Americanswers... on 5Live! Why did Pam Bondi, US Attorney General, lose her temper during Epstein Files questioning?

Americast

Tuesday, 17 February 2026 - 32 minutes

In fiery congressional hearings last week, US Attorney General Pam Bondi defended the justice department's handling of the Epstein files. Several of Epstein's victims watched heated exchanges as Bondi faced a range of questions, including whether the files were sufficiently redacted, Trump’s role, Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison treatment and whether the Attorney General had met with victims. Justin, Marianna, Sarah and Anthony also discuss the difficulties for survivors of Epstein’s abuse in obtaining successful prosecutions and self identifying perpetrators. Plus, why have Bill and Hillary Clinton insisted on giving their evidence publicly on what they did and didn’t know about Epstein’s abuse. Both deny any wrongdoing, and Hillary Clinton makes clear she never met Epstein.And, Barack Obama appeared to confirm the existence of aliens on a podcast. The former president later took to Instagram to row back his remarks, clarifying he saw ‘no evidence’ of extraterrestrials during his tenure. The truth is out there…HOSTS:
• Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter
• Sarah Smith, North America Editor
• Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent
• Marianna Spring, Social Media Investigations Senior CorrespondentGET IN TOUCH:
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• Or use #AmericastThis episode was made by Grace Reeve. The technical producer was Hannah Montgomery. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.If you want to be notified every time we publish a new episode, please subscribe to us on BBC Sounds by hitting the subscribe button on the app.You can now listen to Americast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Americast”. It works on most smart speakers.US Election Unspun: Sign up for Anthony’s BBC newsletter: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68093155Americast is part of the BBC News Podcasts family of podcasts. The team that makes Americast also makes lots of other podcasts, including Newscast. If you enjoy Americast (and if you're reading this then you hopefully do), then we think that you will enjoy some of our other pods too. See links below.Newscast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p05299nl
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