Reps. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) said Sunday that they will seek to find Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt of Congress for not releasing more documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Bondi’s top aide, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, said in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he didn’t take their threats seriously.
Khanna and Massie wrote legislation that passed Congress nearly unanimously and was signed by President Donald Trump last month requiring the Justice Department to release a trove of Epstein files in its possession within 30 days. The agency has released more than 100,000 pages of documents so far, some of which have been heavily redacted.
“The quickest way, and I think most expeditious way, to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi,” Massie said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” in an appearance with Khanna. “Ro Khanna and I are talking about and drafting that right now.”
Khanna said in an interview with The Washington Post that he and Massie were pursuing contempt findings because the measure would take effect when it got through the House and would not need to go through the Senate. He said they were likely to give Bondi a 30-day grace period and then start fining her daily until she released all the records.
The resolution they’re planning would also allow a congressional committee to review document redactions to make sure they are legitimate, Khanna said. The measure will probably be ready within a couple of weeks but could be ready within days, he said.
“Our goal is not to take down Bondi,” he said. “Our goal is to get the documents out for the survivors. Our goal is to take down the rich and powerful men who went to rape island and covered up the abuse.”
Among the records released Friday was a 119-page grand jury document that was entirely blacked out. After facing criticism, the Justice Department posted a link on X to a version of the document with minimal redactions.
In the interview with The Post and in a message on X, Khanna said he saw the Justice Department’s post as a sign that it’s responding to the effort to hold Bondi in contempt.
The law approved last month required all documents to be released by Friday. Khanna said he is concerned less about the missed deadline than the “selective concealment” records related to the crimes of Epstein and his ex-girlfriend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Khanna said he particularly wants to see a draft of the 60-count federal indictment of Epstein from 2007 and the prosecution memo that went with it. Federal prosecutors did not bring the indictment and agreed to end their investigation in a deal that saw Epstein plead guilty to lesser state charges.
On Sunday, Blanche said in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he does not take seriously “even a little bit” threats to impeach or hold in contempt administration officials.
“Bring it on,” he said. “We are doing everything we’re supposed to be doing to comply with this statute.”
Asked about Massie and Khanna’s contempt plans, the White House referred to a clip of Blanche on the show, when he said Massie and other critics “have no idea what they’re talking about.” The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The records that the legislation mandated for release include materials that are normally shielded from public view, including grand jury testimony, investigative records, immunity deals, sealed settlements and internal communications related to Epstein and Maxwell.
The law also requires the release of documents related to Epstein’s 2019 death while in federal custody, which was ruled a suicide. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on sex-trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
More than 20 files that the Justice Department initially posted were later deleted without explanation from the agency’s website, according to a Washington Post analysis of the files. One was of a drawer with printed images that included Donald Trump before he became president. Epstein and Trump were friends but had a falling out in the mid-2000s. Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
Several of the deleted files, including the one with a photo of Trump, appeared to be visible on a Justice Department website again by Saturday night without any changes made.
Blanche, the second-highest ranking Justice Department official and previously Trump’s defense attorney, contended the Justice Department had to take down some files because victims and victim rights groups had said they may include information or images of victims that should be withheld.
“We don’t have perfect information,” Blanche said Sunday. “And so when we hear from victims’ rights groups about this type of photograph, we pull it down and investigate.”
Blanche noted the department had previously released other photos that showed Trump and said the agency was not holding anything back over political concerns.
“The short answer is we are not redacting information around President Trump,” he said.
Lawmakers from both parties were also critical of the steps the Justice Department has taken to comply with the law.
“The administration has struggled for months and months with something that they initially ginned up, and then sort of tried to tamp down,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said Sunday on “This Week” on ABC. “So any evidence or any kind of indication that there’s not a full reveal on this, this will just plague them for months and months more. So my suggestion would be: Give up all the information.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said on “This Week” that he was awaiting the Justice Department’s written explanation of why many records have not been released.
“I think there needs to be a full and complete explanation, and then a full and complete investigation as to why the document production has fallen short of what the law clearly required,” Jeffries said.
Mark Berman, Meryl Kornfield, Shayna Jacobs, Perry Stein and Alec Dent contributed to this report.
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