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Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to testify Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee, where lawmakers are expected to confront her over the Department of Justice’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case files, numerous high-profile, politically charged indictments and broader structural changes at the department.
The hearing, beginning at 10 a.m., marks Bondi’s first appearance before the House panel since taking the helm of the DOJ.
While some Republicans are likely to praise Bondi for shifting the department’s focus to street crime, drug trafficking and illegal immigration, Democrats and other Republicans have signaled they will grill her on the department’s attempts to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law that required the DOJ to publish all unclassified files related to Epstein’s case.
LAPSED EPSTEIN DEADLINE UNDERSCORES CHALLENGE OF REVIEWING TROVES OF FILES IN 30 DAYS
Republicans on the committee may highlight the DOJ’s efforts to combat transnational drug trafficking and the opioid epidemic, as well as violent crime and immigration, which the Trump administration has made clear are its top priorities.
In the most prominent of the drug cases brought during Bondi’s tenure, the DOJ brought a superseding indictment against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, alleging narco-terrorism conspiracy and firearms charges. After his stunning capture last month, Maduro and his wife were brought to the Southern District of New York and are being detained there as they await trial.
Bondi could be forced to address upheaval in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, where a weeks-long surge in immigration enforcement has bogged down the federal court there and led to an exodus of prosecutors.
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Several recent controversial judicial developments are also likely to surface during the hearing, as the administration has faced hundreds of adverse rulings in the lower courts, including from some Trump-appointed judges.
Federal judges in Minnesota have put a spotlight on what they view as legal problems with the way the administration has detained alleged illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, other judges have rejected several of Trump’s choices to lead the country’s 94 U.S. attorney’s offices.
A federal judge ruled, for instance, that the interim appointment of Lindsey Halligan, who was leading the U.S. attorney’s office in Eastern Virginia, was unlawful.
The move derailed the DOJ’s high-profile indictments of FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, leading a judge to toss out the cases. The DOJ is now appealing them.
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