Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is ready to seem subsequent month for a deposition in the House Oversight Committee’s Jeffrey Epstein probe.
Bondi’s look – now set for May 29, based on a committee spokeswoman – comes because the panel has pushed in latest months to listen to from the previous high Trump administration official about how the Justice Department dealt with the Epstein case information underneath her management.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers initially subpoenaed the then-attorney common amid outrage over how the division’s failure to launch all the information as compelled by legislation.
But as soon as Bondi was ousted, the division argued she could no longer appear in her official capability and wouldn’t sit for the beforehand scheduled deposition, despite the fact that the subpoena named her immediately.
Quite a lot of Republicans had waffled earlier than Bondi’s departure over whether or not she wanted to testify underneath oath, after she met voluntarily with the panel to reply questions. That assembly on Capitol Hill – additionally attended by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who’s now serving because the appearing lawyer common – grew contentious with Democrats in the end storming out of the room.
The date for Bondi’s new look was revealed as Democrats on the Oversight Committee introduced they’d filed civil contempt prices in opposition to Bondi for not showing.
The high Democrat on the panel, Rep. Robert Garcia, mentioned he had heard nothing from Bondi’s private lawyer, committee Republicans nor the Trump administration forward of the deposition announcement.
“So as far as we’re concerned, we’ve now spent weeks with zero communication from somebody that was legally obligated to appear,” Garcia mentioned forward of the announcement.
Upon studying of the brand new date, Garcia praised the event as “great news,” saying: “Clearly we’re being effective.”
“It’s interesting how it’s only when we take action, and when we actually have to force Republicans to do anything, to call subpoenas, to get in front of our committee, that they actually ever do anything,” he mentioned.
But House Oversight Chair James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, swiftly pushed again, saying the announcement was made “as quick as we could get the day confirmed.”
“I said we would get a date. They have a history of being drama queens in the minority on the Oversight Committee,” Comer added.
Republicans on the panel individually criticized their colleagues’ civil contempt push as “all theater and completely unnecessary.”
“They were happy giving the Clintons a free pass for months,” the panel’s Republicans posted on X, referring to the six months it took to safe appearances from former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.