Pam Bondi's refusal to even acknowledge the presence of Epstein victims shows she is all about loyalty to Trump -- with no interest in truth, justice, or grace

For all the fire and fury from Pam Bondi's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this week, it all boiled down to one clear revelation: The U.S. attorney general has zero interest in the concepts that are supposed to be at the heart of her job. That is the conclusion of MS NOW's (formerly MSNBC) Michael Steele, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Under the headline "Pam Bondi's testimony on the Epstein files revealed one key thing: The attorney general isn't interested in truth or justice," Steele writes:

If Pam Bondi’s goal when testifying before Congress on Wednesday was to put to rest the controversy over her department’s mishandling of the Epstein files, she failed badly.

But if the attorney general just wanted to impress Donald Trump, she probably succeeded.

In more than five hours of testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Bondi defended the president, personally insulted lawmakers and literally kept her back turned on survivors of Epstein’s abuse.

But here’s the thing: The attorney general is not the president’s personal consigliere, and the Department of Justice is not his personal law firm. Bondi works for the American people, and that role carries a fundamental obligation: to pursue justice.

In this case, that would mean finding out the full truth about what happened to the girls and young women who were trafficked on Epstein’s island and the powerful men who participated in his depredations.

Instead, Bondi repeatedly criticized the administrations of Joe Biden and prior presidents for their handling of Epstein. She accused Democrats of focusing on the files to distract from Trump’s criminal justice agenda and in one bizarre instance even cited the performance of the stock market to defend the president.

-----------------------------------

Legal Schnauzer's take:

The disrespect Bondi showed toward the survivors is a takeaway decent Americans should keep in their hearts as the 2026 mid-term elections draw near. Not only did Bondi show she has neither the temperament, intellect, nor integrity to hold any public position -- after all, she was the Florida AG who did nothing to hold Epstein accountable to begin with -- she proved she is an empty show dog for the dysfunctional postmodern Republican Party, the one that is taking apart our rule of law piece by piece. (A video, from USA TODAY, of Bondi refusing Pramila Jayapal's request that she turn and apologize to Epstein victims behind her can be viewed at the top of this post.)

The GOP's first mistake regarding Trump's nomination of Bondi as U.S. attorney general was its utter failure to conduct a serious investigation of her background and credentials. Bondi was confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 54-46, with every Republican (and Democrat John Fetterman) voting in favor. That was a gross capitulation of the Senate's oversight authority, a trend that has continued to this day in the Trump II era. The Senate's failure is particularly galling because there was no shortage of evidence that Bondi was going to be a puppet for Trump. Our coverage here at Legal Schnauzer, dating to 2016, addressed those issues. (See here, here, here, and here.) 

----------------------------------

More from Legal Schnauzer:

In short, a one-man blog -- based in Alabama at the time -- could see the Trump-Bondi relationship showed signs of being pock-marked with corruption and could spell big trouble for justice in the U.S. So why couldn't Republicans see it -- and why couldn't other everyday Americans see it? (Note; In my view, GOPers and their MAGA brethren didn't want to see it. I think many regular Americans did see it. But count me among the folks who are not convinced the 2024 election was fairly and lawfully conducted. With Elon Musk paying voters in Pennsylvania (and other states), and with Musk's ties to Russia, voting technology, and mountains of cash, there are ample reasons to suspect the election was the product of fraud -- meaning Trump is not now the lawful president of the United States. 

We have written extensively about a Pennsylvania-based election-security expert and technology developer named Stephen Spoonamore, who has done his best to show that the  2024 presidential election featured signs of being hacked, and Kamala Harris likely was the real winner. But Harris, for reasons that baffle me, has proven unwilling to help unearth the truth, so we are left with the madness and horror of Trump II -- and his detestable attorney general.

-----------------------------------------

Speaking of Pam Bondi, let's return to Michael Steele and his thoughts on her testimony before Congress this week. From MS NOW:

More from Michael Steele: 

At one point, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal asked Epstein survivors seated in the hearing room to stand and raise their hands if they had not yet met with the Justice Department. All 11 raised their hands.

Jayapal then asked Bondi to turn to the survivors and apologize. In the most appalling moment of the hearing, Bondi refused.

If there is justice in the world, the photograph of Bondi looking straight ahead as a row of women raises their hands behind her will haunt her for the rest of her career.

The exchanges grew sharper. When Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman asked whether Bondi would commit to publicly releasing an unredacted Epstein email so Americans could understand the extent of Trump’s relationship with Epstein, Bondi sidestepped and instead attacked Goldman's role in Trump’s first impeachment. At another point, she called Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin a “washed-up loser lawyer.”

Through it all, the central question persisted: What responsibility does the Justice Department have toward the victims of Jeffrey Epstein? 

---------------------------------------------------

More from Legal Schnauzer:

Steele's take on that question is a sad reflection of democracy's frail state in 2026. If the public does not revolt and demand elites get to the ugly, horrifying truth at the heart of the Epstein case,  the "Great American Experiment" likely will be over. It seems obvious at this point there will be no top-down solution to our current mess. That means we must have a bottom-up, grassroots effort -- but it isn't clear that will happen. It is clear, after this week's testimony, that Pam Bondi will do everything in her power to make sure that doesn't happen. Let's return to Michael Steele, as he takes a closer look at a penetrating question: What does the DOJ owe the Epstein victims, who Bondi treated so dismissively on Wednesday.

More from Michael Steele:

Bondi never truly engaged that question. She did not face the survivors. She did not apologize. She did not signal that their pain, their stories or their demand for transparency would guide the department’s next steps.

And that is what she revealed under oath.

She revealed a department more animated by partisan defense than by moral clarity. She revealed an instinct to protect power rather than pursue truth and justice. She revealed that, in this moment, loyalty appears to carry more weight than accountability.

The survivors were not abstractions. They were in the room. The files are not some historical documents. They are evidence of very recent crimes. And the questions are not political theater. They are demands for answers.

If the attorney general will not turn around and face the victims standing behind her, the American people must face what that means about the Trump administration.

The Epstein files are not going away. Neither is the demand for justice.

Pam Bondi gets into a down-and-dirty rasslin' match with U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler and winds up again looking like Nixon-era Attorney General John Mitchell

Many of you probably are familiar with this adage: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." That pearl of wisdom often has been attributed to Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain, and it sounds like something either man might have said. But our research indicates there is doubt that the saying originated with them. The Yale Book of Quotations (YBQ) appears to be the first source to credit Lincoln, but quoteinvestigator.com is reluctant to go with Lincoln or Twain, so we will have to leave the quote's origin up in the air. Either way, it's a classic -- short, filled with truth, humorous, and easy to remember.

The saying comes to mind after watching the appearance of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday morning before the House Judiciary Committee.  In the days before Donald Trump,  such a setting usually called for at least a minimal level of dignity. But Bondi, who acts more as Trump's personal attorney rather than as "the people's lawyer," could not muster even the slightest hint of decorum. Instead, her appearance devolved into a shouting match when U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) dared to suggest she was conducting a cover-up related to the Epstein files. 

Based on Bondi's reaction, you would have thought one of those fake wrestling matches from yesteryear was about to commence -- the kind where the villain tended to wear a mask, from which he would extract a metal object and use it to draw blood above the brow of the hero. To maximum dramatic effect, the hero would regain his senses in the nick of time, with both wrestlers bouncing off the ropes only to violently meet in the middle of the ring, where the hero would land a well-timed elbow to the chest, allowing him to pin the bad guy as the crowd went into a frenzy. By the way, it's not that I've actually attended such an event; I've only heard others speak of them . . . (cough, hack, snort!)

We will go into a blow-by-blow account of the Bondi-Nadler grudge match -- and you can watch a video of the main event at the top of this post -- but I should note that Bondi's behavior was not a surprise to your humble blogger. Back when Legal Schnauzer was based in Alabama, we wrote a number of stories about Bondi's political dabblings, mainly because of her connections to an Alabama GOP operative named Jessica Medeiros Garrison and and the ties they both had to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). Our reports mostly were in the 2016-2024 range and some included details about Bondi's relationship with one Donald J. Trump. (See here, here, here, and here.)

What about RAGA, and how did Bondi and Garrison figure into its sometimes sketchy activities? We have addressed those questions in a number of posts, most of them long before Bondi became a national figure. (See here, here, and here.) Why do we describe RAGA's activities as sketchy? Well, the organization somehow managed to attract the attention of investigators from The New York Times, which produced a series of articles that can be viewed at this link. The subjects of The Times reporting do not come off in a flattering light. (We will have more in upcoming posts on Pam Bondi, Jessica Medeiros Garrison, their ties to what appeared to be a shakedown operation, and how much of this connects to Donald Trump.)

For now, let's return to Bondi's contentious showdown with Jerrold Nadler, per a report from the Occupy Democrats Facebook page:

BREAKING: “You washed-up loser lawyer!” Pam Bondi throws a FURIOUS tantrum after Rep. Jerry Nadler confronts her on letting Epstein’s cronies walk free!

Attorney General Pam Bondi was called before the House Judiciary Committee this morning to face the music for orchestrating a cover-up of the Epstein files and protecting the powerful pedophiles whose identities are hidden within…and when confronted with the facts, she blew her top in a transparently Trumpian projection of guilt.

Nadler got right down to the point, and immediately made it clear that he wasn’t going to put up with her deflection shenanigans.

NADLER: “How many of Epstein's co-conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you even investigating?”

BONDI: First, you showed it. I find it—

NADLER: How many have you indicted?

BONDI: *angrily* Excuse me! I'm going to answer the question.  

NADLER: Answer my question

BONDI: No, I'm going to answer the question the way *I* want to answer the question.

NADLER: No, you're going to answer the question the way I asked it.

BONDI: Chairman Jordan, I'm not going to get in the gutter with these people, but I'm going to answer the question.

NADLER: How many have you indicted?

BONDI: I think it's very interesting. I think it's very interesting that he talks about they indicted— The president said they indicted him twice —

JAMIE RASKIN, INTERJECTING: Mr. Chairman, please stop the clock and restore his time.

BONDI: Oh, okay. Here we go with these theatrics!

RASKIN: You can let her filibuster all day long, but not on our watch. Not on our time. And I told you about that, Attorney General, before you started.

BONDI: YOU DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING YOU WASHED UP, LOSER — not even a lawyer.

NADLER: All right. My time. The answer to my question, how many of Epstein's co-conspirators has she indicted, is zero.

 

Occupy Democrats concludes: "Bondi and the rest of the Trump team have no explanation and no possible justification for what they’ve done and are continuing to do on behalf of powerful pedophiles — so bluster, bullying, and tantrums are all they have.

"What a disgraceful show by our nation’s most senior law enforcement officer. She must be impeached as soon as possible. and brought to justice — along with every single one of the pedophiles she's protecting."

In October 2025, a former Trump administration official compared Bondi to Nixon-era Attorney General John Mitchell -- and it was not in a favorable light, as this article from The Hill makes clear under the headline "Ty Cobb: Bondi more 'reprehensible' than Nixon attorney general:

Former White House attorney Ty Cobb, who served during President Trump’s first term, lambasted Attorney General Pam Bondi for her combative congressional testimony.

In an interview on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” Cobb said Bondi’s tenure as the country’s chief law enforcement official has been more “reprehensible” than that of Nixon-era Attorney General John Mitchell, who was later convicted for his role in the Watergate scandal.

Asked if he had ever “seen something like that before,” referring to Bondi’s performance, Cobb said, “Never.”

“I think today she achieved one thing,” he continued. “She knocked John Mitchell off the perch of reprehensible attorney generals as No. 1, despite his guilty plea and time in jail.”

Bondi arrived armed with personal attacks against individual Democratic senators and lobbed them at her questioners when pressed on a range of topics.

She refused to divulge any discussions she’s had with the White House, including whether she and Trump have discussed the legal justification for National Guard deployments in Portland, Ore., and Chicago against local officials’ objections.

She also would not say who instructed the FBI to flag Trump’s name in the Epstein files, telling Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the committee’s ranking member, “I’m not going to discuss anything about that with you, senator.”

“Eventually, you’re going to have to answer for your conduct in this,” Durbin responded. “You won’t do it today, but eventually you will.”

Massie and Khanna knock the DOJ for unlawful handling of Epstein redactions, while Raskin says Trump name appears more than a million times in files

Ro Khanna (right) and Thomas Massie (Axios)

A Democratic member of the U.S. House has read names from unredacted Epstein files into the public record, with two of the names referring to specific individuals, while the identity of four other men remains unclear. U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) did not provide evidence against any of the men, and he made the revelations in a way that appears to protect him from possible defamation claims.

Politico reports on the latest under the headline "House Dem identifies 'wealthy, powerful men' DOJ redacted in Epstein files; Rep. Ro Khanna read out the names of six individuals on the House floor, where they now will be entered into the Congressional Record." Reporter Hailey Fuchs writes:

Rep. Ro Khanna took to the House floor Tuesday and read aloud the names of six “wealthy, powerful men” whose names were originally redacted in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

It comes after Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) emerged from reviewing unredacted materials related to the late convicted sex offender and demanded that the Justice Department reveal these individuals’ identities to the public if their redactions did not fall under the terms established by Congress.

The lawmakers threatened to expose the men if DOJ did not cooperate, taking advantage of the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause that under certain circumstances can shield members of Congress from litigation. DOJ ultimately complied with some of their requests, Massie announced in social media posts Tuesday morning.

Khanna, however, wasn’t satisfied to stop there.

“Why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public?” he asked from the House floor. “And if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files.”

As co-sponsor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), which President Donald Trump signed into law last November, Khanna likely knows the provisions of the law better than most anyone in Washington, D.C. And he is clearly displeased that the Trump DOJ did not follow the law's requirements regarding redactions. Fuchs writes:

Khanna accused the Trump administration of continuing to violate the law he and Massie helped shepherd through Congress in November that placed limits on DOJ redactions of the documents.

It’s not immediately clear who some of the individuals are, but Khanna identified Leslie Wexner as the billionaire former owner of Victoria’s Secret and other retail companies, and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem as the chief executive officer of DP World.

“The Assistant U.S. Attorney told Mr. Wexner’s legal counsel in 2019 that Mr. Wexner was being viewed as source of information about Epstein and was not a target in any respect,” a legal representative for Wexner said in a statement. “Mr. Wexner cooperated fully by providing background information on Epstein and was never contacted again.”

A representative for bin Sulayem did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other names include Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, and Nicola Caputo, who could not be reached for comment.

Khanna did not provide evidence of wrongdoing against any of them. 

 

Massie provided background regarding the inclusion of Wexner and Sulayem in the files, Fuchs reports:

Massie in a social media post Tuesday afternoon, said that while “Appearing in the Epstein files does not prove guilt ... Leslie Wexner was designated as a co-conspirator of Epstein for ‘child sex trafficking’ in a 2019 FBI document, and the Sultan’s email address was used to send correspondence about the ‘torture video.’ Four other men and their pictures appear in a list with Epstein, Maxwell, two known victims, and several women.”

Khanna and Massie were not alone in voicing their displeasure about the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files. U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also spoke out, per an article at Axios under the headline "What Jamie Raskin saw in the unredacted Epstein files." Of particular interest is what Raskin discovered about Trump's name in the files. Andrew Solender reports:

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told Axios in an interview Tuesday that when he searched President Trump's name in the unredacted Epstein files the previous day, it came up "more than a million times."

Why it matters: At least one of the files Raskin found appears to contradict what Trump has publicly claimed about his association with Jeffrey Epstein, according to the House Judiciary Committee ranking member.

• That document is a 2009 email exchange between Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in which Epstein recounted his lawyers' account of a phone call with Trump, as Raskin previously told reporters.
• "Trump is paraphrased and quoted as saying, 'No, Jeffrey Epstein was not a member of Mar-a-Lago, but he was a guest at Mar-a-Lago, and no, we never asked him to leave,'" Raskin said in an interview at the Capitol. 

The other side: Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the Epstein matter, and he's maintained that he kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for poaching spa workers.

Axios provides more details about the Trump-Epstein relationship, which seems to keep changing in Trump's often sketchy memory:

• The former Palm Beach chief of police testified to the FBI in 2019 that following Epstein's arrest in the early 2000s, Trump claimed he threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, the Epstein files show.
• Trump reportedly also told the then-police chief that "everyone has known he's been doing this" and that Maxwell is "evil and to focus on her." 

Zoom in: Asked for comment, the White House pointed to three posts on X from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche pushing back on Rep. Thomas Massie's (R-Ky.) claims about the unredacted files.

• Blanche accused Massie of sensationalizing his findings, saying for example that while the name of Les Wexner was redacted in a portion of the files naming him an Epstein co-conspirator, he "already appears in the files thousands of times."
• "DOJ is hiding nothing," he said in his posts. "Be honest, and stop grandstanding." 

Driving the news: Following allegations of improper redactions in the more than 3 million files it released on Epstein, the Justice Department has begun giving members of Congress access to the unredacted files.

Raskin noted that it's an impossible task for lawmakers to review the huge trove of files in the time frame allowed:

What they're saying: But it's about more than one email, Raskin stressed, exclaiming that the Mar-a-Lago exchange is "just one memo out of 3 million!"

• "The idea that we could get through a meaningful fraction of them is just ridiculous," he said.
• "I mean, there's tons of redacted stuff. ... And [Trump's] name, I think I put in his name, and it appears more than a million times. So it's all over the place."
• Following publication of this story, Raskin clarified in a statement to Axios, "In the database, I typed in the words 'Trump,' 'Donald or Don' and it came up with more than a million results."
• "I obviously didn't have the time to review each one, and I obviously cannot guarantee that every mention of a Donald is Donald Trump as opposed to some other Donald."
• Raskin said the Mar-a-Lago exchange was "one of the first documents I came across."
• He added that "the DOJ database review tool given to members is confusing, unreliable, and clunky."

• The bottom line: "To me, this whole rollout of saying that members can come from nine to five to sit at those four computers, is just part of the cover-up," Raskin asserted.

  • The 3 million documents that the administration has not publicly released "are the ones I'd like to see," he said.
  • "The administration says that these are duplicative. Well go ahead and release them then! If they're duplicative, what's the problem? We'll be the judge of that."

Ghislaine Maxwell and her attorney play games with the justice system in a bid to con the public into believing Trump is innocent in Jeffrey Epstein matter

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (BBC)

A lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell says his client could clear the name of Donald Trump in the Jeffrey Epstein case. For good measure, the lawyer also claims Maxwell could clear Bill Clinton's name -- in an apparent effort to curry favor with sane people who are not blinded by devotion to MAGA. On first listen, the lawyer's words seem to offer hope that truth might be injected into a seedy story that has been overrun with deceit, much of it driven by Trump, his political allies, and Epstein (due to his Trump-world connections that long predate the president's entry into the political world.)

Unfortunately, a second listen to the words of David Oscar Markus indicate the attorney is playing the public for fools. What kind of underhandedness surfaces upon further review of Markus' statement before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee? Democrats on the committee suggested Maxwell and her lawyer were more interested in getting a free pass from Trump than shining light on his behavior -- or that of anyone else.

Here are examples of issues that raise questions about the tactics of Markus and his client:

* Does Markus seriously expect us to believe Maxwell possesses knowledge that would "clear the name" of Trump? Wouldn't she have to be virtually omnipotent in Trump's life to be able to make any semi-believable claim that he never had engaged in untoward behavior with underage girls?

* Several instances of Clinton's dubious behavior toward adult women have been made public over the years, but we have seen no signs of him showing interest in women while they were underage. The Epstein case is about his convictions for sex trafficking girls to business and political elites. Maxwell stated in a July 2025 interview with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that she had never witnessed wrongdoing by Clinton and that he never had visited Epstein's private island. Why, then, would she need to "clear his name"?

* As for Trump, Maxwell claimed she "never saw or heard of any inappropriate or criminal activity by Trump." But one must wonder what would a longtime Epstein associate consider "inappropriate activity"? And as a non-lawyer currently serving a prison sentence, how would Maxwell know what defines "criminal activity" -- especially regarding a man who has been convicted of, or found liable for, sex-related misconduct in the Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll cases. And let's not forget Trump was caught on video admitting to having sexually assaulted women. But we are to believe he always was a gentleman when Maxwell was around?

Let's take a look at a report on today's Maxwell-related activities before a congressional committee, per a jointly published report at CBS and Yahoo! News. Under the headline "Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyer says she'll testify if Trump grants her clemency," CBS' Melissa Quinn writes:

Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions during a virtual appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Monday.

Her lawyer said she would be willing to cooperate with the panel's probe if President Trump grants her clemency, and would testify that the president is "innocent of any wrongdoing."

"As expected, Ghislaine Maxwell took the Fifth and refused to answer any questions. This obviously is very disappointing," chairman James Comer told reporters after the deposition. "We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed, as well as questions bout potential co-conspirators. We sincerely want to get to the truth for the American people and justice for survivors."

Comer said the committee has five more depositions scheduled as part of its investigation into Epstein. Among those set to testify are three members of Epstein's inner circle: Les Wexner, who was one of his clients and a longtime benefactor; Richard Kahn, his accountant; and Darren Indyke, his lawyer, Comer said.

Maxwell's lawyer seemed to make a show of stating that, if granted clemency, Maxwell would speak the "unfiltered truth" and proclaim Trump's innocence. As to what factual knowledge and legal qualification would allow Maxwell to state unequivocally that Trump had committed no Epstein-related crimes . . . well, her lawyer did not address that. Quinn writes:

David Markus, Maxwell's attorney, read a statement to the Oversight panel. He said his client had to remain silent because of a pending legal petition filed with the federal court in New York. But he said the committee could hear from Maxwell if she received clemency.

"If this committee and the American public truly want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a straightforward path. Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump," Markus said. "Only she can provide the complete account. Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters. For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation."

Maxwell was asked several questions during the deposition, but repeatedly said "I invoke my Fifth Amendment right to silence." Video of the questioning was posted by the Oversight Committee on Monday evening.

"I would like to answer your question, but on the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer this question and any related questions," she said, in response to the first query about whether she was a close friend and confidant of Epstein.

Maxwell's non-answers, and Markus' tactics did not appear to impress lawmakers, especially Democrats. From the CBS report:

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, suggested Maxwell was trying to protect others by refusing to answer questions and said she was given "special treatment" by the Trump administration. Maxwell was transferred from a low-security correctional institute in Florida to a minimum security prison camp in Texas after meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last summer.

"After months of defying our subpoena, Ghislaine Maxwell finally appeared before the Oversight Committee and said nothing. She answered no questions and provided no information about the men who raped and trafficked women and girls," Garcia said in a statement.

Rep. Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona, told reporters following the deposition that Maxwell's lawyer said she has no indication that either Mr. Trump or former President Bill Clinton are culpable for any wrongdoing.

But Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a Democrat from Virginia, said Maxwell's offer to speak on the record to absolve Mr. Trump and Clinton are part of an effort to drum up support from both parties for clemency.

"This is all strategy for her to try to get a pardon from President Trump, and she's never shown any remorse for the victims in this entire case," he told reporters, adding that Maxwell was "unrepentant" and "robotic" in her appearance before lawmakers.

In my view, Rep. Subramanyam nails it. His words provide a succinct summary of what really is happening with Ghislaine Maxwell 's non-testimony. It is a cynical effort by her attorney to get his client off the hook in what likely is the most abominable known sex-trafficking case in history. It once again uses the justice system as a political tool in the Age of Trump.