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pam bondi
‘Damning’ New Evidence Suggests Trump Stole Classified Documents to Advance Business Interests
"If the DOJ is so confident in Trump's conduct, why are they desperate" to hide former special counsel Jack Smith's report, wondered Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.
Mar 25, 2026
Democrats on the US mHouse Judiciary Committee on Wednesday demanded that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice "stop the cover-up" of former special counsel Jack Smith's full investigation into Trump's retention of classified documents following his first term, after new material sent to the panel revealed that some documents were stolen to advance the president's business interests.
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi about "cherry-picked documents" related to Smith's investigations into Trump's taking of classified documents, which he stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The DOJ has regularly produced documents for the Judiciary Committee as Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has sought to portray Smith as having a partisan vendetta against the president, said Raskin. Smith led investigations into Trump's hoarding of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results during the Biden administration. Last month US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked the release of Smith's final report on the documents case.
Raskin wrote Wednesday that even as Jordan has embarked on a "vindictive campaign" against Smith and has sought a narrow selection of material from the DOJ, Bondi had "quite amazingly missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence about your boss’s conduct and may well violate the gag order your DOJ and Donald Trump demanded from Judge Aileen Cannon."
Those documents include a January 13, 2023 memorandum from prosecutors who said the FBI had determined Trump retained documents that "would be pertinent to certain business interests.” The documents "established a motive for retaining them" that related to Trump's businesses.
Trump and his family have garnered condemnation for profiting off the presidency, with the family raking in more than $5 billion in cryptocurrency profits since he took office for a second time, and Trump's two eldest sons investing in a drone company that is vying for Pentagon contracts as the president wages war on Iran.
The prosecutors' memo also says the retention of some of the documents represented "an aggravated potential harm to national security," with one "particularly sensitive document" accessible only by an estimated six people in the US government, including the president, before he took it to his private property.
Additionally, the memo says prosecutors had "identified a classified map that we believe Trump may have shown to individuals on board” his private airplane in June 2022. Susie Wiles, the CEO of Trump's super political action committee and now the White House chief of staff, "was aboard and witnessed this event. Raskin's letter includes a flight manifest listing 14 people who were aboard Trump's private plane when he allegedly showed the classified map, but all of the names were redacted.
Raskin emphasized that without access to the second volume of Smith's final report, the Judiciary Committee cannot confirm what the classified map shows, the relationship between his business interest and the classified documents, or what the especially sensitive material is.
The congressman noted that some facts are known about Trump's activities around the time that he allegedly showed the classified map:
We do know that around the time of this flight to Bedminster, President Trump was entering into partnerships with Saudi-backed LIV Golf and state-linked real estate firm Dar al Arkan. A month after this flight, in July 2022, President Trump played golf at Bedminster with Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia—the same official who plied the Trump family with tens of millions of dollars as the family began to run out of money between terms... We also know that there are reports that Donald Trump, at one point while on the phone with his ghostwriter, “made a reference to having classified records relating to the bombing of Iran.” He also reportedly boasted that it was only the hawks who wanted to attack Iran, not him, and that he had Pentagon war plans “done by the military and given to me” about such a potential attack.
"If this map is related to our military posture in the Middle East, and it was in fact shown to any foreign official, Saudi or otherwise, that would amount to an unforgivable betrayal of our men and women in uniform who are currently valiantly fighting in President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran," wrote Raskin.
"It is now clear that DOJ is in possession of evidence that President Trump has already endangered national security to further the interests of Trump family businesses," he wrote. "It is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them."
Raskin demanded information from the DOJ regarding who accessed the classified materials, whether any foreign actors were given access, and what the documents contain.
“Every new detail that comes to light about the report Judge Cannon has gone to great lengths to keep hidden underscores the same basic truth: The public is being denied access to critical information about one of the most serious national security scandals in American history,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of the government watchdog American Oversight. “While fragments of the factual record have seen the light of day, the full report remains under seal because Judge Cannon has prioritized the president’s personal interests over transparency. The public has a right to see special counsel Smith’s findings in full. Blocking the report’s release only serves to protect those in power and prevent accountability.”
After Raskin's letter was released, the DOJ took the social media to accuse him and Smith of being "blinded by hatred of President Trump" and pronounce the department "the most transparent in history."
"This letter is nothing more than a cheap political stunt, almost as if taking cues from members of the corrupt Jack Smith prosecution team," said the DOJ.
The House Judiciary Committee Democrats retorted that the administration "is doing legal gymnastics to prevent the American people from ever seeing special counsel Jack Smith's full report on how Trump stole classified documents to advance his corrupt business interests."
"If the DOJ is so confident in Trump's conduct, why are they desperate to keep Smith's report under lock and key?" they asked. "Stop the cover-up, release the evidence, and let the American people decide for ourselves."
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Trump FBI and IRS Team Up to Probe US Nonprofit Groups for 'Domestic Terrorism' Links
"This is repression carried out by the state for electoral purposes. It's about stamping out your objections to their autocratic aims," said one critic.
Mar 18, 2026
A Wednesday CBS News report claimed that the FBI and Internal Revenue Service are "forming a new initiative to investigate nonprofit organizations over suspected possible links to domestic terrorism."
According to CBS News, the new initiative is the agencies' response to a December memo written by Attorney General Pam Bondi requiring the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to compile a list of potential “domestic terrorism” organizations that espouse "extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment."
A government official told CBS News that the FBI-IRS initiative would focus on "exploring potential funding streams at nonprofits that support domestic terrorism or political violence."
But Tom Brzozowski, former domestic terrorism counsel at the DOJ's National Security Division, told CBS News he was concerned by the broad scope of investigatory activities outlined in Bondi's memo, and he questioned whether the DOJ had established the proper predication to justify amassing a list of nonprofit groups to be targeted in a criminal probe.
"If you're going to pull down information and retain it in a government data set, you have to have predication to do that," Brzozowski emphasized, "especially if you're looking at it through an investigative lens."
Bondi's December memo was written in response to National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by President Donald Trump in September that demanded a "national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
Rights groups have for months been sounding the alarm about the implications of NSPM-7, which they said could be used to initiative a widespread crackdown against the Trump administration's critics.
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of Campaign for New York Health, wrote that news of the FBI-IRS initiative was a "periodic reminder that Trump’s DOJ changed the indicators of domestic terrorism to include pro-immigrant, pro-LBTQ, anti-Trump, and anti-capitalist speech."
Journalist Marcy Wheeler wrote that the FBI's initiative with the IRS shows it's "trying to criminalize dissent over protecting against Islamic and antisemitic terrorism that Trump has stoked with his illegal war" against Iran.
Journalist Diego Fonseca noted that going after nonprofit groups has long been a hallmark of authoritarian regimes seeking to consolidate power.
"[Salvadoran President Nayib] Bukele has treated nongovernmental organizations as 'foreign agents,'" Fonseca observed, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán "has a 'Transparency Law' targeting civil society orgs. Left or right, it’s the authoritarian playbook: round up and paralyze any possible criticism."
Matt Ortega, a Democrat running to represent California's 14th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives, warned that the FBI-IRS initiative was a sign of a widespread crackdown against political opposition.
"They called Alex Pretti a 'domestic terrorist' and only backtracked because witnesses had NFL-like coverage of the incident," Ortega wrote. "This is repression carried out by the state for electoral purposes. It's about stamping out your objections to their autocratic aims."
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Summer Lee Introduces Impeachment Articles Accusing Bondi of 'Breaking the Law' to Protect Trump, Target Opponents
"We live in a country where we have one reality for everyday people and another for the rich, the well-connected, and the well-protected," Lee said. "And that cannot continue to be our reality."
Mar 17, 2026
Democratic Rep. Summer Lee introduced articles of impeachment against US Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday and accused the nation's top prosecutor of “breaking the law to protect pedophiles” and prosecute President Donald Trump’s “political opponents.”
"We live in a country where we have one reality for everyday people and another for the rich, the well-connected, and the well-protected. And that cannot continue to be our reality," Lee (D-Pa.) said in a video posted to her social media on Tuesday announcing the articles.
Two of the five articles pertain to Bondi's conduct surrounding the Department of Justice's (DOJ) release of files related to the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which the DOJ has been accused of covering up to protect Trump.
One article accuses Bondi of obstruction of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena in July 2025, which required the DOJ to release the full, unredacted files to the House Oversight Committee in August as part of a congressional inquiry.
"The Department of Justice refused to adhere to the subpoena and withheld substantial evidence; evidence logs indicate that amongst the withheld evidence are FBI interviews with a survivor who accused Trump of sexual abuse," the article reads.
In February, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee announced that they were investigating the DOJ's handling of an accusation made against Trump to the FBI in 2019. A woman accused the president of having sexually assaulted her at the age of 13 in the 1980s.
Another impeachment article accuses Bondi of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), signed into law in November, which required the DOJ to release "all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials" pertaining to the Epstein case without redacting information to protect powerful figures from embarrassment.
The DOJ missed the December 19 deadline to release the files and has since released only about 3 million pages of documents as part of its "final" trove, while millions more remain unavailable.
The pages that have been released, the article says, "were heavily redacted" to scrub the names of Trump and other powerful figures, but sensitive information about many of Epstein's victims—including identifying details and nude photographs—was released, even though the law said redacting this information was permitted.
Meanwhile, it says the DOJ "continues to withhold documents," including FBI interviews with the Trump accuser.
Three of four memos detailing the interviews with the accuser were posted to the DOJ website in March. They include the victim's graphic claims that Trump hit her after she bit his penis when he attempted to force her to perform oral sex.
Trump has denied the allegations, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has called the alleged victim "disturbed."
Approximately 37 pages of FBI records related to the accusation, including the fourth memo and pages of agent notes, remain unreleased to the public, according to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
"Pam Bondi is complicit in the most egregious cover-up in American history, hiding documents that reveal a young woman reported being sexually assaulted by Donald Trump when she was just a minor," said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), a cosponsor of Lee's impeachment articles. "Bondi’s actions are not only disgusting and wrong. They are also illegal."
Another article accuses Bondi of having "abused" the DOJ and FBI's powers in a partisan fashion—to target Trump's enemies and shield his friends from accountability. It also cites Bondi's attempts to criminalize protesters who express anti-Trump viewpoints by designating them as "domestic terrorism threats" and creating secretive lists of organizations and individuals to be targeted.
Bondi is also accused of misleading courts on several occasions—including in the cases against former FBI Director James Comey and the Salvadoran national Kilmar Ábrego García and says she presented "demonstrably false allegations in court to support baseless prosecutions against protesters."
She is also accused of perjury before Congress during her confirmation hearing, where she pledged not to politicize her office or target journalists. It also accused her of lying during last month's contentious hearing in which she claimed that there was "no evidence" in the Epstein files "that Donald Trump has committed a crime."
No US attorney general has ever been impeached by the US House, which requires a simple majority. Trump was impeached twice by a Democratic-controlled House during his first term of office, though neither resulted in a conviction in the Senate, which requires a two-thirds majority.
Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had articles of impeachment filed against her in January by more than 80 cosponsors following the shooting of two US citizens by immigration agents.
Earlier this month, Noem became the highest-ranking Trump official to be fired in his second term, and earlier this week, Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees referred her to the DOJ for prosecution, also for perjury.
In addition to Ansari, Lee's impeachment articles against Bondi are cosponsored by Reps. Valerie Foushee (D-NC), Dave Min (D-Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.). Previous articles of impeachment against Bondi have been introduced by Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) earlier this month.
Lee emphasized that while Bondi "deserves to be held accountable," this "is also about what we want our government to be, and who we want it to work for."
"This is our chance to get justice," Lee said, "to hold people accountable who, time and again, have gotten away with screwing us over."
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