Hollywood star Channing Tatum on Monday joined an online campaign against US Attorney General Pam Bondi dubbing her Donald Trump’s Ghislaine Maxwell, a reference to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s jailed associate.
During a heated House Judiciary Committee hearing, Bondi relied on economic talking points, including stock market performance, while under pressure about the Epstein documents.
Several victims of Epstein’s alleged crimes watched from the public gallery.
Taking to his Instagram Stories, the actor shared a post targeting Bondi for her handling of investigative files.
The actor, however, shared the post critical of Bondi without using any caption.
A Republican US lawmaker on Wednesday accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of concealing the names of powerful associates of the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as she faced questions about the Justice Department’s handling of investigative files in a charged hearing before a House of Representatives panel.
Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, who helped lead the effort to require the files’ release, accused the Justice Department of a “massive failure” to comply with the law as he questioned why billionaire Leslie Wexner’s name was redacted in an FBI document listing potential co-conspirators in the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.
Bondi said Wexner’s name appeared numerous times in other files the department released and that the DOJ unredacted his name on the document “within 40 minutes” of Massie spotting it.
“Forty minutes of me catching you red-handed,” Massie replied.
Bondi had a series of other heated confrontations with members of the House Judiciary Committee who expressed frustration with the amount of Epstein material the department has redacted and withheld.Â
The Justice Department released what it called a final tranche of more than 3 million pages of documents late last month, drawing renewed attention to wealthy and powerful individuals who maintained ties with Epstein even after his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Lawmakers have complained that redactions in the files appear to go beyond the limited exemptions allowed in a law Congress passed nearly unanimously in November. The department has also declined to publish a large volume of material, citing legal privileges.
Bondi responded to the criticism in many cases with personal attacks and insults directed at lawmakers. Flipping through a binder, she accused Democrats of being indifferent to crime victims in their districts and called the panel’s top Democrat a “washed-up lawyer,” a notably partisan tone from the chief law enforcement officer in the US.