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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi looks at her notes as she testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC on Oct. 7, 2025.
Commentary
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi looks at her notes as she testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, DC on Oct. 7, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski - AFP / Getty Images)

See It: Ultra High-Res Image of Bondi's Notes Shows Deadly Dirt on Dems She Walked Into Hearing Ready to Use if Necessary

 By C. Douglas Golden  February 13, 2026 at 11:09am
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There’s a double standard in congressional hearings, particularly when it’s a Republican White House, and even more so when that Republican president is Donald Trump: The party that’s not in the Oval Office can act as crudely and reprehensibly as possible, and the administration is supposed to pretend that this is a deadly serious event and not wholesale grandstanding.

The Trump White House has stopped playing along. And, while this was an unpopular opinion from Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appearances this week before the House Judiciary Committee, this is the right move.

As you’re probably aware of from the news coverage of the pseudo-events, Democrats this week were again forced to pretend they cared about the Jeffrey Epstein documents, a tranche they mysteriously didn’t give a darn about about when Joe Biden was president. And, on a certain segment of Democrat-friendly media, they were giddy about the opportunity.

Here’s Kurt Bardella — formerly of the NeverTrumper Lincoln Project, now of NewsNation — posting about prospective questions Democrats could ask her during the House Judiciary Committee hearing:

None of them were especially serious and most of it was, quite predictably, a stunt. Bondi came prepared for a stunt show, particularly when the predictably obnoxious Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington got some of Epstein’s victims to show up for a photo op. It ended as it should have: in a shouting match.

And here she is with Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin:

Related:
Team Trump's Epstein Messaging Has Been a Disaster, but It's Not Too Late to Turn It Around

Nor was this unplanned, as many on X pointed out via high-resolution images:

She did this during her October hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was a similar nonsense-fest from the Democrats:

From The Daily Beast’s coverage of the Senate hearing and Bondi’s “burn book”:

Close-up photos captured by Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst revealed that Bondi had a folder containing screenshots of social media posts, bullet-pointed clapbacks, and handwritten notes that she could reference while being grilled by lawmakers about her tenure leading the Department of Justice.

Bondi had an entire page dedicated to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, including prompts to accuse the Democrat of working with “dark money groups” and being a “hypocrite.” A handwritten note scrawled on Bondi’s folder also suggested she ask Whitehouse if he ever took money from tech billionaire and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a one-time associate of Jeffrey Epstein, if the topic of the late pedophile came up. …

A bullet-pointed list of attack lines against Whitehouse in Bondi’s note reads “you can to be a social justice warrior, but you a member of a se—” before being cut off by her folder. This could be a reference to the senator’s family connections to an [sic] private Rhode Island beach club that faced accusations that it did not permit minorities. …

Bondi managed to use her pre-prepared Hoffman attack line when facing questions from Whitehouse about whether the FBI had seized incriminating photos of Trump with “half-naked young women” from Epstein’s estate—a bombshell claim from author Michael Wolff first revealed on his Fire and Fury podcast.

Wolff — whose surname would be too on the nose for a sleazy, attention-starved journalist character in a Thomas Pynchon novel — is a serial liar who will say whatever gets him on CNN and MS NOW for the longest stretch of time. He was also Epstein’s damage control agent in life and, apparently, in death.

More importantly, he’s always his own biggest damage control agent, and there’s generally no shortage of reputational damage to control. So, the fact that Sen. Whitehouse thought this was even worth bringing up in a senatorial hearing bespeaks of how serious the occasion actually was.

Bondi is embracing the strategy the rest of the Trump administration is and ought to be adopting: Don’t just sit there during farces and treat them as if they’re serious hearings, treat them as the farces they are.

She’s not the only one, as amply proved by this exchange between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and screeching Massachussetts Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch last week:

Lynch did not, in fact, speak a little louder.

But that’s just what this is, as per a much better writer than any of us: full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.

If they wanted to get to the bottom of Jeffrey Epstein, they’ve had years and years to do it.

They’re suddenly interested because it’s a cudgel for stunts that the White House is supposed to take seriously while these fools can scarcely conceal their glee at being handed a nothingburger the establishment media is so willing to chow down upon.

They don’t care about the victims. They don’t care about how many of their own who are caught up with the creep. All they care about is using this as an opportunity to bloviate. If they want to be unserious, two sides can play at that game.

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C. Douglas Golden
Contributor, Commentary
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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