'Stop the White House cover-up': Rep. Robert Garcia demands videotaping of Pam Bondi's interview

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to appear for a closed-door interview on Friday with the House Oversight Committee over her handling of the federal government's investigation into the late, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. While Bondi was subpoenaed in April to provide a sworn-in testimony, the Republican-controlled committee changed it to a transcribed interview, which won't be filmed for the general public. Reacting to the move, Rep. Robert Garcia, a Ranking Member of the committee, said it was a cover-up move from the GOP, and there was no reason not to videotape the interview. 

Bondi was first subpoenaed in April, but she refused to appear for her deposition before the committee. The subpoena followed the Department of Justice's botched release of the Epstein files, where the department failed to release millions of documents, redacted crucial names from the released documents, and revealed the identity of the survivors, leading to severe doxing. After the committee secured another date for the deposition, Bondi was fired by President Donald Trump, and the DOJ argued that the subpoena was no longer valid. Bondi finally agreed to appear for an interview on May 29 and asked if she would be under oath. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the committee's chair, did not say yes. "She's coming in, if she says anything that's not true, that's a felony, and she'll be prosecuted," he told PBS News.

Thus, there has been bipartisan uproar over the circumstances under which the interview is being conducted. "There is no reason we should not videotape Pam Bondi's interview. This is an important moment for the Epstein investigation, and she has a lot to answer for," Garcia wrote in a post on X, sharing a clip of his interview with MS Now. Given that the other notable figures who have provided testimony, including former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Garcia argued, "Republicans videotaped and released other interviews, so why not this one? Stop the White House cover-up."

Days before her interview, Bondi disclosed to CNN that she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer shortly after leaving the Justice Department in April. She told the publication that she is currently undergoing treatment, and she had a surgery a few weeks ago, from which she is still recovering and "doing well."

While Bondi's recollection is one of several sought by the Republican-controlled House committee, as she had shared crucial details, including an "Epstein Client List" which was never released to the public, survivors of the disgraced financier have expressed little faith that the interview would reveal any new information. "I don't think things will be honest," Marina Lacerda, a survivor who came in contact with Epstein when she was just 14 years old, told CNN on Thursday.

"We do feel that she will continue to protect whoever she is protecting. I don't think things will be different. I think tomorrow might be something even very quick. I think she may not even sit through the whole thing," she added.