Category: Wires

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of President Donald Trump Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing in which she postured herself as the Republican president’s chief protector.

Besieged by questions over Epstein and accusations of a weaponized Justice Department, Bondi aggressively pivoted in an extraordinary speech in which she mocked her Democratic questioners, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.

“You sit here and you attack the president and I’m not going to have it,” Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. ”I am not going to put up with it.”

With victims of Epstein seated behind her in the hearing room, Bondi forcefully defended the department’s handling of the files related to the well-connected financier that have dogged her tenure. She accused Democrats of using the Epstein files to distract from Trump’s successes, when it was Republicans who initiated the furor over the files and Bondi herself fanned the flames by distributing binders to conservative influencers at the White House last year.

The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly lobbing insults at Democrats while insisting she was not “going to get in the gutter” with them. In one particularly fiery exchange, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland accused Bondi of refusing to answer his questions, prompting the attorney general to call the top Democrat on the committee a “washed-up loser lawyer — not even a lawyer.”

Trying to help Bondi amid an onslaught of Democratic criticism, Republicans tried to keep the focus on bread-and-butter law enforcement issues like violent crime and illegal immigration. Bondi repeatedly deflected questions from Democrats, responding instead with attacks seemingly gleaned from news headlines as she sought to paint them as uninterested about violence in their districts. Democrats became exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to directly answer.

“This is pathetic. I am not asking trick questions,” said Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to ask Bondi whether the Justice Department had questioned different Trump administration officials about their ties to Epstein. “The American people deserve to know.”

Bondi has struggled to move past the backlash over the Epstein files since handing out binders to a group of social media influencers at the White House in February 2025. The binders included no new revelations about Epstein, leading to even more calls from Trump’s base for the files to be released.

In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to law enforcement with any information and about their abuse and said she “deeply sorry” for what they had suffered. She told the survivors that “any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.”

But she refused when pressed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal to turn and face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologize for what Trump’s Justice Department has “put them through” and accused the Washington state Democrat of “theatrics.”

Bondi’s appearance on Capitol Hill comes a year into her tumultuous tenure that has amplified concerns that the Justice Department is using its law enforcement powers to target political foes of the president. Just a day earlier, the department sought to secure charges against Democratic lawmakers who produced a video urging military service members not to follow “illegal orders.” But in an extraordinary rebuke of prosecutors, a grand jury in Washington refused to return an indictment.

Turning aside criticism that the Justice Department under her watch has become politicized, Bondi touted the department’s work to reduce violent crime and said she was determined to restore the department to its core missions after what she described as “years of bloated bureaucracy and political weaponization.”

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, of Ohio, praised Bondi for undoing actions under President Joe Biden’s Justice Department that Republicans say unfairly targeted conservatives — including Trump, who was charged in two criminal cases that were abandoned after his 2024 election victory.

“What a difference a year makes,” Jordan said. “Under Attorney General Bondi, the DOJ has returned to its core missions — upholding the rule of law, going after the bad guys and keeping Americans safe.”

Democrats, meanwhile, excoriated Bondi over haphazard redactions in the Epstein files that exposed intimate details about victims and also included nude photographs. A review by The Associated Press and other news organizations has found countless examples of sloppy, inconsistent or nonexistent redactions that have revealed sensitive private information.

“You’re siding with the perpetrators and you’re ignoring the victims,” Raskin told Bondi in his opening statement. “That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change the course. You’re running a massive Epstein coverup right out of the Department of Justice.”

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who broke with his party to advance the legislation that forced the released of the Epstein files, also took Bondi to task for the release of victims’ personal information, telling her: “Literally the worst thing you could do to survivors, you did.”

Bondi told Massie that he was only focused on the files because Trump is mentioned in them, calling him a “hypocrite” with “Trump-derangement syndrome.”

Department officials have said they took pains to protect survivors, but that errors were inevitable given the volume of the materials and the speed at which the department had to release them. Bondi told lawmakers that the Justice Department took down files when they were made aware that they included victims’ information and that staff had tried to do their “very best in the time frame allotted by the legislation” mandating the release of the files.

After raising the expectations of conservatives with promises of transparency last year, the Justice Department said in July that it had concluded a review and determined that no Epstein “client list” existed and there was no reason to make public additional files. That set off a furor that prompted Congress to pass the legislation demanding that the Justice Department release the files.

The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represented a public walk-back of a theory that the Trump administration had helped promote when Bondi suggested in a Fox News interview last year that it was sitting on her desk for review. Bondi later said she was referring to the Epstein files in total, not a specific client list.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Police on Wednesday identified the suspect in a school shooting in Canada as an 18-year-old who had prior mental health calls to her home and who was found dead following the attack that killed eight people in a remote part of British Columbia.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said Jesse Van Rootselaar had a history of mental health contact with police, and that the suspect’s mother and stepbrother were found dead in a home near the school.

The motive remained unclear.

Police initially said nine people were killed Tuesday in the attack, but McDonald clarified Wednesday that there were eight fatalities, plus the suspect, who authorities said shot herself. McDonald said the discrepancy arose from a victim who was airlifted to a medical center. Authorities mistakenly thought that person had died.

More than 25 people were wounded Tuesday in the attack in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, police said.

Town is near border with Alberta

The town of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is more than 600 miles northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.

Police said the victims included a 39-year-old teacher and five students, ages 12 to 13.

McDonald said the suspect’s mother, who was also 39, and an 11-year-old stepbrother, were found at the suspect’s home.

The killings at the home occurred first, he said. A young family member at the home went to a neighbor, who called police.

At the school, one victim was found in a stairwell and the rest, McDonald believed, were found in the library. The suspect was not related to any of the victims at the school, he said.

“There is no information at this point that anyone was specifically targeted,” McDonald said.

Police recovered a long gun and a modified handgun. McDonald said officers arrived at the school two minutes after the initial call. When they arrived, shots were fired in their direction.

“Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The nation mourns with you, and Canada stands by you,” an emotional Prime Minister Mark Carney said as he arrived in Parliament.

Deadliest rampage since 2020

The attack was Canada’s deadliest rampage since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.

Carney said flags at government buildings will be flown at half-staff for seven days and added: “We will get through this.”

Shelley Quist said her neighbor across the street lost her 12-year-old. “We heard his mom. She was in the street crying. She wanted her son’s body,” Quist said.

Quist said her 17-year-old son, Darian, was on lockdown in the school for more than two hours. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12.

“The grade sevens and eights, I think, were upstairs in the library, and that’s where the shooter went,” she said. Her son was in the library just 15 minutes prior to the attack.

Quist was working at the hospital down the street when the shooting started.

“I was about to go run down to the school, but my coworker held me back. And then I was able to get Darian on the phone to know he was OK,” she said.

Darian Quist said he knew the attack was real when the principal came down the halls and ordered doors to be closed. He said fellow students texted him pictures of blood while he remained locked down in a classroom.

“We used the desk to block the doors,” he said.

School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun-control laws. The government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun-control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.

A video showed students walking out with their hands raised as police vehicles surrounded the building and a helicopter circled overhead.

Village is a ‘big family’

Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka said it was “devastating” to learn how many had died in the community, which he called a “big family.”

“I broke down,” Krakowka said. “I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims.”

The Rev. George Rowe of the Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church went to the recreation center where victims’ families were awaiting more information.

“It was not a pretty sight. Families are still waiting to hear if it’s their child that’s deceased and because of protocol and procedure, the investigating team is very careful in releasing names,” Rowe said Tuesday.

Rowe once taught at the high school, and his three children graduated from there.

“To walk through the corridors of that school will never be the same again,” he said.

The school district said the high school and elementary school will be closed for the rest of the week.

Carney’s office said he called off a planned trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Munich, Germany. He had been set to announce a long-awaited defense industrial strategy Wednesday in Halifax before heading to Europe for the Munich Security Conference.

British Columbia Premier David Eby on Tuesday said he had spoken to the prime minister about the “unimaginable tragedy.”

“I know it’s causing us all to hug our kids a little bit tighter tonight,” he said. “I’m asking the people of British Columbia to look after the people of Tumbler Ridge tonight.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Alex Murdaugh has admitted he is a thief, a liar, an insurance cheat, a drug addict and a bad lawyer. But even from behind bars he continues to adamantly deny he is a killer.

Murdaugh’s attorneys argued Wednesday before the South Carolina Supreme Court, asking the justices to overturn the two murder convictions and life sentence Murdaugh is serving for the shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, outside their home in June 2021.

The defense argues the trial judge made rulings that prevented a fair trial, such as allowing in evidence of Murdaugh stealing from clients that had nothing to do with the killings but biased jurors against him. They detail the lack of physical evidence — no DNA or blood was found splattered on Murdaugh or any of his clothes, even though the killings were at close range with powerful weapons that were never found.

And they said the court clerk assigned to oversee the evidence and the jury during the trial influenced jurors to find Murdaugh guilty, hoping to improve sales of a book she was writing about the case. She has since pleaded guilty to lying about what she said and did to a different judge.

Prosecutors argued that the clerk’s comments were fleeting and the evidence against Murdaugh was overwhelming. His lawyer said that didn’t matter because the comments a juror said she made — urging jurors to watch Murdaugh’s body language and listen to his testimony carefully — removed his presumption of innocence before the jury ever deliberated.

“If only the people who may be innocent get a fair trial, then our Constitution isn’t working,” Murdaugh’s lawyer Dick Harpootlian told the justices.

Murdaugh won’t leave prison

The case continues to captivate. There are streaming miniseries, best selling books and dozens of true crime podcasts about how the multimillionaire Southern lawyer whose family dominated and controlled the legal system in tiny Hampton County ended up in a maximum security South Carolina prison.

Even if Murdaugh wins this appeal, he isn’t going anywhere. Hanging over the 57-year-old’s head is a 40-year federal prison sentence for stealing more than $12 million from clients intended for their medical care and living expenses after they or their relatives suffered devastating and even deadly injuries in accidents.

“He said he deserved to go to prison for what he did financially, but he can’t accept the fact that he was convicted of murdering his wife and son, for which he constantly proclaimed his innocence,” attorney Jim Griffin said after the hearing.

Wednesday’s state Supreme Court arguments featured the same lawyers who squared off at Murdaugh’s 2023 murder trial, although Murdaugh was not there.

Did the court clerk influence jurors?

Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill pleaded guilty in December to obstruction of justice and perjury for showing a reporter photographs that were sealed as court exhibits and then lying about it.

The justices pressed prosecutor Creighton Waters to say whether the trial judge, who initially rejected Murdaugh’s appeal for a new trial, was right to ignore testimony from a few jurors while believing the 11 who did not accuse the clerk of misconduct.

Waters agreed there were problems, but said they were so isolated in the six-week trial that they had no impact. Murdaugh’s lawyers said that is impossible to figure out because jurors could be influenced subtly, without realizing it.

“It was improper. Perhaps not improper to the point of reversal, but it was improper,” Chief Justice John Kittredge observed.

There will be no immediate decision. Rulings usually take months to be handed down.

“We understand the gravity of the situation and the entitlement of every individual to a fair and impartial trial,” Kittredge said.

Prosecutors reiterate evidence for conviction

Prosecutors have said in court papers there is no reason to throw out the guilty verdicts for murder against Murdaugh.

They carefully recounted the case for the first 34 pages of their brief. Murdaugh’s financial situation was crumbling as he stole from clients to repay his mounting debts from his drug habit and expensive tastes. He was financially vulnerable when Paul Murdaugh caused a boat crash that killed a teen.

The brief recalls evidence that helped convict Alex Murdaugh, who told investigators for months he hadn’t seen his wife and son for about an hour before they were killed. That story went unchallenged until investigators cracked the passcode on Paul Murdaugh’s phone and found a video with a barking dog and Alex Murdaugh’s voice admonishing it five minutes before the young man stopped using his phone.

Defense says court allowed an unfair trial

To establish Murdaugh’s motive at trial, prosecutors presented more than a week of testimony about his dire financial situation, including how he had stolen a multimillion insurance settlement from the son of a longtime family employee who died in a fall at the Murdaugh home. Waters said it was all critical to the big picture of a unique crime.

“You can’t understand the boiling point if you don’t understand the slow burn that led up to it,” Waters said. “The jury could not understand the full weight of the pressure if they didn’t understand the entre criminal and financial history.”

The chief justice asked why prosecutors piled on so much financial evidence, including pointing out the family employee also had a disabled son.

That could have caused the jury to think “not only is he a thief with the motive for murder but he is a despicable, low-life character,” Kittredge said.

In the insular world of South Carolina, the state Supreme Court’s decision could have impacts well beyond courtrooms. Sitting at the prosecution table on Wednesday with the case’s chief litigator was Republican South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, a candidate in November’s election for the open governor’s seat.