It’s hard to imagine that now-fired Attorney General Pam Bondi would have been any more forthcoming had she appeared for a deposition, under oath and recorded for public transparency. After her stunningly belligerent public testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, it was clear that she felt no compulsion to either answer questions or behave respectfully, mirroring her patron’s obsession with hurling infantile insults at her, and his, enemies.

But Oversight Committee chair, James Comer, decided not to bother with such details as sworn testimony or public transparency despite the subpoena he was pressured into issuing, opting instead to go with a private unsworn interview. After all, she was fired as AG, so what could she possibly have to offer with regard to what went wrong with the Epstein files release under her watch?

And to the extent Bondi answered at all, she provided a two-fold answer. She knew nothing and everything was Blanche’s and Patel’s fault.

Her remarks, delivered during a closed-door interview before the House Oversight Committee, were a bracingly candid admission of her own powerlessness that belied her nominal role as one of the most powerful figures in government. It was a noticeable shift from her past appearances on Capitol Hill, when she resorted to maximum-volume attacks on Democrats who raised questions about her performance or challenged her authority.

Notably, the information about what happened behind closed doors relies upon the statements of committee Democrats, like Rep. Garcia, because the Republican members of the committee, other than Chairman Comer, didn’t bother to show. Did they not care or did they realize it would be a complete waste of time since it was neither under oath nor open to public scrutiny? Or maybe Epstein is such old news in light of Trump having suffered a humiliating defeat in the Iran War and UFC fights, sucking up the national parks fees to build a circus on the White House lawn to celebrate Trump’s birthday?

But the big news was that Bondi knew nothing about nothing.

Ms. Bondi told committee members that Mr. Blanche was managing “the entire investigation,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said after emerging from a tense session Ms. Bondi had long sought to delay or dodge.

She added in the hearing that Mr. Blanche was responsible for determining which documents would be released, another person present for her testimony said, describing how she also repeatedly punted to Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I.

One might have expected the Attorney General of the United States to know what was happening in her department and have some authoritative oversight, if not actual control. It’s not as if Blanche, as her assistant, or Patel, as her foot soldier, weren’t subject to her direction and scrutiny. And it’s not as if Bondi didn’t publicly claim that she was in charge of matters, such as when she informed the public that the Epstein client list was on her desk. But now, Bondi was painting herself as just another “blond (if that really is her hair color) bimbo,” with neither knowledge nor control over what happened with the Epstein files or compliance with the Epstein Transparency Act.

Was she really just a flawed figurehead, or was this fallacious folderol?

Current and former Justice Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, disputed Ms. Bondi’s characterization. She was not only informed of every key development in the Epstein case, they said, but signed off on every major decision — including by issuing a memo in July 2025 that formally ended the government’s review of the files.

The answers given the Oversight Committee, of course, were not under oath, even though lying to Congress is an independent crime from perjury, so it’s quite likely that Bondi was really playing a three-card monte game with the Democrats, where she could point to Blanche and Patel, who later, should they either be subpoenaed or appear before the committee, would point at her or each other, each claiming the disastrously bad and blatantly unlawful decisions were made by someone else and not them.

Then again, if Bondi’s “interview” answers were bold-faced lies, what’s the difference? It’s not as if there’s anyone in the majority in Congress that gives a damn, and there’s certainly no one at the Department of Justice who would consider investigating and prosecuting her. After all, they’re far too busy investigating E. Jean Carroll and prosecuting Jim Comey.