U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi

During Attorney General Pam Bondi's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on February 11, Republican Representative Thomas Massie criticized the Justice Department's release and redactions of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein files, telling Bondi she appeared to have been "caught... red-handed" over the handling of records.

Massie, a Kentucky Republican who helped lead the bipartisan effort behind the 2025 law that required the Justice Department to make Epstein-related documents public took Bondi to task over what he and other lawmakers described as excessive redactions and unclear compliance with the statute.

At one point in the hearing, Massie pointed to a document that had been released with the name of the billionaire former CEO of Victoria's Secret-parent L Brands Leslie Wexner initially redacted under a section titled "co-conspirators," then unredacted after lawmakers raised questions.

Bondi told the panel that Wexner's name "appears numerous times in other files the department released" and that the Justice Department "unredacted his name on the document 'within 40 minutes' of Massie spotting it." The Kentucky rep responded, "Forty minutes of me catching you red-handed," underscoring his argument that the attorney general's office had failed to fulfill the transparency requirements that Congress had set.

Massie has been one of the few GOP members to push aggressively for the release of the files and to openly criticize the department for insufficient disclosure. Massie told CNN's Kaitlin Collins that even "unredacted" files made available for congressional review still contained heavy redactions that obscured significant portions of records, prompting concern over whether the Justice Department was complying with the law's intent.

Bondi has defended her team's efforts, saying more than 500 Justice Department lawyers worked on reviewing and redacting the documents on an accelerated timeline intended to protect victims' privacy while complying with statutory demands. She and her aides have maintained that any inadvertent exposure of sensitive information led to rapid removal of material once identified.

Her defense at the hearing has extended beyond procedural justifications. She has also, at times, pivoted to broader attacks on critics, including Democrats, whom she accused of engaging in "theatrics" rather than focusing on statutory compliance. "You sit here and you attack the president and I am not going to have it — I am not going to put up with it," Bondi told Democratic members early in the hearing.

Originally published on IBTimes