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WASHINGTON — Democrats on Friday called former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi’s interview with the House Oversight Committee about her handling of the Epstein files a “sham” and a “coverup,” and said she refused to answer numerous questions about President Trump in the closed-door session with lawmakers.

“It’s a sham in there. They’re not answering any questions,” Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine) told reporters during a break from the interview.

Bondi was joined in her interview by attorneys from the Department of Justice, including Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who intervened to prevent answers to some questions about Trump, Democrats said.

“The DOJ is in there right now stopping questions about President Trump and about what happened in the release of these files,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the ranking Democrat on the committee.

He said Bondi, who was not under oath, declined to answer five questions he posed about the president.

The committee said it will release a transcript of the interview, which was not recorded on video.

The committee subpoenaed Bondi in March to appear for a deposition when she was still in office, but she didn’t initially comply, agreeing to the voluntary interview only after Democrats filed a resolution last month seeking to hold her in contempt.

Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney and longtime Republican activist who has been floated as a potential future attorney general, wouldn’t say whether she expressly prevented Bondi from answering questions about Bondi’s interactions with the president.

“There were ground rules laid with the committee before we walked in there and we simply wanted to stick to those,” Dhillon said.

Garcia said that Bondi blamed Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, then her deputy, for problems with the release of the files.

Bondi, who didn’t meet with reporters after her interview, disputed Garcia’s characterization.

“NOT TRUE. I praised Acting AG Blanche’s management of this Herculean task. I said his ethics are beyond reproach and that he is an incredible Attorney General,” Bondi wrote on X.

The department was criticized for not releasing the files as quickly as required under a law passed last year mandating release of all records from the department’s investigations into sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019.

The department also came under fire for failing to redact the names of some of Epstein’s victims, while redacting the names of some of Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators, as well as for its removal of some of the files it initially posted.

A group of Epstein victims who spoke with reporters in front of the closed doors of the Bondi interview criticized the department’s rollout of the files and the department’s lack of communication with victims.

“Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche have derailed the lives of so many survivors,” said Dani Bensky, who said she was abused by Epstein when she was a 17-year-old high school student in New York City.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M) said that in the interview, Bondi acknowledged she had never met with any of Epstein’s victims.

In Bondi’s opening statement, reviewed by The Times, she acknowledged issues with the rollout of the files, but defended the administration’s handling of the release.

“There were redaction errors,” Bondi’s opening statement said. “But since day one of this process, this Department has been committed to accountability and transparency.”

Bondi was fired by Trump on April 2 and faced questions throughout her tenure about the department’s investigations into Epstein.

In February 2025, she claimed on Fox News that she had a copy of Epstein’s supposed client list, showing the names of the financier’s high-powered friends that he had directed girls to have sex with.

But in July 2025, as Trump faced questions about his relationship with Epstein, whom he knew socially, the Justice Department closed its investigation into Epstein’s alleged crimes and said no such client list existed.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act soon after, requiring the Justice Department to release all of the records from its investigation into Epstein. Despite initially opposing it, Trump signed it into law on Nov. 19, 2025.

When asked about what Trump might have known about Epstein’s crimes, Bondi said she did not know, according to Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.)

“I’m not certain of the extent of his knowledge,” Bondi said, according to Walkinshaw.

Bondi responded to Walkinshaw’s claims, writing on X: “MISREPRESENTATION by Walkinshaw. What the world knows to be true is President Trump banned Epstein from Mar a Lago decades ago bc Epstein was a despicable creep!!”

Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Democrats would seek to speak with Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel next about the handling of the Epstein files and the department’s investigations into Epstein and his alleged co-conspirators.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) was the only Republican member of Congress to attend the interview and Democrats called out their Republican colleagues for not joining.

“I have an election in four days, a very important one,” said Min, the Democrat from Irvine. “But I’m here, rather than in my district, because this is important.”

WASHINGTON — The chair of the House Oversight Committee has sent a letter to OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman requesting information about potential conflicts of interest between Altman’s personal investments and his operation of the company.

The letter, sent Friday, comes amid a high-stakes legal battle currently playing out in an Oakland federal courtroom between one-time partners Altman and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who in 2015 co-founded the AI company best known for creating ChatGPT.

The company was first established solely as a non-profit corporation and the letter sent to Altman by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the Republican chair of the Oversight committee, indicates that the committee is “investigating potential conflicts of interest involving capital from nonprofit corporations invested in startups and other for-profit companies.”

Comer has requested by May 22 a briefing from the company official responsible for oversight of potential conflicts involving company officers and directors, including Altman, as well as all documents related to conflict of interest policies and guidance for those executives.

While OpenAI was created as a non-profit designed to responsibly harness the power of the emerging artificial intelligence technology, the company created a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 and three years later released ChatGPT, which jumpstarted widespread adoption of the technology.

Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, left Open AI’s board in 2018, one year before the creation of the for-profit arm. He is arguing that Altman and another co-founder, Greg Brockman, betrayed the original mission of the non-profit organization, driven by their desire to “cash in” on the technology.

Musk added Microsoft, a significant investor in OpenAI, to the lawsuit in 2024. OpenAI is rumored to be gearing up to go public later this year or early next, and was recently valued at $852 billion.

Musk has said that he invested $38 million in the OpenAI non-profit, but he does not stand to benefit from a potential OpenAI public offering.

He created a rival company xAI in 2023 that was later folded into his company SpaceX

In the lawsuit, Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages, for Altman to be removed from the company and for the company to be fully returned to its non-profit status.

Musk’s complaint also alleges that Altman engaged in self-dealing by directing OpenAI to pursue deals with companies in which he also held a personal stake, including nuclear fusion power company Helion.

Comer’s letter cites reporting that Altman’s pursuit of a Helion deal, which is still ongoing, would come at a lofty valuation of the power-company, boosting the company’s worth, and the value of Altman’s investment.

Altman was briefly forced to step down from leadership of OpenAI in 2023 in part due to concerns about potential conflicts between his personal investments and his operation of the company, but was soon reinstated.

While the company’s board created an audit committee to investigate the potential conflicts of Altman and other officers, the findings were never disclosed.

Comer has requested that Altman turn over all documents and communication related to that audit committee.

Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.