Pam Bondi, the former attorney general whom President Trump fired last week, will not appear next week for a scheduled deposition with the House Oversight Committee as part of its inquiry into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The committee said in a statement on Wednesday that it would work with Ms. Bondi to schedule another date for her testimony, which is required under a subpoena that a bipartisan group forced the panel’s Republican chairman, Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, to issue last month.
Mr. Comer in that subpoena summoned Ms. Bondi to testify on April 14 about the Justice Department’s investigation of Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges, and its handling of investigative material about his case.
But a spokeswoman for the committee said that the Justice Department said Ms. Bondi would not appear because she was no longer the attorney general. Her stumbles in handling the Epstein investigation played a pivotal role in Mr. Trump’s decision to terminate her.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The committee plans to discuss next steps, including scheduling, with Ms. Bondi’s personal legal team. The panel’s top Democrat, Representative Robert Garcia of California, said the subpoena still held even after Ms. Bondi’s dismissal.
“Now that Pam Bondi has been fired, she’s trying to get out of her legal obligation to testify,” Mr. Garcia said in a statement. He added that “if she defies the subpoena, we will begin contempt charges in the Congress.”
Even before Mr. Trump fired Ms. Bondi, lawmakers on the committee were concerned that she would try to avoid the deposition. Five Republicans joined Democrats to force the subpoena over Mr. Comer’s objections, a vote that was a striking rebuke of a top administration official by members of the president’s own party.
Mr. Comer said last month that he would honor the subpoena, and Ms. Bondi said she intended to “follow the law.” But she never committed to appear on April 14, and she and Mr. Comer had been quietly working together to avoid the deposition, according to people familiar with the maneuvering who discussed it on the condition of anonymity.
After Ms. Bondi was fired, Representative Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican who introduced the motion to subpoena her, said the legal requirement remained.
“Pam Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of attorney general,” Ms. Mace said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our motion to subpoena Pam Bondi, which was passed by the Oversight Committee, was for Bondi by name, not by title.”
The committee’s investigation started last year with a subpoena for the Justice Department’s files. It has sprawled to include material from Mr. Epstein’s estate and a host of transcribed interviews and depositions with people who had ties to Mr. Epstein.
After Mr. Comer sent a subpoena to Bill and Hillary Clinton, he was locked in a monthslong battle with them over whether they would testify. Both agreed to do so after the committee voted to hold them in contempt of Congress if they did not testify.
As it continues its inquiry, the committee has scheduled a number of closed-door interviews in the coming weeks. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, who once lived next door to Mr. Epstein in New York and visited his private island, is scheduled to appear voluntarily on May 6, according to two people familiar with the plans.
Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft whose relationship with Mr. Epstein has come under scrutiny, is also set to appear on June 10, according to both people, who requested anonymity to discuss plans that had not yet been made public.
Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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