Besieged by questions about Epstein and accusations of a weaponized Justice Department, Bondi moved aggressively in a rare speech in which he mocked his Democratic questions, praised Trump for the performance of the stock market and apparently aligned himself with a president he painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.

“You sit here and you attack the president and I can’t take it,” Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. “I won’t allow it.”

With Epstein’s victims sitting behind him in the hearing room, Bondi vigorously defended the department’s handling of files related to the well-connected financier who trusted his position. He accused the Democrats of using the Epstein files to interfere with Trump’s achievements, when the Republicans started the mess with the files and Bondi himself was on fire by distributing the binders to conservative influencers in the White House last year.

The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly insulting Democrats while insisting he wouldn’t “go to the gutter” with them. In a particularly heated exchange, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland Bondi refused to answer his questions, prompting the attorney general to call the top Democrat on the committee a “washed up loser lawyer – not even a lawyer.”

Trying to help Bondi amid an onslaught of Democratic criticism, Republicans tried to keep the focus on bread-and-butter law enforcement issues like violent crime and illegal immigration. Bondi repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding to attacks that seemed to be pulled from the headlines as he sought to paint them as disinterested in the violence in their districts. Democrats were outraged as Bondi refused to give a direct answer.

“It’s outrageous. I don’t ask trick questions,” said Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to ask Bondi whether the Justice Department had asked various Trump administration officials about their relationship with Epstein. “Americans should know.”

Bondi has struggling to weather the backlash over the Epstein files since handing out the binders to a group of social media influencers at the White House in February 2025. The binders contain no new revelations about Epstein, leading to more calls from Trump’s base for the files to be released.

In his opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein’s victims to come forward to law enforcement with any information about their abuse and said he was “deeply sorry” for what they went through. He told the survivors that “any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.”

But he refused when forced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal turned around and faced Epstein’s victims in the audience and apologized for what Trump’s Justice Department “put on them” and accused the Democrat of “theatrics.”

Bondi’s appearance on Capitol Hill comes a year into his tumultuous tenure that has fueled concerns that the Justice Department is using its law enforcement powers to target the president’s political enemies. Just a day earlier, the department sought charges against Democratic lawmakers who made a video urging military service members to disobey “illegal orders.” But in a rare rebuke of prosecutors, a grand jury in Washington refused to return a charge.

Rejecting criticism that the Justice Department under his watch has become politicized, Bondi praised the department’s work to reduce violent crime and said he was determined to return the department to its core missions after what he described as “years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponry.”

Praised by GOP Rep. Jim Jordan Bondi for undoing actions under President Joe Biden’s Justice Department that Republicans say unfairly targeted conservatives — including Trump, who was indicted in two criminal cases that were dropped after his 2024 election victory.

“What a difference a year makes,” Jordan said. “Under Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions – upholding the rule of law, prosecuting criminals and keeping the American people safe.”

Democrats, meanwhile, admonished Bondi for haphazard redactions of the Epstein files that revealed intimate details about the victims and also included nude photos. A review by The Associated Press and other news organizations have found countless examples of sloppy, inconsistent or non-existent redactions that reveal sensitive private information.

“You side with the perpetrators and you ignore the victims,” ​​Raskin told Bondi in his opening statement. “That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change course. You ran a massive Epstein cover-up right from the Justice Department.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky lawmaker who opposed his party to advance legislation forcing the release of Epstein’s files, also took Bondi to task for releasing the victims’ personal information, telling him: “Literally the worst thing you can do to survivors, you did.”

Bondi told Massie he was only focused on the files because Trump was mentioned in them, calling him a “hypocrite” with “Trump-derangement syndrome.”

Department officials say they are trying to protect survivors, but that mistakes are inevitable because of the amount of materials and the speed with which the department needs to release them. Bondi told lawmakers that the Justice Department removed the files when they learned they included information on victims and that staff tried to do their “best in the time frame” that mandated the release of the files.

After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of transparency last year, the Justice Department said in July that it concluded a review and determined that no Epstein “client list” existed and there was no reason to make public additional files. That caused an uproar that prompted Congress to pass legislation demanding the Justice Department release the files.

The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of clients where underage girls were trafficked represents a public walk-back on a theory that the Trump administration helped develop when Bondi proposed in a Fox News interview last year that it was sitting on his desk for review. Bondi later said he was referring to the Epstein files in general, not a specific client list.