The House Judiciary Committee erupted briefly into a shouting match on Wednesday after Pam Bondi, U.S. attorney general, criticized Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) for voting against a resolution condemning antisemitism.
Balint asked Bondi a series of questions during the U.S. Department of Justice oversight hearing about connections between officials in the Trump administration and the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of child prostitution in 2008 and killed himself in jail in 2019 pending charges for the sex trafficking of minors.
After receiving time to respond from a Republican congressman, Bondi turned the criticism on Balint.
“I didn’t see one tweet when Joe Biden was in office about Bill Clinton—didn’t ask Merrick Garland anything about Epstein,” Bondi said, referring to the former U.S. attorney general. “Also, I want the record to reflect that with this antisemitic culture right now—she voted against a resolution condemning ‘from the river to the sea.’”
Balint, who is Jewish, responded as Bondi was mid-sentence.
“Oh, do you want to go there, attorney general?” Balint shouted. “Are you serious? Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust, really?”
The congresswoman left her chair briefly as if to storm out of the committee room, but returned minutes later. (JNS sought comment from Balint and Bondi.)
In 2024, Balint was one of 44 members of Congress who voted against a House resolution condemning the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic. All but one of the 44 were Democrats.
“This resolution is yet another way to sow division and demonize Palestinians,” Balint wrote at the time. “Extremists on both sides of this conflict, including in the Netanyahu government, have co-opted the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ to assert a one-sided claim to this land.”
“But let’s be clear, everyone—Israelis, Palestinians—belongs to this land,” she added. “Suggestions that any group should be eradicated from the region are abhorrent.”
The at-large congresswoman from Vermont also became the first Jewish member of the House to call for a ceasefire in Gaza in November 2023.
