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The House Oversight Committee voted Wednesday to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions about the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation, a move supporters said would press for more information about the department’s document review and release process.
The subpoena was proposed by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, and five Republicans joined Democrats to back it, reflecting continued frustration among conservatives with the Justice Department’s review and release of documents tied to the disgraced financier.
In a post on X, Mace said, “The American people want answers on the Epstein files, and so do we.”
The Justice Department had no immediate comment on the subpoena.
The Epstein files have remained a political headache for the Trump administration more than a year after Bondi drew backlash over handing out binders of documents to conservative influencers at the White House without, critics said, any new revelations. After a months-long review, the Justice Department in July said it concluded that no Epstein “client list” existed and that there was no reason to make additional files public.
Critics said the subsequent rollout of documents under a law requiring their release has been mishandled and that too many documents were withheld. Administration officials, according to the committee’s broader dispute with the department, said lawyers worked as quickly as possible to properly review, redact and release millions of documents required under the law.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said the committee was seeking Bondi’s testimony in part because he accused the attorney general of not complying with a bipartisan push for access to the complete, unredacted records. Garcia said, “For months, Attorney General Bondi has been instrumental in orchestrating the White House’s cover-up of the Epstein files, and has failed to comply with our bipartisan subpoena for the release of the complete, unredacted files.”
Bondi has defended the Justice Department’s handling of the files and has accused Democrats of using the furor over Epstein documents to distract from Trump’s successes, even as some criticism has come from within the president’s own party.
The dispute has also included questions raised during a congressional hearing last month, when Democrats said Bondi faced concerns about redactions that they said exposed intimate details about victims and included nude photographs. Bondi told lawmakers that the department removed files when it learned they included victims’ information and said staff had tried to do their “very best” in the time frame allotted by the legislation mandating the release of the files.
The committee’s move to demand Bondi’s testimony also comes after the Justice Department said it was looking into whether it improperly withheld documents from the Epstein files following reports that some records involving uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against Trump were not among those released publicly. The announcement followed reporting that a large tranche of records released by the Justice Department did not include summaries of FBI interview records with an unidentified woman who came forward after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and claimed to have been sexually assaulted by both Trump and Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s.
Separately, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have sat with lawmakers on the committee for depositions tied to the former Democratic president’s connections to Epstein. Bill Clinton told members of Congress on Friday that he “did nothing wrong” in his relationship with Epstein and saw no signs of Epstein’s sexual abuse. Hillary Clinton told lawmakers she had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and did not recall “ever encountering Mr. Epstein.”