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'Pam Bondi Must Testify': House Democrats Demand GOP Set New Deposition Hearing for Fired AG
"Any attempt to evade the subpoena must be met with measures to hold Ms. Bondi in contempt of Congress," said Rep. Robert Garcia.
Apr 17, 2026
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Friday demanded their Republican colleagues force former US Attorney General Pam Bondi to meet her obligations to testify under oath.
Bondi had been subpoenaed to testify on April 14 about her handling of criminal case files related to late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
However, the Department of Justice said in a letter sent to the committee last week that she didn’t have to comply with its congressional subpoena because she is no longer attorney general, having been fired by President Donald Trump earlier this month.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the panel, sent a letter to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) in which he expressed concern that "Oversight Republicans are unwilling to take the actions needed to secure Ms. Bondi's required testimony."
Garcia pointed out that the committee voted on a bipartisan basis to subpoena Bondi last month to testify about the "possible mismanagement of the government's investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell," and other topics.
Garcia said that while Republicans on the committee have made noises about compelling Bondi to testify, "there has been zero indication that there, in fact, has been any concrete progress toward a rescheduled date."
The California Democrat concluded by warning Comer that letting Bondi skate on testifying before the committee was not optional.
"Any attempt to evade the subpoena must be met with measures to hold Ms. Bondi in contempt of Congress," he wrote. "In the absence of any communication with the committee, and with no indication that she even plans on appearing for her compulsory deposition, this step may soon be appropriate."
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) promoted Garcia's letter in a social media post and declared: "Pam Bondi must testify under oath in front of the American people. No exceptions."
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) earlier in the week also said there needed to be consequences for Bondi after she failed to show up for her scheduled testimony.
"Since she didn’t show up, Oversight Democrats will move to hold her in contempt of Congress," said Crockett. "The [Epstein] survivors deserve justice—and we will get answers. Enough is enough."
Democrats aren't the only ones on the committee who are demanding Bondi testify, as Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) wrote last week that the former attorney general "cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of attorney general," emphasizing that "the American people deserve answers, and we expect her to appear as soon as a new date is set."
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Israel Strikes Lebanon Less Than an Hour After Trump Says It's 'PROHIBITED' From More Attacks
"This fragile truce must not be undermined," said the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Apr 17, 2026
Less than an hour after US President Donald Trump announced that Israel was "PROHIBITED" from attacking Lebanon under a 10-day ceasefire reached Friday, an Israeli drone strike reportedly killed at least one person in southern Lebanon.
Citing Lebanese media, The Times of Israel reported that an Israeli drone targeted a motorcycle between the southern towns of Khounine and Beit Yahoun. The Israel Defense Forces have not commented on the attack.
It was the latest in what the Lebanese Army said on Friday morning were "a number of violations” of the ceasefire within hours of it going into effect at midnight local time on Friday, as well as "intermittent shelling targeting a number of villages."
Lebanon's National News Agency reported that hours after the ceasefire went into effect, Israel struck an ambulance in the town of Khounine, near the Israeli border, which resulted in multiple casualties among the medical workers.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon since early March have killed nearly 2,300 people, according to Lebanese health officials and forced evacuation orders from Israel have resulted in the displacement of more than 1.2 million.
Trump said in a Friday social media post that under the framework reached Friday, "Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!"
The US president has insisted that any agreement between Israel and Lebanon is separate from his ongoing two-week truce with Iran. Although Iran also announced on Friday that, following the Lebanon agreement, it stopped blocking travel through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi has specified that "the passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire" between Israel and Lebanon.
Trump has claimed that the Iranian government “agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again,” and that the US will maintain its naval blockade of Iran.
Israel's continued attacks on Lebanon have already put the peace deal between the US and Iran in jeopardy. After Iran briefly reopened the strait in response to the two-week ceasefire earlier this month, it began blocking travel again after Israel launched its most devastating attacks on Lebanon of the entire war, which killed hundreds of civilians.
Israel launched the attacks despite Lebanon having initially been announced as a party to the ceasefire, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Trump quickly rejected.
After another agreement with Israel was reached on Friday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun urged that the opportunity "must not be squandered because it may not come again."
According to the US State Department, the agreement reached Friday still grants Israel the "right to take all necessary measures in self-defense, at any time, against planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks." However, it is not clear at this time what imminent attack Friday's strikes were intended to prevent.
Israel routinely violated its previous ceasefire with Lebanon that began in November 2024, with more than 10,000 air and land attacks over the first year, which the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said demonstrated a “total disregard of the ceasefire agreement.” It has done the same in Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since a ceasefire began in October 2025.
Netanyahu said on Friday that despite the ceasefire, Israel will continue its occupation of Southern Lebanon, where satellite images show the military has totally razed several towns and villages in what Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has described as a continuation of the "Gaza model," which left most buildings in the strip totally destroyed.
Israel's military spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued an "urgent message" to displaced Lebanese civilians following the ceasefire, urging them not to return to their homes south of the Litani River "until further notice."
According to The Associated Press, thousands have begun heading home regardless to find their villages reduced to rubble.
"Across the country, roads are already congested with hopeful families trying to return to their homes. That alone shows how deeply people want this war to end," said Jan Egeland, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s secretary general.
"This fragile truce must not be undermined. We cannot afford a repeat of the ineffective 2024 ceasefire, which saw countless violations. Worryingly, there are already reports of violations by the Israeli army, which also issued a warning against civilians returning to their homes south of the Litani river, home to hundreds of thousands of people," Egeland said. "For this ceasefire to be meaningful for civilians, it must lead to a real and durable halt in hostilities."
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US Supreme Court Hands Big Oil Major Win in Battle Over Destruction of Louisiana Coast
Allies of fossil fuel companies are celebrating the development as a step toward "stopping the endless wave" of lawsuits against the climate-wrecking industry.
Apr 17, 2026
US fossil fuel giants have long sought to shift litigation over industry harms from state to friendly federal courts, and the country's top court unanimously handed polluters a big win on Friday, allowing such a move in a case centered on environmental damage in coastal Louisiana.
Cases can be removed from state court when they are against federal officers or persons "acting under" them, "for or relating to any act under color of such office." Although the US Supreme Court has previously rejected multiple removals requested by Big Oil, the justices sided with the industry in Chevron USA v. Plaquemines Parish.
The company argued that its challenged production was sufficiently related to its contractual duties to refine crude oil into aviation gasoline, or avgas, for the US military during World War II. A federal district judge and the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rejected Chevron's argument, but the high court bought it.
"Chevron has plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged conduct and the performance of its federal duties—not a tenuous, remote, or peripheral one," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson penned a concurring opinion.
Justice Samuel Alito recused himself shortly before arguments. As with some other cases involving Big Oil, he bowed out due to his stock in ConocoPhillips, whose subsidiary Burlington Resources Oil and Gas Company is involved in the case at the district court level.
This fight before the high court stemmed from dozens of cases filed over a decade ago. As NOLA.com detailed Friday:
In 2013, a group of local parishes and the state filed 42 lawsuits against energy companies whose predecessors sought and produced crude during World War II. They argued that the oil and gas companies damaged wetlands and failed to get or comply with the proper permits.
After a three-week trial, a Plaquemines Parish jury sided with the state in one of those cases and awarded a $745 million verdict against Chevron and two other companies.
But the companies challenged the verdict, saying the lawsuit should have been heard in federal court, not state court.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, the Plaquemines Parish case may now be retried in a US district court. Company spokesperson Bill Turenne said in a statement that "Chevron looks forward to litigating these cases in federal court, where they belong."
There are also potential implications for other legal battles involving the industry that is fueling the global climate emergency—as American Energy Institute CEO Jason Isaac, a former Republican state representative in Texas, celebrated in a Friday statement. He described the decision as "a critical step toward restoring sanity to our legal system and stopping the endless wave of politically motivated lawsuits designed to punish the very industry that powers our economy and national security."
The Supreme Court's decision notably came as the justices prepare to hear ExxonMobil and Suncor's request to move a 2018 lawsuit filed by the city of Boulder, Colorado—seeking financial damages for the companies' role in creating the climate crisis—from state to federal court. Alito has not yet recused himself from that case.
Fossil fuel companies largely have support from the Republican Party, which controls the White House and both chambers of Congress. President Donald Trump returned to power last year with help from the industry's campaign cash, and his administration has supported the companies being challenged in Louisiana.
As The New York Times noted Friday, the local communities' lawsuits "have gained support from Louisiana Republican leaders, including those who have otherwise endorsed President Trump's 'energy dominance' agenda. Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, both Republicans, have supported the legal challenges."
However, ahead of the November midterm elections, Republicans in Congress are working on shielding oil and gas companies from what they call "abusive state climate lawsuits." There are similar efforts at the state level. As the Times reported earlier this month, Utah recently "became the first state to enact a law that shields companies from climate-related claims. Republican lawmakers in at least four other states, including Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Iowa, are working on similar bills."
Cassidy DiPaola, communications director for the Make Polluters Pay campaign, warned earlier this year that "a federal liability shield for fossil fuel companies would not lower energy prices or ease the cost of living. It would simply shift more of the financial burden onto working families and local governments while insulating one of the most profitable industries in history from accountability."
"Congress should not close the courthouse doors to communities seeking redress," said DiPaola. "Big Oil is not entitled to special immunity from the consequences of its conduct."
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