A new analysis argues that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent congressional appearance revealed more about the Trump administration’s priorities than any official statement ever could.
Writing in Slate, legal commentator Dahlia Lithwick delivered a harsh assessment of Bondi’s testimony, describing it as political theater rather than a serious effort to uphold justice. Lithwick noted that Epstein survivors were seated behind Bondi during the hearing, but said they were treated as little more than background props.
According to Lithwick, the survivors sat behind Bondi “unacknowledged and irrelevant to her purposes” while Bondi focused on delivering a performance meant for the cameras, not for accountability.
Lithwick described the moment in blunt terms, writing:
“… Blond woman who knows she must seek and maintain protection from this administration’s simulacrum of justice crows about the Dow Jones for the cameras, because she understands that if she doesn’t, she will be left behind, asking to be respected, like the masses of women behind her,” wrote Lithwick.
In her view, Bondi’s conduct reflected something far larger than one contentious hearing. Lithwick argued that the hearing wasn’t about justice, the rule of law, or even the role of the Justice Department. Instead, she claimed it was about reinforcing loyalty and sending a message about who matters and who does not.
Lithwick stressed that what Bondi is doing shouldn’t be mistaken for legitimate law enforcement. “What Bondi, and Donald Trump, and [Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick, and Todd Blanche are doing under the banner of law and law enforcement and pardons and immunity and impunity is an operatic performance of a single truth: The ‘law’ will now protect those who are within the network of favors and privilege and secrets and side-eyes and snickers and abuse of young girls, and the ‘law’ will also abandon those who are not,” she wrote.
Rather than seeing Bondi’s testimony as an effort to defend policy or explain legal decisions, Lithwick compared it to a kind of coercive display, likening it to a criminal “protection racket” that “preys on everyone who refuses to buckle.”
Bondi’s true role, Lithwick argued, is not to uphold equal justice under the law, but to help maintain a system where insiders are shielded, and outsiders are punished. Lithwick concluded that the public should stop pretending this is a functioning justice system at all.
“We should probably stop calling this law and call it simply ‘power.’ Just as we could stop calling Bondi the AG and call her Trump’s constitutional Roomba. We should almost certainly stop calling the Epstein survivors anything other than the legal heroes and dreamers they are,” she concluded.
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