House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) slammed Republicans for failing to swear in former Attorney General Pam Bondi under oath at a Friday hearing on her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The House Oversight Committee issued the then-Attorney General a subpoena in March, requiring her to sit for a formal deposition, under oath, to answer questions about her handling of the DOJ’s messy release of documents relating to Epstein.

But after President Donald Trump fired Bondi in April – over issues many believed stemmed from her conduct surrounding the files and her prior disastrous testimony to Congress – the Department of Justice claimed the former attorney general would not be appearing for her April 14 deposition.

After, in part, an internal effort from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the Committee announced that Bondi would answer questions after all, but in a much less formal capacity.

Bondi’s appearance will not be videotaped, nor will it occur under oath. Instead, a transcript of the hearing will be released to the public.

Rep. Garcia, who has repeatedly pushed for “real hearings,” began Friday’s proceedings by tearing into Comer and Republicans on the committee for the scaled-back Bondi appearance.

“I just want to be very clear that we continue to be incredibly disappointed of the decision to not have the interview videotaped and then released to the American public,” he told press outside the hearing room. “The second thing we asked Chairman Comer is to ensure that this interview is under oath. We understand the Attorney General is going to be there answering questions from Congress. It should have been under oath, and it should be videotaped.”

The congressman went on to outline some of the committee’s questions for Bondi, calling the government’s actions around the files “some type of cover-up.”

“We obviously have a lot of questions as it relates to why only 50 percent of the files have been released, why many of the survivors – they were literally put in danger by the way the files were released. That private information should never have been released. And, of course, why this continues to be some type of cover-up. So, those are our questions,” he said. “We have many questions. We’ll be here for the next few hours, but it’s really important that we get to the truth and that the attorney general answers the questions truthfully. And we’ll continue to push, of course, for a videotape with this transcript for everyone else.”

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