India, May 30 -- The women gathered on the Capitol steps before she arrived. Some held photographs. Others held signs reading "Full Disclosure." All of them, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, had come to watch a former attorney general walk inside to answer questions she had already decided not to answer.

Pam Bondi's appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday was two months in the making - subpoenaed, delayed, threatened with contempt, and rescheduled - and when it finally happened, behind closed doors in the Rayburn House Office Building, it produced exactly what the longer pattern had suggested it would: silence on the one question that matters most.

Did President Trump direct Bondi in any way ...