House committee votes to subpoena Bondi to answer questions about the Epstein files

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 the sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein.

Read more: Bondi clashed with lawmakers over the handling of the Epstein files. Here are 3 big takeaways

Five Republicans joined Democrats to support the subpoena proposed by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, a sign of continuing frustration among conservatives with the department’s review and release of a trove of documents related to the disgraced financier. The move was a sharp rebuke of Bondi from Republicans demanding information about Epstein’s abuse of young girls and his interactions with the wealthy and powerful.

“The American people want answers about the Epstein files, and so do we,” Mace, of South Carolina, said in a post on X.

The Justice Department had no immediate 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 volumes of documents without revealing anything new to conservative White House powerbrokers. Then, after a months-long review, the Justice Department said in July that it had concluded that there was no “client list” for Epstein, and that there was no reason to release additional files to the public.

This sparked an uproar that prompted Congress to pass legislation requiring the Department of Justice to release the files. Since the first release in December, critics have accused the administration of fumbling the rollout and withholding too many documents. Administration officials said lawyers worked as quickly as possible to review, redact and release millions of documents required under the law.

“For months, Attorney General Bondy played an active role in coordinating the White House cover-up of the Epstein files, and failed to comply with our bipartisan subpoena to release the full, unredacted files,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. He added: “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 exploiting the uproar over the documents to divert attention from Trump’s successes, although some of the most vocal criticism came from members of the president’s own party.

During a heated congressional hearing last month, Democrats criticized Bundy for indiscriminate redactions in Epstein’s files that revealed intimate details about victims and included nude photos. Bondi told lawmakers that the Justice Department removed the files when it learned they contained victim information, and said employees tried to do “the best they could” within the time frame set by legislation mandating the release of the files.

The move to demand Bondi’s testimony comes a week after the Justice Department announced it was looking into whether it had improperly withheld documents from the files after several news organizations reported that some records containing unsubstantiated accusations made by a woman against Trump were not among those released to the public.

The announcement came after news reports that a trove of records released by the Justice Department did not include several summaries of FBI interviews with an unidentified woman who came forward after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and claimed she had been 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 down with lawmakers on the committee to give their own testimony about the former Democratic president’s ties to 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 saw no signs of sexual abuse by Epstein. Hillary Clinton told lawmakers she had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and did not recall “ever confronting Mr. Epstein.”