US Attorney General Bondi faces Epstein files subpoena
A committee of U.S. lawmakers voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions about the Justice Department’s handling of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation.
Five Republicans on the House Oversight Committee joined Democrats in supporting the subpoena proposed by Republican Nancy Mace; It was a sign of ongoing frustration among conservatives over the department’s review and release of a tranche of documents related to the disgraced financier.
“The American people want answers about the Epstein files, and so do we,” Mace, from South Carolina, said in a post on social media platform X. he said.
The Department of Justice had no comment on the subpoena.
The Epstein files remain a political headache for the Trump administration more than a year after Bondi sparked a backlash by distributing folders of documents without new disclosures to conservative influencers in the White House.
Then, after a months-long investigation, the Justice Department said in July that it had concluded that no “client list” of Epstein existed and that there was no reason for additional files to be made public.
This sparked outrage that led Congress to pass a law requiring the Justice Department to release the files.
Since the first publication in December, critics have accused the administration of clumsy distribution and withholding too many documents.
Administration officials said lawyers were working as quickly as possible to properly review, organize and release millions of documents required under the law.
“For months, Attorney General Bondi has been instrumental in the White House cover-up of the Epstein files and has failed to comply with our bipartisan subpoena to release the files in their entirety, unredacted,” California Representative Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. he said.
“The American people deserve transparency, survivors deserve justice, and we demand answers.”
Bondi defended the department’s handling of the files and accused Democrats of using outrage over the documents to distract from Trump’s accomplishments, even though some of the most vocal criticism came from members of the president’s own party.
At a heated congressional hearing in February, Democrats condemned Bondi for haphazard redactions in the Epstein files that revealed intimate details about victims and included nude photos.
Bondi told MPs that the Ministry of Justice removed the files after it became aware they contained victim information and that staff were trying to “do the best” within the time allotted by legislation mandating the release of the files.
The move to request Bondi’s testimony comes a week after the Justice Department said it was investigating whether he improperly withheld documents from the files.
The announcement follows news reports that multiple records released by the Justice Department did not include several summaries of interviews the FBI conducted with an unidentified woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted by both Trump and Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s.
Former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, recently sat with lawmakers at the committee for their own testimony about the former Democratic president’s contacts with Epstein more than two decades ago.
Bill Clinton told members of Congress on Friday that he “did nothing wrong” in his relationship with Epstein and that he saw no signs of sexual abuse by Epstein.
Hillary Clinton told lawmakers she had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and did not recall “encountering Mr. Epstein.”
