The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi as part of its probe of the Justice Department’s investigation into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, ordering her to testify before the panel on April 14.
If Bondi honors the subpoena, she would face committee members’ questions in a closed-door session that could turn contentious, given the volatile nature of the Epstein case and Bondi’s demonstrated willingness to engage lawmakers in verbal combat.
A Justice Department official, however, quickly dismissed the subpoena as pointless, declining to say whether the attorney general would comply.
“This subpoena is completely unnecessary,” said a Justice Department spokesperson. “Lawmakers have been invited to view the unredacted [Epstein] files for themselves at the Department of Justice, and the attorney general has always made herself available to speak directly with members of Congress.”
Bondi, along with her deputy Todd Blanche, are set to brief committee members on the Epstein matter Wednesday, the spokesperson noted, adding, “As always, we look forward to continuing to provide policymakers with the facts.”
The Oversight Committee took the vote on the subpoenaearlier this month, moving to compel Bondi to appear for a deposition regarding the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation into Epstein and his associates in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the agency to release all its files related to Epstein.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) introduced the motion to consider the subpoena. Every Democrat on the committee voted in favor of subpoenaing the attorney general, as did Republicans Lauren Boebert (Colorado), Michael Cloud (Texas), Scott Perry (Pennsylvania) and Tim Burchett (Tennessee).
That vote underlined some Republicans’ willingness to force action on the Epstein matter even at the risk of angering the Trump administration. Polls suggest a widespread anger at Epstein’s activities, and at his friendship with powerful individuals, among voters of both parties.
In a letter to Bondi on Tuesday, Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) cited questions about DOJ’s compliance with the Epstein files law, which President Donald Trump spent months trying to defeat before relenting.
“As Attorney General, you are directly responsible for overseeing the Department’s collection, review, and determinations regarding the release of files pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and the Committee therefore believes that you possess valuable insight into these efforts,” Comer wrote.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Congress passed last November with large bipartisan majorities, required that all of the Justice Department’s Epstein files be publicly released by Dec. 19. The department released more than 100,000 pages of material by that deadline but did not release the majority of its files until the end of January. The delay drew condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans.
The Justice Department has been under fire for months over its response to the law, with lawmakers finding fault in the missed deadline, the number of redactions in the documents, the interruption of public access to certain documents and the failure to redact some information related to victims’ identities.
Several lawmakers have also accused the department of withholding files despite the law’s requirement that they be released.
In early March, the Justice Department publicly posted additional records related to Epstein, including some that included allegations against Trump.
The agency said the files, which included details from FBI interviews with a woman who told authorities she had been sexually assaulted by Trump and Epstein, had not been previously released because they were incorrectly thought to be duplicates of other records. The White House has called the allegations against Trump “totally baseless.”
Following the release of the additional records, a bipartisan group of senators asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the Justice Department’s handling of the issue.
Bondi has defended the Justice Department’s efforts to comply with the law.
“More than 500 attorneys and reviewers spent thousands of hours painstakingly reviewing millions of pages to comply with Congress’s law,” Bondi said last month during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee. “We’ve released more than 3 million pages, including 180,000 images, all to the public, while doing our very best in the time frame allotted by the legislation to protect victims.”
The Oversight Committee’s investigation has itself been contentious at times. The panel summoned former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton to testify in February, prompting complaints from Democrats that Comer was ignoring Republicans associated with Epstein.
Since then, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has agreed to appear before the committee.
Kadia Goba, Jeremy Roebuck and Mark Berman contributed to this report
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