Eyes Forward
Yesterday, Attorney General Pam Bondi—the country’s chief law officer—testified before Congress. Behind her sat the survivors, row after row, some with their right hands raised to be sworn, the white shirts reading SURVIVORS ARE STILL WAITING, and they did not interrupt, and they did not plead, and they did not move the room with anything except their presence.
They were children when it happened. They are adults now. Some of them have children of their own. Some of them are the age now that their rapists were then.
She won’t apologize.
Not for the nude photos of survivors released unredacted. Not for their emails exposed. Not for their identifying details made public while the names of powerful men stayed sealed.
She calls it “theatrics.”
Says she will not “get in the gutter.”
Instead she praises Trump. His transparency, his leadership, the words coming rehearsed and practiced for an audience of one.
Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland, asks about the exposed survivor details. She calls him a “washed-up loser lawyer, not even a lawyer.” The word comes out wrong. Her face twists.
They stop answering and start attacking, stop defending what they’ve done and start destroying whoever asks about it.
They’re right behind her. She keeps her eyes forward.
Roy Cohn’s Method
June 9, 1954, a hearing room in Washington. Roy Cohn sat at the table next to Senator Joseph McCarthy, twenty-seven years old, McCarthy’s chief counsel. Television cameras. A packed gallery. Millions watching.
His philosophy was simple. Don’t tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is.
His tactic was simpler. Attack, never admit, never apologize, never defend.
For months the method had worked. McCarthy and Cohn accused people of being communists. State Department officials. Army officers. University professors. The accused would deny it. Cohn would produce a document and the career would end. One hearing and you were unemployable, your name in newspapers, your loyalty questioned forever.
Then Army counsel Joseph Welch spoke. McCarthy and Cohn had been attacking a young lawyer in Welch’s firm, and Welch looked at McCarthy and asked:
“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Welch gathered his papers and walked out.
The gallery went silent. McCarthy turned to Cohn and stammered, “What happened?”
Then the applause.
Five months later the Senate censured McCarthy. Cohn’s career never recovered. He spent the rest of his life chasing what he’d lost in that room, the certainty that the attack would work, that the room would flinch.
In the 1970s, a young real estate developer named Donald Trump hired Cohn. Cohn taught him the method. Never apologize, never admit, never back down. Attack whoever questions you. The playbook that collapsed in 1954 became the playbook Trump would run for fifty years.
The same playbook Bondi is using now.
They’re right behind her. She keeps her eyes forward.
“Washed-Up Loser Lawyer”
Raskin asks whether the Attorney General takes responsibility for what her department released under her watch.
She calls him a “washed-up loser lawyer, not even a lawyer.”
The word comes out wrong. Her face twists. The practiced calm cracks in real time, on camera, under oath.
The chairman doesn’t interrupt. Raskin’s time expires. She keeps talking.
When asked about the Epstein files, she pivoted to the Dow Jones. When Raskin asked about responsibility, she attacked his credentials. When Thomas Massie, the Republican who co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, said “literally the worst thing you could do to survivors, you did,” she said he had “Trump derangement syndrome.”
Years ago Bondi’s office faced scrutiny over a $25,000 Trump Foundation donation that arrived around the time her office was deciding whether to join action against Trump University. She didn’t join. Critics argue she has spent her career protecting power over victims. First as Florida’s attorney general during years of Epstein-related scrutiny, now as the nation’s top law enforcement officer praising the president instead of serving the Constitution.
Cohn was skilled at this. He knew how to make attack look like strength, how to time the method, how to make people doubt themselves instead of doubting him.
Bondi is using the same moves.
They’re right behind her. She keeps her eyes forward.
Justice or Loyalty
The choice is simple. Serve justice or serve the person who appointed you.
She had been asked a simple question about responsibility. She could have said, Yes. We made errors. We’re correcting them. She could have turned around, looked at the survivors, and said, We failed you. We’re fixing it.
She did not answer. She attacked the congressman who asked.
Here is what her department released to the public. Photographs of the children. Their emails with identifying details. Their names. All of it unredacted, searchable, downloadable. The men who did this to them, the men who paid for it, the men who filmed it—those names stayed sealed. The victims’ names went public. The predators stayed protected.
The women behind her live with this now. Someone at the grocery store might have seen those images. Someone at work might know their names. The privacy they spent decades rebuilding got shattered by the office sworn to protect them. They sit in that room knowing anyone can type their names into a search engine and find documentation of the worst thing that ever happened to them. They were children when it happened. Some of them have children now.
She won’t look at them. She won’t address what was released. She won’t take responsibility. When pressed, she calls it theatrics, calls it gutter, calls it distraction from the president’s accomplishments.
Turning around means becoming the person who exposed victims to protect powerful men. It means admitting the Trump Foundation’s $25,000 donation arrived before her office declined to join the fraud case. It means seeing the wreckage. Children’s images released. Predators’ names sealed. Survivors sitting in rows while the Attorney General praises the president’s transparency.
So she keeps her eyes forward. She praises Trump, lists his accomplishments. The loyalty hardens over time, and after years of holding yourself rigid in one direction, your neck forgets how to turn.
The attack erupts when that rigidity finally cracks, when the survivors sit close enough to feel and you still won’t face them, when a congressman’s question threatens to make you see what you’ve become. Rage comes easier than recognition. The insult is fast because an apology would require turning around, and looking back means seeing yourself clearly.
That’s not a slip. That’s what happens when you choose power over people for so long you forget you made a choice.
They’re right behind her. She keeps her eyes forward.
When the Room Stops Believing
Republican Thomas Massie co-sponsored the law that forced the release. He sat there while she called him deranged for asking about the exposed names. A Republican. His own party. The law he wrote.
Welch’s question didn’t create the turn, it caught it. The audience was ready. They’d been watching. When someone finally asked “have you no sense of decency,” the room didn’t gasp. They exhaled.
The routine had held for years. Cohn attacking witnesses, McCarthy smearing names, both men certain the room would keep flinching. But when Welch asked his question, what they had been protecting collapsed. When belief dissolves, you can suddenly see what was always there. The attacks. The deflections. The rehearsed praise.
No law behind it, no facts, just rage at being questioned.
They’re right behind her. She keeps her eyes forward.
The survivors behind her represent a choice that got made long ago, in Florida as attorney general when scrutiny around Epstein continued and critics say she failed victims, when Trump’s foundation donated $25,000 and her office decided not to join fraud action, when she built a career year after year protecting power instead of challenging it.
Those weren’t dramatic choices. They were quiet ones, bureaucratic ones, the kind you can tell yourself aren’t really choices at all.
Until you’re sitting at a table with cameras on you and survivors behind you and you still can’t face what you’ve been protecting.
The Attorney General defends the president. Not the Constitution. Not the victims whose names her department exposed. The president, his transparency, his accomplishments.
And when pressed on it, she attacks the person asking.
Survivors behind her. The office looks away.
“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
The answer is visible in every choice. What gets defended and what gets dismissed, who gets praised and who gets ignored, what gets redacted and what gets exposed. The survivors waiting behind her while she talks about transparency.
What happens when you run out of people to blame for what you won’t face?
They’re right behind her. She keeps her eyes forward.
Notes & Sources
Bondi Testimony (February 11, 2026)
Survivors in hearing room wearing “WE ARE SURVIVORS” shirts:
DOJ released survivors’ nude photos, emails, and identifying details unredacted while redacting powerful men’s names:
Bondi calls it “theatrics” and says she won’t “get in the gutter”:
Bondi calls Representative Jamie Raskin “washed-up loser lawyer, not even a lawyer”:
Representative Thomas Massie: “Literally the worst thing you could do to survivors, you did”:
Roy Cohn & Joseph Welch (June 9, 1954)
Army-McCarthy Hearings, June 9, 1954:
“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”:
Welch gathered papers and walked out, gallery applauded:
Senate censured McCarthy five months later (December 1954):
Roy Cohn & Donald Trump
Cohn became Trump’s lawyer and mentor in 1970s:
Cohn’s philosophy: “Don’t tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is”:
Cohn taught Trump: attack, never apologize, never admit:
Pam Bondi Florida Record
Trump Foundation donated $25,000 to Bondi’s political committee (2013):
Bondi’s office declined to join Trump University fraud investigation despite 20+ Florida complaints:
Jermaine, "The Humanity Archive" is a great title for your work. Your way of weaving the present with the past reminds us of our link with the humanity of our ancestors. And our responsibility to reach into the depth of our humanity for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
I was so dismayed with the utter soul-less performance of Pam Bondi yesterday. Despair leaked in around me. Your story of Joseph Welch and the turning points that unraveled Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn's vicious campaign of hate restored my faith in humanity. Thank you. I can face my day and my grandchildren with renewed courage to work for what is just, what is right, what is love.
I remember the McCarthy hearings very clearly, and I was just 8 years old. Wayne Morse was our senator and he had just changed parties from Republican to Independent. My dad, who rarely said anything about politics, watched the hearings intently (tv was a pretty new thing and we had to go down to my grandpa's house to watch anything) and I was right there next to hi. m because anything he was doing I was doing when he was home. He always said "Wayne Morse is the only honest man in Washington." I didn't really understand the Red Scare but I knew a lot of people were terrifid and silent, and the day Wexler asked the famous questions my dad stood up and exclaimed "Finally!" A few weeks into the current administration my soninlaw asked me if I remembered any time in my life when the country was under such a mass paralysis of conscience and I said "Yes, the McCarthy years." It made such an impression on me, even as a kid, and this time feels so similar. Thanks for the history on Roy Cohn, I hadn't remembered him so clearly.