of Public Affairs Anthony Coley dismantled Bondi's Friday testimony before the House Oversight Committee, where she attempted to shift blame to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel."Bondi owns every decision she made as attorney general," Coley wrote. "And before she was ousted by Trump in April, she ran a department that refused to meet with Epstein survivors, stalled disclosure demands and fought transparency even after Congress overwhelmingly ordered it."The most damaging indictment, he wrote, concerns Bondi's treatment of Epstein survivors — women, many victimized as children, who asked for a meeting with the attorney general. Bondi refused, and later refused to even acknowledge their presence at a congressional hearing.Coley pointed out that Bondi found time for a very different kind of meeting. Last November, Rep. Lauren Boebert was summoned to the White House Situation Room — a space normally reserved for matters of national security — where she was pressured not to support a discharge petition that would force a floor vote on disclosing the Epstein files."Survivors can't get a meeting but a GOP member of Congress gets the Situation Room," Coley noted.Even Trump's White House eventually soured on Bondi's personal handling of the files with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles telling Vanity Fair that Bondi "whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this."Wiles was particularly scathing about Bondi's claims regarding the Epstein client list. "First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn't on her desk," Wiles said.That led Coley to write, "Bondi tried to wash her hands of the Epstein files mess in a closed-door interview before the House Oversight Committee on Friday — not on camera and with Todd Blanche’s name ready for every hard question. Don’t be fooled. It was her job to be transparent. And she wasn’t."
