White House 'less than thrilled' with Pam Bondi's handling of Epstein matter: CNN reporter

CNN's Kevin Liptak revealed the White House was unimpressed with Attorney General Pam Bondi's fiery performance before the House Judiciary Committee.

President Donald Trump's attorney general lashed out at Democrats, hurling insults and highlighting various crimes back in their home districts that she pulled from a tabbed binder, and refused to answer questions about the Jeffrey Epstein case, but CNN's senior White House correspondent revealed what he's hearing about her from insiders.

"It was almost a Trumpian appearance from the attorney general," Liptak told "CNN News Central," "and I think that particular aspect of it will probably have gone over fairly well. But, listen, the White House has made no secret that it is less than thrilled at how the attorney general has handled the Epstein matter. You know, Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, who is ostensibly one of Pam Bondi's friends, said that she had whiffed the entire thing, which I think sort of embodies how the West Wing has viewed this generally, and so when she went out into that hearing room to engage in this really sort of bitter theatrical appearance, I think it did reflect an attorney general very much under fire for how she's handling all of this."

"You know, she came armed with these personalized insults for anyone who asked about anything she didn't want to talk about, which was virtually anything having to do with Jeffrey Epstein," Liptak added. "She really shrugged off questions from Democrats about why none of Epstein's co-conspirators had been indicted. She blamed that on the Biden administration. She refused to apologize to Epstein's victims, who were sitting in the very room where she was, for how some of these files had been redacted or not redacted, as the case may be showing to the general public some of the victims names and faces. That was the line of questioning from [Rep.] Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was kind of the only Republican in the room to ask her about any of this."

Bondi lashed out when Massie challenged her on billionaire Les Wexner's name being redacted, calling the Kentucky Republican a “failed politician” who suffered from “Trump derangement syndrome," and Liptak noticed that GOP lawmakers were unwilling to touch the topic or defend the attorney general.

"So Massie was really the only Republican to bring this matter up," Liptak said. "It was interesting to see how his fellow Republicans handled all of this they really tried to steer this hearing away from the Epstein matter. They really didn't make any attempt to defend how Bondi had handled all of this. At the end of the day, this is really kind of a matter of her own making. Remember some months ago, she said that the Epstein files were sitting on her desk, and a lot of ways she still contending with that statement."

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