House Democrats are pushing the Justice Department for an inquiry into Attorney General Pam Bondi for allegedly “spying” on members of Congress as they view the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) is planning to send a letter in the coming days asking for an investigation one day after Bondi was photographed at a House Judiciary Committee hearing with a printout compilation labeled, “Jayapal, Pramila Search History.”
“I had somebody sitting right behind me for a lot of the time looking at exactly what I was searching,” Jayapal told reporters Thursday. “They had logins that had our names. They logged us into the computers. They had our names, as I noticed what he was typing, it had my name in it, so clearly they intended to look at our search history, even when they invited us in.”
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has also said he is asking the DOJ’s inspector general to open an inquiry into Bondi. Raskin told the Washington Examiner the surveillance is “an assault on the separation of powers.”
The Justice Department began letting members of Congress visit its offices and search a database of the unredacted Epstein files this week. A DOJ spokesperson said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that, as part of allowing members to review those documents, the “DOJ logs all searches made on its systems to protect against the release of victim information.”
But lawmakers say the logging of searches amounts to “spying” on members of Congress.
“It’s insane,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) told the Washington Examiner. “I think we assume that kind of thing is happening, but we’re there to conduct oversight, and the Department of Justice shouldn’t be spying on us.”
“And then the thing that’s most concerning is that [Bondi] had it in the packet to use against people on the committee, which I think is just completely ridiculous,” he added.
Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Examiner that “the executive branch is not supposed to be spying on what the legislative branch is doing.”
Balint told Axios that Democrats are contemplating legal action. When asked by reporters whether civil action is on the table, Jayapal said, “I’m not ready to talk about that yet.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to Balint for more information on potential legal action.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) downplayed the criticism, noting that special counsel Jack Smith’s “Arctic Frost” investigation had obtained phone communications from a handful of members of Congress.
“It’s pretty rich to hear the complaints after what the DOJ has done to Republican members of Congress under Jack Smith,” Jordan told reporters.
Democrats and a handful of Republicans have blasted the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files, accusing them of withholding documents and making mistakes while redacting information to protect survivors and victims’ identities.
Democrats allege the DOJ only granted access to the files ahead of the hearing to gather information on what the members would be asking the attorney general when she appeared in front of the judiciary panel.
“She was aware of what we were looking at, or maybe somebody went back and retraced our steps and then told her what we might be asking about,” Raskin told the Washington Examiner. “I would have liked to have known what her preparations were like, but we didn’t have that.”
Some Republicans are not pleased with the possibility that the DOJ is surveilling members of Congress.
“It makes me want to go there and search some outrageous things, just to stick it to them, because if that’s how they want to operate,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told the Washington Examiner. “I just, I’m not a big fan of that.”
Mace told the Washington Examiner the DOJ is “physically tagging” documents searched by members of Congress with their names.
“It makes you wonder why they’re doing it,” Mace said.
“I didn’t like it, and I found it disturbing and intimidating, but you know, it won’t stop me,” Mace told the Washington Examiner. “Yeah, let them know, you know, but they should have let members know and disclose that going into it, and they didn’t.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he hadn’t seen the reports of Bondi keeping tabs on members’ searches, so he didn’t want to comment on “an allegation that is unsubstantiated.” But, he did say it “would be inappropriate” if the department had, in fact, looked through Jayapal’s search records.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said he would have a “serious conversation with Mike Johnson” about the situation.
“My Republican colleagues should be denouncing it, but they will not, because they are simply reckless rubber stamps for Donald Trump’s extreme behavior,” Jeffries told reporters. “Pam Bondi and the corrupt hacks at the Trump Justice Department are partisan, pathetic, pitiful, petulant, petty foggers. That’s who they are. That was on full display in that disgraceful performance.”
Other Republicans have been quick to brush off the allegations, including President Donald Trump, who vehemently backed Bondi.
“AG Pam Bondi, under intense fire from the Trump Deranged Radical Left Lunatics, was fantastic at yesterday’s Hearing on the never ending saga of Jeffrey Epstein, where the one thing that has been proven conclusively, much to their chagrin, was that President Donald J. Trump has been 100% exonerated of their ridiculous Russia, Russia, Russia type charges,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who is leading the congressional push to bring all of the information on Epstein to light, told the Washington Examiner he’s concerned about the surveillance but it’s not his main focus.
“It is a concern, but the focus here has to be on the survivors. … I heard from survivors who were just hopeless after that hearing, because they don’t see the focus being on going after the [perpetrators], they see political games,” Khanna said.
“It’s wrong,” he added, but “I’ll let other people deal with it.”
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), ranking member of the oversight committee, said the Bondi hearing proved “we can’t trust the DOJ is providing accurate information at this point.”
SEVEN TAKEAWAYS FROM BONDI’S FIERY HOUSE TESTIMONY
“The fact that they’re engaged in searching and providing a forum for members to look through the documents, tracking what we’re actually looking for, is disturbing, and quite frankly, it’s corrupt,” Garcia told the Washington Examiner.
“What are they hiding? What are they showing us? What are they redacting? Why are they tracking us? It should concern everybody.”
