Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a prominent House Democrat, says Attorney General Pam Bondi “spoiled” her online search for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein after Bondi was seen at a contentious congressional hearing on Wednesday holding what appeared to be a record of the lawmaker’s search history. Rep. Jamie Raskin issued a statement regarding the Trump DOJ’s alleged tracking of search history for unredacted Epstein documents.
During the hearing, one of the copies Bondi referred to was labeled “Jayapal Pramila Search History”. According to photographs taken by journalists covering the sessions, the document contained at least eight files from the Justice Department’s collection of Epstein records, with their file numbers listed along with a brief description of their contents, CBS News reported.
Jayapal demanded that Bondi apologize to Epstein survivors for failing to protect their personal information and asked survivors who attended the hearing to raise their hands if they had not yet met with the Justice Department.
Jayapal is not the only Democrat in Congress to question the system the Justice Department put in place to access Epstein’s files.
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia described earlier Wednesday that lawmakers were limited to four computers in a very small room, each with a unique login name and password. He noted that phones are prohibited and only handwritten notes in a separate notebook are allowed. Subramanyam told host Aaron Parnas that the setup appears to be designed to make it as difficult as possible for lawmakers to piece the information together.
In response, Bondi attacked Biden-era Attorney General Merrick Garland for his handling of the Epstein case, adding, “I’m not going to get in the gutter because of her theatrics.”
What did MP Jamie Raskin say?
Rep. Jamie Raskin criticized the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Attorney General Bondi, accusing them of illegally withholding documents from Congress and the public, failing to prosecute charges against Epstein or Maxwell’s co-conspirators, and allegedly surveilling members of Congress in their oversight duties, describing it as yet another disruption of Congress.
“It is outrageous that the Justice Department is following the investigative steps of members to ensure that the Justice Department is complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act and is using that information for the Attorney General’s embarrassing polemical purposes,” Jaskin said.
He added: “The DOJ must immediately cease any investigation by lawmakers, open the Epstein review to senior congressional staff, and publicly release all files — with all survivor information and only survivor information, properly redacted — as required by federal law.”
Raskin added that he plans to ask the Justice Department’s inspector general to open an investigation into what he called a “flagrant abuse of power” and urged that the revelations about the attorney general’s conduct be used as an opportunity to fully review the handling of the Epstein case.