Former Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to a give closed-door testimony later today over her handling of the Federal government’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Democratic Congressman James Walkinshaw of Virginia, a member of the House Oversight Committee, joins Way Too early to discuss what he plans on asking Bondi and more.
Archiv: 19-12-2025 US Department of Justice begins releasing files responsive under the Epstein Files Transparency Act / believes it can withheld files because of „national security“
Bondi set for Jeffrey Epstein questioning from House Oversight lawmakers
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi will appear before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigators Friday, a victory for the panel after the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued she should not have to answer questions about the Epstein files.
It’s an unusual appearance in several respects.
When Mandelson could bring down Starmer
(March 14, 2026)
As my big piece on Starmer last month revealed, even after Mandelson was appointed, Starmer never quizzed him about how to deal with Trump. All this exposes a Prime Minister with Olympic levels of detachment. It has been known for a while that he has little interest in politics but those who have worked with him have been genuinely surprised at his lack of interest in the detail of governing.
(…)
The book also reveals that the decision to sack Mandelson was taken by McSweeney, not Starmer. On the day the PM defended Mandelson in the Commons, McSweeney was in a secure basement conference room without his phone when two of Starmer’s closest aides – Paul Ovenden and Stuart Ingham – came to find him. Ingham told him: ‘We just can’t answer these questions.’
McSweeney’s response – ‘It’s unsustainable’ – was the moment the decision was effectively made.
No 10 bid for SECOND paedo-linked Labour ally to get ambassador role
He was later pushed on who had ordered him to look into getting Doyle a position, and who had ordered him not to tell the foreign secretary (which at the time was David Lammy).
Robbins said: “I don‘t know what the origin of the suggestion was, and I don‘t know who exactly was behind it or how serious it was.
“It was serious enough for the No 10 private office to ring up the head of the diplomatic service and ask for a forward look of available head of mission jobs, and that‘s the point at which I thought that I needed to lay down some markers.”
Olly Robbins: I was asked to find job for Starmer aide and not tell David Lammy
Testifying to MPs at parliament’s foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Olly Robbins said he had several conversations with No 10 about finding a role for Matthew Doyle, who was later suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.
Robbins said he had been asked not to mention the idea to David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time.
Robbins described the conversations as part of more general pressure from people at the top of the government to place senior political figures in senior diplomatic posts.
Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson: Who are Starmer’s new joint chiefs of staff?
(February 8, 2026)
With Morgan McSweeney’s enforced departure over the Mandelson scandal, his former deputies Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson have both been promoted to replace him as joints chiefs of staff
Olly Robbins says he faced ‘constant pressure’ to get Mandelson in post
Asked who in No 10 had applied pressure, he said it was mainly the prime minister’s private office, which is staffed by civil servants. But he added: “I think that the private office would only have been [putting on] this pressure themselves if they were under pressure.”
Fired U.K. Official Describes ‘Pressure’ From Starmer’s Office for Envoy’s Appointment
The former top civil servant in Britain’s foreign office, who was fired by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week, said on Tuesday that Mr. Starmer’s office had a “dismissive attitude” about the security vetting of Peter Mandelson, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein who became ambassador to the United States despite concerns raised during the vetting process.
The former civil servant, Olly Robbins, testified in Parliament that he and other officials in charge of deciding whether to grant Mr. Mandelson a high-level security clearance were working in “an atmosphere of pressure” to ensure that nothing got in the way of Mr. Mandelson’s appointment.
After the latest Mandelson revelations, Starmer needs to get a good lawyer. Wasn’t he supposed to be one?
During the opposition years, his defenders countered that a stolid technocrat was exactly what the country needed. They sold the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service as the polar opposite of Boris Johnson, who was driven from Downing Street in part by Starmer’s own forensic questioning. If only Starmer had lived up to the billing of his detractors, reluctantly conceded by his allies, he wouldn’t be in the hole he finds himself this weekend.
Instead, he now has to rely on a defence that is lawyerly in the worst sense of that word. To have knowingly misled parliament is, in political terms, a capital crime. So the PM has to proceed on two tracks, one for “knowingly” the other for “misled”.
Starmer sacks top Foreign Office official after Mandelson vetting revelations
The BBC understands Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper lost confidence in Sir Olly Robbins and was effectively sacked after a Guardian investigation revealed Mandelson had not been security cleared.
The PM is facing calls to resign amid claims he misled MPs when he told them „full due process“ had been followed.
Senior minister Darren Jones said Sir Keir had not been told of the vetting recommendation until Tuesday this week, had not misled MPs and would not be resigning.
Epstein-Fall, neue hochrangige Rücktritte in England. Starmer unter Druck: „Er sollte zurücktreten.“
(April 16, 2026)
„Es ist unverzeihlich, dass kein Minister, nicht einmal Downing Street, informiert wurde“, kommentierte Premierminister Keir Starmer. Doch Starmer selbst geriet ins Visier der Opposition, die seinen Rücktritt fordert. Der Chef von Downing Street scheint jedoch nicht zurücktreten zu wollen. „Er wird nicht zurücktreten“, versicherte Starmers engster Vertrauter, Darren Jones.
Revealed: Mandelson failed vetting but Foreign Office overruled decision
(Thu 16 Apr 2026 19.16 CEST)
In September, in a letter co-signed with foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, Robbins told MPs that “conducted to the usual standard set for developed vetting.
The Guardian understands that Robbins was told he had to resign after Starmer and Cooper lost confidence in the civil servant.
Mandelson’s failure to secure vetting approval has not previously been publicly revealed, despite intense scrutiny over his appointment and the release by the government of 147 pages of documents supposed to shed light on the case.
Melania Trump blasts ‘lies’ linking her to Epstein and calls on Congress to hold hearing for victims
Donald Trump was aware his wife planned to make Thursday’s statement, a person familiar with the matter said.
“I have never been friends with Epstein. Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach,” the first lady said in remarks to reporters. “To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, [Ghislaine] Maxwell.”
She called on Congress to provide a forum for Epstein’s victims to testify on Capitol Hill.
‚A Lot Of Inability To Recall‘: Dem Lawmakers Discuss Richard Kahn‘s Testimony To Epstein Probe
Democratic lawmakers speak to reporters as Richard Kahn testifies before the House Oversight Committee‘s Epstein probe.
‚Hard to believe‘ Epstein accountant didn‘t know anything wrong was going on: Oversight Dem
Richard Kahn, Jeffrey Epstein‘s accountant and a co-executor of his estate, is testifying before the House Oversight Committee today. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA), a member of the committee, joins Chris Jansing to share more on the deposition.
Richard Kahn‘s opening statements for Epstein files deposition
Mar 11, 2026
Richard Kahn, who was Jeffrey Epstein‘s accountant, testified Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee over his relationship to the convicted sex offender. CBS News‘ Elaine Quijano has more on his opening statement.
Longtime Epstein accountant testifies behind closed doors for roughly 7 hours in House Oversight probe
Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accountant testified his relationship with the late convicted sex offender “was strictly on a professional level,” as he faced investigators on Capitol Hill for roughly seven hours as part of the House Oversight Committee’s probe.
Richard Kahn, Epstein‘s accountant and confidant, to testify to House committee today
Documents released in lawsuits and among the Epstein files — millions of documents the Department of Justice released after Congress passed an act mandating it to do so — show a sophisticated and tangled web of businesses operated by the trio.
After Kahn and Indyke were subpoenaed in January, an attorney for the men, Daniel H. Weiner, said in a statement to CBS News that allegations against them are „false.“
Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s inner circle — the aides, lawyers and confidantes who ran his world
Together, the names of those in Epstein’s inner circle appear thousands of times across the newly released files. Though they haven’t had the same level of scrutiny that more famous people who appear in the files have received, that may start to change. Over the coming months, several of them are scheduled to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee.
Richard Kahn, Epstein’s longtime accountant, and Darren Indyke, his personal attorney, both of whom are co-executors of Epstein’s estate, are slated to testify on March 11 and March 19. Lesley Groff, Epstein’s executive assistant, was asked by the committee to appear on June 9.
Oversight Democrats’ Statement After DOJ Released Previously Withheld Epstein Files Accusing President Trump of Sexual Abuse, Continues White House Cover-Up
(March 6, 2026)
“After Oversight Democrats voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ released a portion of previously-withheld documents with serious allegations against President Trump and an underage victim. The FBI interviewed the witness four times, and the American people can now see some of those documents for themselves.
But let’s be clear: this White House cover-up is ongoing. Millions of pages still remain concealed from the public and our committee. We will get answers when Pam Bondi appears before our committee under oath,” said Sara Guerrero, spokesperson for Oversight Democrats.
This week, Ranking Member Garcia helped secure a subpoena for Attorney General Bondi to testify before the Committee following a motion by Congresswoman Nancy Mace supported by all Committee Democrats.
It‘s up to Congress to disrupt Pam Bondi‘s Epstein cover-up | Opinion
Republicans largely backed Bondi after her last hearing, even after the attorney general inadvertently revealed that her department was secretly tracking what members of Congress searched for when given private access to unredacted Epstein files.
Now, five Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee joined all of the Democrats on March 4 to vote 24-19 to subpoena Bondi to explain why she has been „instrumental in orchestrating the White House‘s cover-up of the Epstein files.“
The ‘Crazy’ Plot to Release the Epstein Files
Khanna’s staff and consultants tried to talk him out of pursuing such legislation, explaining that it could make him look like a conspiracy theorist, instead of his desired image as a “serious economics guy.” But Khanna explained to his staff that the topic of Epstein kept coming up, especially when he appeared on podcasts or visited the more conservative parts of his district. He recalled a young man delivering a long rant at a recent town hall about how he didn’t trust the government because it was “protecting pedophiles” by not releasing the Epstein files or holding more people accountable. In that moment, Khanna told me, he realized that standing up for Epstein’s victims—and against the wealthy or powerful—was a way to build trust.
Emergence of Epstein island photo leads to new calls for Lutnick to testify
At one point, the original page containing the photograph on Justice.gov returned an error message, though a version captured by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine on January 31, 2026, remained accessible online and included the photograph.
The page has since been restored and a Justice Department spokesperson told CNN, “This image was part of a batch of files that were flagged for nudity. The batch of thousands of images was pulled for review and is being uploaded with necessary redactions on a rolling basis. No files are being deleted.”
Re: Request for an Investigation into the Conduct of Former Commissioner Peter Mandelson During and After his Mandate as EU Trade Commissioner (2004–2008) and Referral to the Independent Ethics Body
(February 25, 2026)
Commissioners are bound by obligations of integrity and discretion during but also beyond the end of their mandate. Article 245 TFEU requires Commissioners to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance of certain appointments or benefits after their term of office. Article 17(3) TEU further provides that Members of the Commission shall be completely independent in the performance of their duties and shall neither seek nor take instructions from any government or other institution, body, office or entity.
The Code of Conduct for Members of the European Commission explicitly prohibits the use of confidential information obtained during the mandate for any purpose other than the exercise of official duties. There is no evident limitation period that would preclude an institutional inquiry by the Commission itself into whether these obligations were violated. The Commission has both the competence and, we would argue, the duty to investigate under Articles 17 and 245 TFEU, the Code of Conduct, and the Commission’s own institutional mandate to uphold the rule of law.
Together with over 60 law professors we asked @vonderleyen to open an investigation on Peter Mandelson’s exchanges with Jeffrey Epstein at the time the former was EU Trade Commissioner.
(February 26, 2026)
As reported by @POLITICOEurope
#playbook Full text of the letter:
Rechtsgelehrte fordern Untersuchung der Tätigkeit von Epstein-Freund Mandelson als EU-Kommissar
Während sich die britischen Medien auf Mandelsons spätere Rolle als Kabinettsminister unter dem damaligen Premierminister Gordon Brown (2008–2010) konzentriert haben, fordern die Professoren eine genaue Untersuchung seiner vierjährigen Amtszeit als EU-Handelskommissar. In dieser Funktion leitete er Verhandlungen, darunter die Doha-Entwicklungsrunde, die Verhandlungen über ein Freihandelsabkommen zwischen der EU und Indien (FTA) und Handelsstreitigkeiten zwischen der EU und der ASEAN.
Aus Dokumenten, die vom US-Justizministerium veröffentlicht wurden, geht hervor, dass Mandelsons Verbindungen zu Epstein von 2002 bis 2011 bestanden, also seine gesamte Amtszeit bei der EU-Kommission umfassten.
Epstein-Skandal: Chef des Weltwirtschaftsforums tritt zurück
(February 26, 2026)
Zuvor hatte das US-Justizministerium zahlreiche weitere Dokumente zum Fall Epstein veröffentlicht. Die Veröffentlichung hatte drei Geschäftsessen Brendes mit Epstein offenbart. Der Norweger kommunizierte demnach auch per E-Mail und SMS mit dem US-Millionär.
Brende stammt aus Norwegen und war dort lange Abgeordneter der konservativen Partei sowie Umwelt-, Handels- und Außenminister. Seit 2017 ist er Präsident des WEF, das jedes Jahr im Januar das berühmte Treffen in Davos in den Schweizer Bergen ausrichtet.