Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing questions from lawmakers over the Justice Department's handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein that have exposed sensitive private information about victims despite redaction efforts.
Bondi is confronting a new wave of criticism stemming from the political saga that has dogged her term after the release of millions of additional Epstein disclosures that victims have slammed as sloppy and incomplete.
It's the first time the attorney general has appeared before Congress since a tumultuous hearing in October in which she repeatedly deflected questions and countered Democrats' criticism of her actions with her own political attacks.
The hearing comes days after some lawmakers visited a Justice Department office to look through unredacted versions of the files. As part of an arrangement with the Justice Department, lawmakers were given access to the over 3 million released files in a reading room with four computers and were allowed to take handwritten notes.
Here's the latest:
Gabbard ends intelligence reform task force
After a little less than a year, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is ending the work of a task force she created to look at big changes to America’s intelligence community.
The panel known as the Director’s Initiative Group was formed in April and charged with rooting out what Gabbard called the politicization of intelligence gathering. The group also studied ways to reduce spending on intelligence and whether reports on high-profile topics like COVID-19 should be declassified.
In announcing the end of the group’s work in a statement Wednesday, Gabbard said it was always intended to be a temporary effort as she began her work coordinating the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies.
Bondi is running a ‘vendetta factory’ out of the Justice Department, Rep. Jamie Raskin says
The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee lambasted Attorney General Pam Bondi for her leadership of the Justice Department.
“Grand juries of American citizens have repeatedly rejected your vendettas and baseless indictments brought by the hacks left at DOJ,” Raskin said.
He also criticized her for pursuing the president’s retribution campaign, replacing experienced prosecutors with what he said were weaponized “stooges” willing to do Trump’s bidding instead of actual justice.
“Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza and you deliver every time,” he said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s hearing is underway
She opened the hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in a packed room at the Capitol with a defense of how she’s “keeping America safe.”
“Crime is declining, this did not happen by accident,” she said, pointing to declining rates of violent crimes.
Bondi is facing questioning from Congress as the Justice Department faces scrutiny, mostly from Democrats, on multiple fronts: how it is handling the investigations of two fatal shootings in Minneapolis by federal officers; how it has handled the mandated release of case files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; and the department’s investigation of lawmakers who produced a video urging U.S. military members not to follow “illegal orders.”
The committee chair, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, praised how Bondi has implemented President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Judiciary committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, opened his portion of the hearing by introducing several survivors of Epstein’s abuse who are in the committee room.
Mexico and US security officials slated to meet in Washington, says Mexican president
Mexican defense and navy secretaries will meet with Northern Command officials in Washington on Wednesday in a meeting attended by several other countries, said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in her morning news conference. Sheinbaum said the Mexican officials would “listen” in the meeting.
“They are not taking any position other than the one we already know, which is the defense of sovereignty,” she said. “We will inform you in due course.”
She noted that Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch, who has spearheaded her government’s strategy to combat cartels, will also meet with American security officials Thursday.
The meetings are part of ongoing security talks between the two governments.
Vance sidesteps questions about commerce secretary and Epstein
The vice president cited his foreign travel for not being aware of calls for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign after acknowledging meetings with Jeffrey Epstein.
“I’ve been pretty occupied the last couple of days,” Vance told reporters Wednesday in Azerbaijan.
Lutnick told lawmakers Tuesday that he'd met with Epstein twice after the late financier's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child. Lutnick previously said he'd cut ties with Epstein after 2005.
Vance used the question to attack Democrats.
“Certainly, you had a lot of very wealthy and powerful people who are involved in some very disgusting behavior,” Vance said, throwing out former President Bill Clinton’s name at one point. “But I do find it’s interesting that the congressional Democrats are so focused on attacking” Trump with “completely unsubstantiated attacks” about his Epstein association.
Trump deserves credit for the redacted Epstein case files being publicly available, Vance said.
Vance says Trump owes no apology for racist Obama video
Vance seemed to downplay the now-deleted video while also distancing himself from the controversy and making clear that Trump owes no further explanation or apology.
“It was one of those things where, either because the time zone changed or because we were so busy, the controversy had started and then died out by the time I even paid attention to it,” Vance told reporters in Azerbaijan.
He was traveling last week, too, when Trump posted the video that included former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama depicted as jungle primates.
Vance said the U.S. should focus on “real” problems.
Pressed multiple times on whether Trump should apologize for a video that even many Republicans criticized as racist, the vice president said no.
“I think people post things on social media, and if you post something you don’t like it, you can just take it down,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance says Olympic athletes should not ‘pop off about politics’
But he also said it “happens every Olympics.”
Vance stopped short of echoing President Trump's assessment that administration critics on the U.S. team are hard to cheer for.
“My advice to them would be to try to bring the country together. And when you’re representing the country, you’re representing Democrats and Republicans,” Vance said Wednesday in Azerbaijan. “You’re there to play a sport, and you’re there to represent your country and hopefully win a medal.”
U.S. skier Hunter Hess drew Trump’s ire when he said being an Olympian “doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.” Trump called Hess “a real loser.”
Vance argued that “when Olympic athletes enter the political arena, they should expect some pushback.”
The vice president attended Milan’s opening ceremonies and has continued traveling in Europe and Asia.
Trump administration official says El Paso airspace closure was tied to Mexican cartel drones
The Federal Aviation Administration reopened the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas on Wednesday morning, just hours after it announced a 10-day closure that would have grounded all flights to and from the airport.
The FAA said in a social media post that it has lifted the temporary closure of the airspace over El Paso, saying there was no threat to commercial aviation and that all flights will resume.
A Trump administration official told The Associated Press that the airspace over El Paso was closed after Mexican cartel drones breached the airspace, but that the Defense Department took action to disable the drones.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the Defense Department have determined there is no threat to commercial travel, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a national security issue.
The official did not say how many drones were involved or what specifically was done to disable them.
— Darlene Superville
NATO launches Arctic Sentry military effort as it seeks to move on from Greenland dispute
NATO on Wednesday launched a new military effort dubbed Arctic Sentry aimed at improving security in the High North, a month after President Trump ramped up tensions within the alliance over his threats to annex Greenland.
Initially, Arctic Sentry will be the NATO label for national military exercises in the region, such as Denmark's Arctic Endurance — which angered Trump so much that he threatened to slap tariffs on allies taking part — and Norway's Cold Response drills. Arctic Sentry doesn't involve the permanent or even long-term deployment of troops to the region under a NATO banner.
NATO’s role in this series of military activities, which will be coordinated through its U.S. headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, is aimed at countering Russian and Chinese influence in the High North, which includes Greenland.
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe — U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich — said that “Arctic Sentry underscores the alliance’s commitment to safeguard its members and maintain stability in one of the world’s most strategically significant and environmentally challenging areas.”
GOP Sen. Thom Tillis rebuffs effort to indict six Democratic lawmakers
The North Carolina senator said the justice system is “the gold standard of the world” and that “thankfully” a grand jury in Washington declined Tuesday to indict six Democratic lawmakers over a video urging U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders.”
“A jury saw the attempted indictments for what they really were,” Tillis wrote on social media. “Political lawfare is not normal, not acceptable, and needs to stop.”
The retiring senator has grown increasingly critical of the Trump administration since announcing he won’t run for reelection this year.
Jeffries praises grand jury declining to indict Democratic lawmakers
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries says "justice prevailed" in response to a grand jury in Washington refusing to indict Democratic lawmakers in connection with a video in which they urged U.S. military members to resist illegal orders.
Jeffries called the six lawmakers who participated in the video patriotic Americans and said the grand jury upheld and honored the Constitution.
“The attempt to indict Members of Congress for exercising their constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights is another shameful example of the cancerous rot that engulfs the Trump administration,” Jeffries said in a Wednesday morning statement.
Jeffries also said President Trump and “corrupt political hacks at the Department of Justice will not silence or intimidate us.”
Russia says it will stick to New START’s nuclear arms limits as long as the US does
Moscow will observe the limits of the last nuclear arms pact with the United States that expired last week as long as it sees that Washington is doing the same, Russia's top diplomat said Wednesday.
The New START treaty expired Feb. 5, leaving no restrictions on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century and fueling fears of an unconstrained nuclear arms race.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared his readiness to stick to the treaty's limits for another year if Washington followed suit, but U.S. President Donald Trump has argued that he wants China to be a part of a new pact — something Beijing has rejected.
The Vances visit the Alley of Martyrs in Azerbaijan
Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance on Wednesday visited the Alley of Martyrs, a national cemetery located near the Caspian Sea in Baku as he wrapped up a trip abroad with a final stop in Azerbaijan.
The Vances were joined by Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Elnur Mammadov.
The memorial commemorates those who died during Azerbaijan’s breakaway from the Soviet Union and during ongoing territorial disputes with Armenia.
The Vances walked past a row of black slate markers and then stood before a wreath of red and white flowers in front of an eternal flame at the memorial. They then moved toward a wall and gazed out at the foggy Caspian Sea.
A day earlier in Armenia, Vance made a similar visit when he stopped at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan.
House GOP leaders failed to block an upcoming vote on Trump’s tariffs
House Speaker Mike Johnson could be seen talking late into the night with hold-out GOP lawmakers as he tried to prevent a vote ahead on the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign goods from Canada, Mexico and other countries.
Several Republicans had joined with Democrats to push forward with the tariff vote, denying Johnson his slim majority hold on the chamber.
As GOP leaders worked the room, it still wasn’t enough. The tally on the procedural step failed, 214-217, meaning a vote to disapprove of the Trump administration’s tariff plan is expected as soon as Wednesday.
Netanyahu met with Witkoff and Kushner ahead of his expected White House meeting
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Washington on Wednesday evening, Netanyahu's office said. The meeting took place immediately after Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. for a last-minute visit with President Donald Trump. The Israeli leader has urged him to expand the negotiations with Iran to include a number of issues that concern Israel, including Iran's ballistic missiles program and its support for militant proxies in the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
Netanyahu’s office said they discussed regional issues, and Witkoff and Kushner gave Netanyahu an update on the first round of talks held with Iran last Friday in Oman. A few dozen protesters waved Palestinian flags and blew horns as Netanyahu’s motorcade arrived at Blair House, the president’s official guest residence on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the White House.
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