[0:00]We'll begin with opening statements. The chair is now recognized 18 cities, 11 states, [clears throat] excuse me, three counties, and the District of Columbia are sanctuary jurisdictions, accounting
[0:11]for 31% of the population in this country. 31% of the American people, almost one-third of the American people live in a city, county, or state where the left-wing leadership tells local law
[0:22]enforcement not to work with federal law enforcement. Now, what does that mean in practice? Let's look at Abraham Gonzalez who on September 20th, 2023
[0:34]was arrested by Border Patrol for illegally entering the United States. And of course, the Biden administration released him into the country. 5 months
[0:43]later, February 26, 2024, Mr. Gonzalez is charged with assault. Two weeks later, March 11th, 2024, he's charged
[0:52]with felony motor vehicle theft. Stole a car. And on March 20th, 2024, nine days later, he's arrested by the Denver police and placed in the Denver Justice
[1:03]Center. Six days uh six days later, March 22nd, 2024, ICE sends a detainer notice to the Denver Justice Center saying this, if you're going to release
[1:13]Mr. Gonzalez, can you give us a heads up? Can you let us know maybe 48 hours before you're going to release this guy so we can come apprehend him there at
[1:23]the jail? And remember, a detainer is a final order of removal from a court where this individual or this individual's committed some removable
[1:32]offense. But on February 28th, 2025, Abraham Gonzalez is released to the streets. In fact, we can put that up. I think you can see this released. We got
[1:42]the form from the det uh Denver Justice Center. What kind of inmate was Mr. Gonzalez for those 345 days that he was in the Denver
[1:51]Justice Center? We have that too. Violent to the staff, keep separate. So this guy was so bad you had to keep him away from other inmates. He had already
[2:03]assaulted some staff member. But Denver released this guy to the streets and let instead of turning him over to ICE agents who would have come to the jail and arrested him there. And
[2:13]of course, we all know what happens when the officers did apprehend Mr. Gonzalez out on the street. He assaulted one of the officers. This is what happens when you have a
[2:24]sanctuary jurisdiction. Right now in Minnesota, there are 1,360 detainer notices for violent offenders. Governor Walls and others have released 470
[2:35]criminal illegal aliens back to the streets. In New York State, it's 7,000. Nationwide, it's over 17,000 that we
[2:44]know of where a detainer was filed. Since President Trump's been in office, over 17,000 times a detainer was filed and those individuals were released to the streets instead of turned over to
[2:56]federal law enforcement. 17,864 times. Illegals who've been charged with the crime have been released released to the streets and thereby jeopardizing the
[3:06]safety of the public, the safety of law enforcement, and of course the migrant themselves. and frankly helping create the environment that results in the tragic
[3:17]deaths like we saw with Miss Good and Mr. Prey. Few years ago, Governor Sarah Huckabe Sanders said this in response to the State of the Union address. She
[3:27]said, "The divide in America today is normal versus crazy." And it's true because it's crazy not to have a border, which is what we had out of the previous administration. It's crazy to abolish
[3:39]ICE. And it's crazy to release bad guys who are here illegally to the streets when with one phone call, federal law enforcement will come to the jail and pick them up.
[3:50]The mindset, the mindset that says it's okay to release these guys is the same left-wing mindset that thinks it's okay to weaponize government against your political opponents. And that is exactly
[4:00]what we had in the previous Justice Department. The Biden Harris Department of Justice called parents domestic terrorists. The Biden Harris Justice
[4:10]Department used FBI SWAT teams to arrest pro-life advocates. The Biden Harris DOJ targeted traditional Catholics. The Biden Harris DOJ pressured social media companies to censor Americans. And the
[4:21]Biden Harris Justice Department launched not one but two investigations into President Trump, spending over $35 million to try to bring down their
[4:32]political opponent. To further this effort, they sought the phone records of over a dozen Republican members of Congress. Even the Democrats said this was wrong. They got bank records for
[4:43]scores of White House officials. They even paid at least one confidential human source $20,000 for information on President Trump. And of course, while doing all this, they couldn't tell us who planted the pipe bombs, who leaked
[4:54]the DOB's opinion, and who put cocaine in the White House. But thank goodness, the American people saw through it all. Americans were tired of being targeted for their beliefs, tired of the lawfare, tired of the rampid crime throughout
[5:05]this country. And that's why they overwhelmingly elected President Trump. And what a difference a year makes. What a difference a year makes. Under Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions. Upholding
[5:17]the rule of law, going after the bad guys, and keeping Americans safe. The Trump Justice Department has restored the rule of law. Murders are down nationwide by 20%. In DC, violent crime is down by 28%.
[5:28]The federal surge in DC resulted in 8,000 arrests, the seizure of 800 illegal guns, and the recovery of 16 missing kids. Trump Justice Department apprehended a
[5:39]suspect in the pipe bomb investigation. And they've arrested six of the FBI's 10, our top 10 most wanted fugitives in just one year. Of course, they arrested naroterrorist Nicholas Maduro, and they
[5:50]seize a record number of drugs flowing into this country. Trump Justice Department put an end to targeting Americans for their beliefs. Attorney General Bondi rescended
[6:01]Attorney General Garland's anti-parent memorandum. Department of Justice ended the practices of using the Face Act to target pro-life Americans. They've refused to tolerate attacks on places of
[6:12]worship and investigations of traditional Catholics that we saw in the previous administration. On her first day, Attorney General Bondi disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force that
[6:22]was pressuring social media companies to censor Americans. And the Trump Justice Department has ended Lawfair. Under Attorney General Bondi, along with Director Patel, they've worked to expose the political
[6:33]nature of Artic Frost and the Jack Smith investigations. They've turned over hundred of pages of documents to Congress. And that's why we know, for example, that Mr. Smith paid
[6:44]at least $20,000 to some confidential human source. That's why we know that Jack Smith knew it was unconstitutional seek to toll records from members. But
[6:53]since the litigation risk was low and because members would never find out about the subpoena until years later, they charged ahead and violated the constitution.
[7:04]The Trump Justice Department has changed DOJ policy to require prosecutors to tell judges if NDOS's relate to members of the separate and equal branch of
[7:14]government, the Congress. And to top it all off, the Trump Justice Department opened an investigation into the conspiracy behind the Russia collusion hoax. Justice Department has put common sense
[7:26]ahead of politics. They sued to keep boys out of girls sports. They secured deals with universities to stop race-based admissions and anti-Semitic practices. And after discovering rampant fraud in Minnesota,
[7:37]Justice Department under the leadership of Attorney General Bondi has established a new national fraud division. In fact, I met with Colin McDonald who will head that division last week. I think he's going to do a great job. Uh there's a lot of work to
[7:48]be done in that area. But I want to thank the attorney general for her great work in the first year on the job and I want to thank you for being here. With that, I would yield to the ranking
[7:59]member for an opening statement. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Attorney General Bondi. You've got the best lawyer's job in America because your mission is justice and your
[8:11]clients are the American people. But to promote justice for the people, you've got to listen to the victims, like the women seated behind you today. Those are
[8:21]just some of the hundreds of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's global sex trafficking ring who are demanding that the truth be told and are demanding accountability for the abusers who
[8:33]trafficked and raped them. You still haven't met with these survivors. So, with their permission, let me introduce to you the survivors and late survivors family members who are present today.
[8:45]There's Terresa Helm. There's Jess Michaels, Laura Bloom McGee, Danny Benski, Liz Stein, Marina Lera, Sky and
[8:55]Amanda Roberts, who are the family of the late Virginia Dufra, Charlene Rashard, and Lisa Phillips. Now, you're not showing a lot of interest in the victims, Madam Attorney General, whether
[9:07]it's Epstein's human trafficking ring or the homicidal governmental violence against citizens in Minneapolis. As attorney general, you're siding with the
[9:17]perpetrators and you're ignoring the victims. That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change course. You're running a massive Epstein cover up right
[9:29]out of the Department of Justice. You've been ordered by subpoena and by Congress to turn over 6 million documents, photographs, and videos in the Epstein files, but you've turned over only three
[9:40]million. You say you're not turning over the other three million because they're somehow duplicative, but we know that there are actual memos of victim
[9:50]statements in there. And you also took down the Department of Justice's prosecution memo from 2019. So, it's clearly not all duplicative, but even if
[9:59]it were, why not release it? Just release all the duplicative stuff. In the half you did produce, you redacted the names of abusers, enablers,
[10:10]accompllices, and co-conspirators, apparently to spare them embarrassment and disgrace, which is the exact opposite of what the law ordered you to
[10:19]do. Even worse, you shockingly failed to redact many of the victims names, which is what you were ordered to do by Congress. Some of the victims had come
[10:30]forward publicly, but many had not. Many had kept their torment private, even from family and friends. But you
[10:39]published their names, their identities, their images on thousands of pages for the world to see. So you ignored the
[10:49]law. And even with over a 100,000 employees at your disposal, you acted with some mixture of staggering incompetence, cold indifference, and
[11:00]jaded cruelty towards more than 1,000 victims raped, abused, and trafficked. This performance screams cover up.
[11:11]Convicted sex trafficker and groomer Gla Maxwell opened the gates of hell to Virginia Drew Fray and hundreds of other victims as Virginia recorded in her
[11:21]remarkable book Nobody's Girl. But when Maxwell was subpoenaed to come testify before Congress, you and Todd Blanch quickly moved her from a higher security
[11:31]prison to a minimum security camp in Texas where she's enjoyed five-star treatment, including catered meals, private gym time, and access to a
[11:43]therapy puppy. All because Todd Blanch, who's utterly failed to investigate the monstrous crimes of Epstein and Maxwell's co-conspirator, spent nine
[11:52]hours with Maxwell and satisfied himself that she would have nothing unourred to say about Donald Trump, which is your only real interest in the matter based
[12:03]on institutional performance. But abandoning victims and coddling perpetrators is what you do best when the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the brutal killing in Minneapolis
[12:15]of Renee Good, a poet and 37year-old mother of three by Trump's masked paramilitary ICE agents. You shut it down. You claim you're investigating the
[12:25]cold-blooded murder of Alex Prey, an ICU nurse at the VA. But how can we trust the administration when the president and Christy Gnome call Freddy a domestic
[12:35]terrorist and Steven Miller called him a would-be assassin? Not only do you refuse to share evidence with the state and local investigators and prosecutors in Minnesota, you have blocked their
[12:46]access to the crime scene and the evidence. How are you seeking justice for Mariamar Martinez, the monastery school teacher in Chicago who was shot
[12:55]five times by a border patrol agent who bragged about it on text. Or the family of Keith Porter, a father of two shot and killed by an offduty ICE agent in
[13:05]LA. Or the family of Sylio Vieas Gonzalez shot and killed in Illinois minutes after he dropped his kids off at school. There's no sign of any movement
[13:16]at the Department of Justice. You even launched a criminal investigation into Renee Good's grieving widow. How sick is that? But it's even worse. You've turned
[13:26]the People's Department of Justice into Trump's instrument of revenge. Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza, and you deliver every time. He tells you to
[13:36]go after James Comey, Leticia James, Lisa Cook, and Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve Board, and members of Congress like Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, Alyssa Slotkin, Chrissy
[13:47]Hulahan, Jason Crowe, Chris Duzio, and Maggie Goodlander to name a few. And you snap to it. You replace real prosecutors with counterfeit stooges who robotically
[13:59]do the president's bidding. Nothing in American history comes close to this complete corruption of the justice function and contamination of federal law enforcement. And the good news is
[14:10]many serious lawyers at DOJ, including some of your own original employees, have refused your lawless orders. Danielle Sassoon, your original pick for
[14:21]acting US attorney Manhattan, resigned rather than follow your corrupt order to quash an indictment against Mayor Eric Adams as a political favor from Donald
[14:30]Trump. A Federalist Society member who clerked for Justice Scalia, US Attorney refused to participate in this blatantly corrupt scheme. Her top assistant, Hagen
[14:41]Scottton, an Iraqi war vet and two-time Bronstar recipient who clerked for Chief Justice Roberts and then Judge Kavanaaugh promptly resigned too, writing to your office, quote, "I expect
[14:52]you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me." You and the president
[15:02]nominated Eric Seabert, a 15-year career prosecutor, to be your US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. But after five months of investigating
[15:13]Leticia James and James Comey, he found no evidence to justify criminal charges. So you forced him out. You replaced him with Lindseay Halagan, Trump's personal
[15:23]lawyer from the Mara Lago documents case, who had zero prosecutorial experience and no qualifications. And then you were humiliated when a federal judge found that this corrupt
[15:34]appointment was blatantly unlawful and threw out Halagan's indictments entirely. And grand juries of American citizens have repeatedly rejected your vendettas and baseless indictments
[15:45]brought by the hacks left at DOJ now with two different grand juries in Virginia voting down indictments against Leticia James in a single week. And just yesterday, another grand jury shut down
[15:56]your vendetta factory by rejecting indictments against the six members of Congress who had spoken out to remind all service members that they have a
[16:05]duty to refuse illegal orders. You tried to get a grand jury to indict six members of Congress who were veterans of our armed forces on charges of sedicious
[16:14]conspiracy simply for exercising their First Amendment rights. I hope you will heed the wisdom and the constitutional patriotism of those grand jurors and not
[16:24]try it again by doubling down on that humiliation as your best lawyers are sacked for having participated in the January 6 case or just flee for the exits now your new lawyers keep lying in
[16:36]court in dozens of cases they've been excoriated for lying to federal judges Chief Judge Boseberg right here in DC suggested your department of justice
[16:45]perpetrated a fraud on the court Other judges found your statements to be quote inexplicably misleading, patently incredible, totally inconsistent, and so
[16:56]disingenuous that the court is left with little confidence that the government can be trusted to tell the truth about anything. Now, as ranking ch ranking
[17:06]member, uh I ask the chairman to add a few extra rounds of questions today because we each have five hours of questions, not five minutes, but we're stuck with five minutes. That's clearly
[17:17]insufficient to give voice to America's victims and survivors and to demand answers about all the corruption and cover-ups that we see at DOJ right now. We've got just one round. So, we ask you
[17:28]politely but firmly, Madam Attorney General, please do not waste one second of our precious time by evading questions, by changing the subject or
[17:39]engaging in personal attacks against members of Congress. We saw your performance in the Senate, and we're not going to accept that. This isn't a game. In the Senate, you brought something with you called a burn book, a binder of
[17:51]smears to attack members personally for doing the people's work of oversight. Please set the burnbook aside and answer our questions. And when you hear us reclaim our time, that means it's time
[18:03]for you to stop speaking. We only have five minutes. So, when we reclaim our time, that means you stop. And if you don't, we will ask the chair to stop the clock and let you go on his time. The
[18:14]quality of justice in America depends on the character of our government. Please do your job and bring the Department of Justice back from the brink. The survivors seated behind you and the
[18:24]American people watching everywhere deserve a Department of Justice worthy of its name. I yield back, Mr. Chair. >> Without objection, all of the opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's
[18:34]witness. The Honorable Pamela J. Bondi has served as the attorney general of the United States since February 5th, 2025. She previously served in the office of the White House counsel, two terms as the Florida Attorney General,
[18:45]and spent more than 18 years as a prosecutor. We welcome our witness and thank her for appearing today. We will begin by swearing you in. Would you
[18:52]please rise and raise your right hand? >> Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best
[19:03]of your knowledge, information, and belief? So help you God. >> I do. >> Let the record show that the witness has answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You can be seated and please note that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirely
[19:14]entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize uh your testimony. Madame Attorney General, you may begin. >> Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Jordan, Ranking
[19:24]Member Rascin, and distinguished members of this committee. Thank you for hosting me here today. I'm grateful for the opportunity to answer your questions, highlight the work of our department,
[19:36]and discuss the most important topic of all, keeping the American people safe. A little over a year ago, I was sworn into office as 87th Attorney General of the
[19:46]United States. I came into office with a goal of refocusing the Department of Justice on its core mission after years of bloated bureaucracy and political
[19:57]weaponization. The Department of Justice's core mission is to fight violent crime, protect the American people, and defend the rule of
[20:08]law above all else. While our work is never done, we have made tremendous progress to make America
[20:16]safe again. In 2025, we saw the lowest murder rate in 125 years. That's nothing short of historic.
[20:27]If you compare 25 to 24, here's what you'll find. The murder rate is down 21%. Robbery down 23%. Carjacking down 43%.
[20:38]Gun assault down 22%. A assault, burglary could go on and on. Crime is declining. This did not happen by accident. The
[20:49]numbers tell an important yet straightforward story. President Trump has given us the resources, the support, and the leadership to protect the
[21:00]American people. President Trump's policies have saved lives. I cannot think of a policy outcome more important than protecting the lives of
[21:11]American citizens. Can you? This trend has been especially clear in Washington DC and in Memphis. These are two iconic
[21:21]American cities that spent years in the grip of horrific violent crime. The Department of Justice surged law enforcement resources and the results
[21:33]came quickly. Crime plummeted in both cities. And I want to make one point loud and clear. We achieved those
[21:43]results by working with Democratic mayors. Public safety does not have a party registration. When
[21:52]your constituents call 911, they don't ask for political views of the responding officer. They ask for help. I have federal agents in each and every
[22:03]one of your districts. They're here to help and I am here to help. Many cities and states have worked with us and taken advantage of our federal
[22:14]support. Some have not. Meanwhile, a few elected officials have declared that they are quote at war with the federal government and encouraged widespread
[22:24]obstruction of law enforcement. This has resulted in avoidable clashes on the streets. As you've all seen, we've seen rioters storming a Christian
[22:35]church. Citizens and law enforcement officers have both been endangered by reckless rhetoric. We have made dozens of arrests
[22:46]in and around Minneapolis so far, and many of them could have been avoided by simple compliance with federal law. Of
[22:56]course, our efforts reach beyond our urban centers. We are striking crucial blows against terrorist organizations such as MS-13,
[23:06]TDA, the Sinaloa cartel, and Antifa. And as we sit here, I think you've seen the news this morning. The news is reporting
[23:17]that cartel drones are being shot down by our military. That's what we all should care about right now, protecting
[23:26]America as we seek to dismantle these drug trafficking networks that poison
[23:35]Americans. In 2025, our DEA agent seized more than 47 million fentanyl pills and more than
[23:47]9,800 total kilos of fentanyl. That represents 369
[23:56]million potentially deadly doses that can kill Americans. Meanwhile, our attorneys are fighting for President Trump's agenda in
[24:08]courtrooms across this country. This administration has been sued 627 times. We fought through a nonstop flood of bad
[24:18]faith temporary restraining orders from liberal activist judges across this country. America has never seen this
[24:26]level of coordinated judicial opposition towards a presidential administration. It is not only an unlawful attack on the
[24:38]executive branch's authority, but a serious attack on the democratic process. In spite of this unprecedented
[24:47]judicial activism, we've attained 24 favorable rulings at the US Supreme Court,
[24:56]their emergency docket, and even more to come. We've done so while ending the weaponization of the prior administration by dropping FAC
[25:05]prosecutions, exposing the Arctic frost scandal via congressional disclosure. Thank you, chairman. and restoring one
[25:14]tier of justice in this country. To address the Epstein files, more than 500 attorneys and reviewers
[25:24]spent thousands of hours painstakingly reviewing millions of pages to comply with Congress's law. We've released more
[25:33]than three million pages, including 180,000 images, all to the public, while doing our very best in the time frame
[25:45]allotted by the legislation to protect victims. And if you brought us a victim's name that was inadvertently released, we immediately redacted it.
[25:57]All members of Congress, as you know, are invited to visit DOJ to see for yourselves. I want to take a moment to acknowledge
[26:07]the Epstein survivors who are here today. I'm a career prosecutor and despite what the ranking member said, I have spent my
[26:17]entire career fighting for victims and I will continue to do so. I am deeply
[26:25]sorry for what any victim any victim has been through, especially as a result of that monster. If you have any information to share with law
[26:37]enforcement about anyone who has hurt you or abused you, the FBI is waiting to hear from you.
[26:47]I want you to know that any accusations of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated. The Department of Justice is committed
[26:59]to holding criminals accountable to the fullest extent of the law. In 2025, the FBI arrested over 1700 child predators,
[27:10]a 10% increase from 2024. We also located 2700 victims of child exploitation and shut
[27:21]down 3.8 million dark web pedophile accounts. 3.8 million.
[27:31]So please, if you have information to share that needs to be investigated, contact the FBI. Today, I look forward to discussing
[27:41]further our shared obligation to protect the American people, uphold the rule of law, and keep this nation safe. Thank
[27:52]you.