GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee votes to subpoena Bondi over Epstein Files

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify about her role in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) incomplete release of its files on convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The committee voted for the subpoena 24 to 19, with five Republicans joining Democrats voting in favor.

“The American people want answers on the Epstein files, and so do we,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), wrote Wednesday on social media.

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Mace, who is not running for reelection, had introduced the motion to subpoena Bondi.

Hours before the vote, she wrote that the DOJ had falsely claimed it released all the Epstein Files.

“The Epstein case is one of the greatest cover-ups in American history. His global sex trafficking network is larger than what is being revealed,” she wrote. “Three million documents have been released, and we still don’t have the full truth. Videos are missing. Audio is missing. Logs are missing. There are millions more documents out there.”

In November, Congress passed the Epstein Transparency Act with near unanimous support. The law required the DOJ to release all its files pertaining to Epstein and its past criminal investigations of him. Despite opposing the bill, Trump eventually signed it into law.

However, his DOJ failed to comply with the new legislation.

In December, on the release deadline, the department published only a small fraction of the files, claiming it needed more time to redact the documents in order to protect Epstein’s victims.

Two weeks later, less than 1% of the files had been released. More than a month after the deadline, the DOJ remained in violation of the law, and only offered that the rest of the documents would be published “in the near term.”

The DOJ has also at times pulled photographs and documents from the online release of the files that could appear incriminating to Trump.

When the Oversight Committee subpoenas Bondi, it won’t be the first time lawmakers have questioned her about the Epstein Files.

Last month, Bondi faced intense criticism from Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee about her handling of the files’ release. And she fired back with personal attacks and lavish praise of Trump that at times bordered on non sequiturs.

In one case, the attorney general responded to questions from Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) about the Epstein Files by pivoting to the stock market.

“The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P [is] at almost 7,000 and the Nasdaq [is] smashing records. Americans’ 401k and retirement savings are booming right now,” she said. “That’s what we should be talking about.”