Top Dem puts Pam Bondi on notice over 'enormous liability': 'She will be held accountable'
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, put Attorney General Pam Bondi on notice Saturday over what he said was her “enormous amount of liability” regarding a scandal he called “worse than the Watergate cover-up.”
As the head of the Justice Department, Bondi has faced growing scrutiny over her agency’s alleged failures to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), a law that mandates the DOJ release all of its files on Jeffrey Epstein, and with limited redactions. While the DOJ did release millions of files on Epstein, it vowed to withhold millions more, and has released files with redactions that critics say violate the EFTA.
As the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which is carrying out an active investigation into Epstein and potential co-conspirators, Garcia told Democracy Docket on Saturday that the DOJ’s disregard for the law would not be ignored, and that as the head of the agency, Bondi would be held accountable for the agency’s unlawful conduct.
“I think that Pam Bondi needs to understand that she has an enormous amount of liability here as the attorney general, and as someone that's leading this cover-up for [President] Donald Trump,” Garcia told Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias, as reported by AOL on Sunday.
“So if she wants to continue carrying the water for a failed president, she can do so as she pleases, but she will be held accountable, and our goal is to hold the president accountable.”
Lawmakers have already floated plans to hold Bondi accountable for her agency’s alleged unlawful conduct regarding its handling of files on Epstein, including by holding her in contempt of Congress, a compliance mechanism that could result in Bondi being fined or even jailed. Other methods lawmakers have employed to force compliance have been met with fierce pushback by the DOJ.
“What's stunning to me, and what Pam Bondi doesn't understand, is first, this is infinitely worse than the Watergate cover-up as we know it. I mean, it doesn't compare," Garcia continued. “But let's remember who actually had to face consequences for Watergate. It wasn't Nixon, right? It was the attorney general.”