The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday voted to subpoena Pam Bondi in regards to her handling of the Epstein files.
Five Republicans broke rank to vote with every Democrat on the Committee in support of calling Bondi back to Capitol Hill for questioning. The motion was made by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-SC.
The embattled attorney general made a tense appearance in February before the House Judiciary Committee and answered a barrage of questions on how the Department of Justice is being run including indictments and investigations into Trump’s political foes solely for the purpose of revenge. They also queried about how the department went about the release of the Epstein files.
The hearing was contentious with Bondi responding combatively to hardball questions posed to her and she even tried to deflect by pointing how the progress of the stock market at the time.
James Comer, R-Ky., chair of the Committee tried to hold off the subpoena and said that the attorney general’s chief of staff told him that the attorney general would offer briefing about the department’s method of handling the files.
But, the bipartisan sentiment that Bondi dragged her feet about the files’ release. At one point, she announced that the department would offer further information about the Epstein case, which caused an uproar and led to a subcommittee to vote to force the DOJ to open all materials related to the convicted sex trafficker back in November.
“We’re gonna be talking about real, substantive issues, like the 65,000 documents that are being hidden by the DOJ right now,” Rep. Mace said after the vote.
Mace later took to social media platform X and wrote, “AG Bondi will testify about missing Epstein evidence. The videos, the audio, the documents the DOJ is hiding. The American people deserve transparency. Survivors deserve justice. We’re delivering both. Accountability is coming.”
Since the files began to be released in December, the administration has been criticized for over-redaction and essentially dropping the ball on the process. Yet, the DOJ has said that it is moving as quickly as possible to vet millions of pages.
Thomas Massie, a Republican who has been unapologetic about his opposition to Trump and who co-sponsored the resolution with Mace maintains that the public has the right to know if tax money was used to surreptitiously settle claims involving Congresspeople.
