Pam Bondi showed up to the Judiciary Committee ready for a fight, and she found one the second Senator Sheldon Whitehouse brought up Jeffrey Epstein. The Rhode Island Democrat pressed the attorney general on public claims that Epstein once flashed “photos of President Trump with half-naked young women,” and whether the FBI ever found anything like that in Epstein’s safe or anywhere else.
Bondi did not answer. Instead, she went on offense, accusing Whitehouse of making “salacious remarks” to smear Trump while, in her telling, cozying up to Epstein’s associates. It was a classic Beltway collision, a straightforward question about evidence, met with a political broadside meant to change the subject. Whitehouse reminded Bondi that when she and Trump came into office, she said she would “look into this,” meaning Epstein and the banking red flags that followed him. “There were hundreds of suspicious activity reports,” he said, invoking the formal alerts banks file when transactions set off alarms.
“Some people would deduce from the fact that they are called suspicious activity reports that there might be suspicious activity. And yet you seem to have looked at zero of those suspicious activity reports involving Jeffrey Epstein accounts.” Then came the fuse lighter, the question about alleged photos of Trump with barely dressed young women, and whether federal agents recovered any proof.
NOTABLE — Pam Bondi refuses to answer direct questions about if the FBI has incriminating photos of Trump with half-naked young women, but instead deflects from them by attacking Sen. Whitehouse pic.twitter.com/hNL3J7vN6N
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 7, 2025
Bondi counterpunched: “You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks, once again, trying to slander President Trump left and right,” she said, pivoting to accuse the Democrat of taking money from Reid Hoffman, whom she cast as “one of Epstein’s closest confidants,” and claiming a neighboring senator tried to block the release of flight logs. “Yet you’re grilling me on President Trump and some photograph with Epstein? Come on.”
Whitehouse pressed again, slower this time, as if a simpler delivery might coax out an answer. “The question is, did the FBI find those photographs that have been discussed publicly by a witness who claimed Jeffrey Epstein showed them?” he asked. “Have you seen any such thing?” Bondi sat stone-faced. No admission, no denial, no acknowledgement that the Bureau ever searched, seized, or saw anything of the sort. “You don’t know anything about that?” Whitehouse said, and when it was clear he would not get traction, he moved on. “Here’s what, why don’t we cut to something else.”
On the substance, the public is no closer to knowing whether federal agents ever recovered the alleged photos, or whether the stories about Epstein parading them around have any documentary backing at all. On politics, Bondi made one thing clear: she would rather take a swing at Whitehouse than lay down a marker about Trump, Epstein, and whatever may or may not have been locked away in that notorious safe.
Outside the hearing room, the exchange will be clipped, captioned, and blasted across feeds as proof of whatever viewers already believe. Bondi’s allies will say she refused to dignify a smear, critics will say she dodged because she could not risk the answer. What remains is the question that started it all, did the FBI find those photographs, and if not, what exactly did Bondi review when she promised to look into Epstein’s financial smoke? Until someone answers directly, deflection is the only story we are going to get.
