WASHINGTON — Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is backing out of a deposition scheduled for later this month with the House committee investigating the government’s files on child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) last month subpoenaed Bondi following a bipartisan committee vote, in which five Republicans joined all Democrats to demand Bondi’s testimony. But the Justice Department is now telling the panel she no longer has to appear before them since she got fired last month by President Donald Trump.

“The Department of Justice has stated Pam Bondi will not appear on April 14 for a deposition since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General,” said a committee spokesperson. “The Committee will contact Pam Bondi’s personal counsel to discuss next steps regarding scheduling her deposition.”

It’s a curious excuse, as the committee previously issued subpoenas to every recent former U.S. attorney general. All of them except Bill Barr, who served as attorney general during Trump’s first term, issued sworn statements that they didn’t know anything about the Epstein case. But Barr came in for a transcribed interview. Why can’t Bondi?

A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bondi’s firing may have resulted at least partly from Trump’s frustration with her handling of the files on Epstein, America’s most notorious sex criminal and a former close friend of the president. Epstein died by apparent suicide in jail while facing federal charges in 2019.

Early last year, Bondi claimed she had Epstein’s “client list” sitting on her desk, only to backtrack months later when the Justice Department issued a statement saying there was actually no client list and no evidence in the government’s possession that could be used to charge anyone else involved in Epstein’s crimes. A right-wing furor resulted in the committee issuing a subpoena for the department’s full files on Epstein, and Congress passing a law requiring the material be made public in a searchable database.

Under Bondi’s leadership, the Justice Department struggled to comply with the statutory deadline to release the files and admitted to mistakenly redacting some documents and improperly withholding others.

Still, plenty of the material released during Bondi’s tenure has been embarrassing for the president, including a creepy birthday message Trump wrote to Epstein in 2003 and FBI files recounting a woman’s unverified allegation that Trump sexually assaulted her when she was a minor in the 1980s. Some documents remain hidden.

In a Wednesday letter, committee members Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) urged Comer to make sure Bondi still complies with her subpoena.

“Leaving office doesn’t mean you get to dodge accountability,” Mace said in a statement. “Pam Bondi was subpoenaed by name, not by title, and because the DOJ stonewalled Congress and refused to follow the law, she needs to appear before the Oversight Committee and answer for it.”

“She promised she would comply,” added the Republican congresswoman. “April 14 is her chance to prove it. Chairman Comer must make one thing clear: show up or face contempt.”

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