Attorney General Pam Bondi’s department is facing damage control after a senior Justice Department official was secretly recorded claiming that the Epstein files would be altered to protect Republicans.
Joseph Schnitt, an Acting Deputy Chief in the Office of Enforcement Operations, was caught on tape by a woman he met on the Hinge dating app. The woman turned out to be an undercover operative for the O’Keefe Media Group.
In a video posted online Thursday, Schnitt is heard telling her that the DOJ would “redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, leave all the liberal, Democratic people in those files, and have a very slanted version of it come out.”
He also alleged that Ghislaine Maxwell’s transfer to a lower security prison was improper because she is a convicted sex offender. “Which means they’re offering her something to keep her mouth shut,” Schnitt said.
Schnitt further described “internal conflict” between Bondi and FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, who clashed earlier this year over the handling of the Epstein documents. “Second-in-command [Dan Bongino] at the FBI has been causing problems, because he’s like, ‘No, these [Epstein Files] have to be released… Bondi wants whatever Trump wants. Internally, there’s a lot of conflict,” he told his date.
Political activist James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas and now head of O’Keefe Media Group, released the footage on social media. The DOJ quickly responded with statements denying Schnitt’s claims. In an unusual move, a screenshot of a message Schnitt sent to a superior was made public.
In it, he explained that he had been trapped in a sting: “I met a woman named Skylar on Hinge, a dating app, in July 2025; her profile is no longer findable. We had two dates, August 4 and August 16. She claimed to be an au pair in Georgetown. She gave no clues that she was a reporter or recording our date. Had I a clue, the first date would have immediately ended and there would never have been a second one.”
He added, “The comments I’ve made were my own personal comments on what I’ve learned in the media and not from anything I’ve done at or via work.” A DOJ spokesperson insisted the remarks “have absolutely zero bearing with reality and reflect a total lack of knowledge of the DOJ’s review process,” adding that the department remains “committed to transparency.”
The controversy reignites scrutiny over Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case, which has already fueled criticism and accusations of a cover-up. Survivors of Epstein recently gathered on Capitol Hill to demand justice, while Trump dismissed the renewed attention as a “Democratic hoax.”