How Pam Bondi Failed Epstein's Victims

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Transcript

00:00Here's an important reminder about the Epstein files.

00:03The person who withheld them in the first place has been failing the victims in this case for years.

00:08I've been covering Attorney General Pam Bondi since she began her rise in Florida back in the 2010s.

00:14The first thing to know about her is that she built her political brand around protecting victims of sex trafficking.

00:22I say children, but we know it's young adults, it's boys, it's girls, it's teens are being abducted.

00:28Bondi was Florida's Attorney General from 2011 to 2019 as lawsuits piled up from Epstein's victims challenging his secret plea deal.

00:37At that time, prosecutors had not only made Epstein immune from further prosecution,

00:42they also illegally hid the agreement from his victims so they couldn't fight the deal in court.

00:48Now, Bondi was elected after Epstein had served his sentence in Palm Beach County Jail,

00:52and she quickly tried to establish her office as an advocate for victims of sex trafficking.

00:58She erected billboards across the state, created the Statewide Council on Human Trafficking,

01:03and investigated allegations of past sex abuse by Catholic priests.

01:08But Bondi kept her distance from Epstein, even as the victims of the disgraced financier filed lawsuit after lawsuit,

01:15alleging he abused them when he was on work release from jail,

01:19and pleaded with the courts to invalidate provisions of his non-prosecution agreement.

01:24But as these cases piled up, Bondi did nothing.

01:28Years later, when Trump handpicked Bondi to lead the Justice Department,

01:32she got a second chance to rectify this damage.

01:35She didn't use it.

01:36Bondi could have released the Epstein files as she promised.

01:40She could have conducted a sweeping internal probe of how the sweetheart deal happened.

01:44Instead, she pointed fingers and even bragged that Epstein's client list was, quote,

01:50sitting on her desk.

01:52She also destroyed every last ounce of independence her office might have had

01:57when she warned Trump that his name appeared in the files.

02:01Bondi's inaction helped to perpetuate what victims have described as a government cover-up

02:07that has robbed them of a chance at justice.

02:10Her long track record on this case raises another question, too.

02:14Since she doesn't appear to be protecting Epstein's victims, who is she protecting?

02:20She doesn't appear to be protecting.