Pam Bondi, fired as attorney general by President Trump in April, insisted on Friday that she had little real authority in overseeing the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, putting responsibility squarely on her former deputy and successor, Todd Blanche.
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.
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.
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.
Ms. Bondi, in a social media post after she left the interview, praised Mr. Blanche’s “Herculean task” of handling the Epstein case, said he was an “incredible” attorney general and denied there was any friction between the two.
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