Attorney General Pam Bondi inadvertently revealed a prepared list of put-downs she brought to use against senators during a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Close-up photos captured by Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst revealed that Bondi had a folder containing screenshots of social media posts, bullet-pointed clapbacks, and handwritten notes that she could reference while being grilled by lawmakers about her tenure leading the Department of Justice.
Bondi had an entire page dedicated to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, including prompts to accuse the Democrat of working with “dark money groups” and being a “hypocrite.” A handwritten note scrawled on Bondi’s folder also suggested she ask Whitehouse if he ever took money from tech billionaire and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a one-time associate of Jeffrey Epstein, if the topic of the late pedophile came up.
The top of the folder showed an X post from July in which Whitehouse called for an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and wrote that “no government official should be above the law.”
A bullet-pointed list of attack lines against Whitehouse in Bondi’s note reads “you can to be a social justice warrior, but you a member of a se—” before being cut off by her folder. This could be a reference to the senator’s family connections to an private Rhode Island beach club that faced accusations that it did not permit minorities.
The list becomes more head-scratching further down. Bondi apparently needed a reminder to say, “You are a total hypocrite,” which was the final bullet point on a printed slip of paper. She also wrote, “You talk about corruption, but you push for legislation that would sub—” before it gets cut off.
Other notes were scribbled by hand.
“If asked about personnel or firings,” she wrote, followed by, “I’ll tell you a personnel issue I’m ha—”
Bondi’s folder obstructed part of the sentence, but the other visible words continued, “agents are on the streets keeping America...”
The following partially obscured line said, “b/c you voted to shut down...”
The last notes on the page, written by hand and circled, read, “Epstein—did you take $ from Reid Hoffman???” Her fingernail, painted white, appears to obscure the first half of a date that she had written down. The year “2024” is visible.
During the 2021 backlash over the beach club, Whitehouse insisted there are “non-White club members” of Bailey’s Beach Club. He added that he is not personally a member of the exclusive club but that he would not urge his family members to leave it.
Another note showed Bondi had attack lines against former special counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal classified documents and Jan. 6 investigations into President Donald Trump before they wound down.
As expected, Bondi faced numerous questions about her handling of the so-called Epstein files after the DOJ and FBI declared there was no “client list” that could incriminate the billionaire financier’s high-profile friends, despite Bondi herself telling Fox News in February it was “sitting on my desk right now” for review.
The fallout has prompted growing accusations of a coverup, particularly after multiple MAGA figures, including Trump, had demanded the full release of the Epstein files before the FBI and DOJ declared in July that no further disclosures were warranted and that no one else would be charged in connection with Epstein’s crimes.
Bondi managed to use her pre-prepared Hoffman attack line when facing questions from Whitehouse about whether the FBI had seized incriminating photos of Trump with “half-naked young women” from Epstein’s estate—a bombshell claim from author Michael Wolff first revealed on his Fire and Fury podcast.
“There’s been public reporting that Jeffrey Epstein showed people photos of President Trump with half-naked young women. Do you know if the FBI found those photographs in their search of Jeffrey Epstein’s safe or premises or otherwise? Have you seen any such thing?” Whitehouse asked.
“You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks, once again trying to slander President Trump left and right, when you’re the one who was taking money from one of Epstein’s closest confidants, Reid Hoffman,” Bondi replied.
Whitehouse tried again to get Bondi to answer whether the FBI found such photos or if she was aware that Epstein, who died in 2019, would show them off to people, but Bondi declined to answer.
Wolff said that while interviewing Epstein in 2017 for his Fire and Fury book, the financier gleefully pulled photos of Trump from the 1990s out of a safe in his Palm Beach home and showed them to him.
“And the young girls are topless, and in some of the pictures, they’re sitting on [Trump’s] lap. And then there’s one I especially remember where there’s a telltale stain on the front of Trump’s pants, and the girls are pointing at him and laughing,” Wolff said in November 2024.
Wolff added that he believes the FBI would have taken those photos when it searched Epstein’s home following his 2019 arrest for federal child sex offenses.
Trump, whom Epstein once described as one of his “closest friends,” has long denied knowing about or being aware of Epstein’s crimes before they were publicly exposed.
The Daily Beast has contacted the DOJ and Whitehouse for comment.
