Pam Bondi walked into the Senate Judiciary Committee with a folder full of fire, and then, incredibly, let cameras see it. Close-up photos snapped in the hearing room showed the attorney general’s prep kit in all its glory, screenshots of social media posts, bullet-pointed clapbacks, and handwritten zingers aimed straight at the Democrats who would be grilling her.
The images by Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst, captured as Bondi shuffled papers at the witness table, undercut the tough on-the-fly posture she tried to project, and instead revealed a carefully staged plan to go on offense whenever the heat rose.
One page, according to the photos, was devoted entirely to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a frequent Bondi critic and one of the committee’s most persistent interrogators. The page included prompts to accuse Whitehouse of working with dark money groups and to brand him a hypocrite, and a handwritten note inked across the folder suggested a specific counterpunch if the Epstein topic surfaced: ask whether Whitehouse ever took money from tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, a onetime associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Bondi did exactly that during the fireworks, reaching for the Hoffman line when pressed about whether the FBI ever found compromising photos in Epstein’s possession.
Zoomed-in photo of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s notes while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 7, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst pic.twitter.com/Y9Azx8yCdl
— Molly Ploofkins (@Mollyploofkins) October 8, 2025
For weeks, the Department of Justice and the FBI have insisted there is no mythical client list tucked inside the so-called Epstein files, no master document waiting to blow up polite society. Yet Bondi herself told Fox News back in February that the material was “sitting on my desk right now” for review, a comment that helped feed a rolling storm of speculation.
Whitehouse zeroed in on what the public still does not know: whether the government seized any photographs or records that could implicate powerful friends, and whether Bondi’s team ever chased down money trails tied to Epstein’s circle. Bondi largely stuck to her script, insisting there was nothing more to disclose and accusing critics of peddling smears. The binder made the performance feel less like candor and more like choreography, especially once the photos of her talking points started circulating.
Bondi’s allies argued that having prepared notes is normal, and that Democrats were staging a circus to distract from their own donors. Her critics saw something else: a law enforcement chief who brought a pocket playbook of personal attacks into a hearing about one of the most notorious criminal cases of the century, then read from it when the questions got specific. The exchange fed into the perception that the administration is more interested in managing headlines than answering them.
After months of demands from MAGA figures, including Donald Trump, for the full release of Epstein-related material, the FBI and DOJ slammed the door in July, declaring no further disclosures were warranted and that no one else would be charged. That conclusion did not quiet the story, it inflamed it. The binder on Bondi’s desk, the photos of prewritten barbs, the Fox tease about files at hand, all of it fanned suspicions of a slow roll and a cover up, fair or not.
The hearing became about how the nation’s top law enforcement officer came ready to brand a senator a hypocrite rather than explain where the investigation stands. The legal questions remain, but the political image is now frozen in a single frame, Bondi gripping a folder full of attack lines while promising transparency that never seems to arrive.
