North American Democratic congressmen demanded on Thursday, February 12, the inspector general of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate what they consider to be “espionage” by the government regarding its research into the Epstein case.
Photographs from a heated session of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday show Attorney General Pam Bondi with a folder open to a page titled “Jayapal Pramila Search History,” listing a series of documents from the Epstein case that apparently were reviewed by this Democratic congresswoman.
Jayapal was one of the members of the Judiciary Committee who, this week, reviewed less censored versions of files on Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender who for decades had a close relationship with Donald Trump, in an annex and on Justice Department computers, of whom Bondi is a fierce defender, even referring to him at the hearing as “the best President in the history of the United States”.
In a statement, Congressman Jamie Raskin said the Justice Department not only withheld records from lawmakers, “but now Bondi and her team are spying on members of Congress performing oversight functions in yet another blatant attempt to interfere in Congress’ oversight processes.”
“The Department of Justice must immediately cease tracking any searches carried out by members of Congress, open the Epstein investigation to senior Congressional officials, and publicly release all files — with all victim information, and only victim information, properly redacted — as required by federal law,” said the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, also said on Thursday that he considers it not “appropriate” for the DOJ to monitor the searches carried out by members of Congress in unredacted files on Jeffrey Epstein, but that he believes that any surveillance of this type was an “lapse”.
“From what I understand, there are computers set up where the DOJ allowed access to files. And I think members of Congress should have the right to look at them at their own pace and at their own discretion,” said Johnson, an ally of Donald Trump. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone to be monitoring this,” the Republican leader continued. “So I reiterate this to anyone involved with the DOJ. And I’m sure it was an oversight. That’s my guess, okay?”
Congresswoman Nancy Mace, one of four elected Republicans who joined Democrats to force a vote on the release of the files, said on social media that she could confirm that the DOJ is indeed monitoring the activity of congressmen. Later, speaking to journalists about this monitoring, he said: “It’s scary.”
Erasing data that could allow the identification of Epstein’s victims, many of whom were minors at the time of the events, the Department of Justice announced last month the release of more than three million pages, in addition to more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images related to the investigations.
Some of the congressmen who have seen the documents have complained that much information about Epstein’s associates remains hidden.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, one of the committee members who pressed Bondi hardest during Wednesday’s hearing on the department’s handling of Epstein’s files, called the alleged spying “totally unacceptable” and said lawmakers “will demand a full accounting” of how the department is using search history.
“Bondi has plenty of time to spy on members of Congress, but can’t apologize to the victims of Epstein’s horrific abuse?” Jayapal said on X.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Pramila Jayapal asked Epstein’s victims sitting in the room to raise their hands if they had not met at any point with the Department of Justice: they all raised their hands.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, argued that the Trump administration fulfilled its obligation, imposed by a law passed in November by Congress, to ensure full transparency on this matter.
Trump defends Bondi
Donald Trump praised Attorney General Pam Bondi for her performance at the Congressional hearing, where she defended the President of the United States by aggressively responding to criticism from Republicans and Democrats over her handling of the Epstein case.
“Attorney General Pam Bondi, under intense pressure from raving lunatics and left-wing radicals who support Trump, was fantastic at the hearing [de quarta-feira] about the never-ending saga of Jeffrey Epstein,” the US president wrote in Truth Social.
During the heated discussion, in which she was pressured by several members of Congress, the attorney general insisted that Trump had no knowledge of her former friend’s crimes and defended the actions of her office, which released millions of documents related to the case after the approval of a transparency law in Congress.
“There is no evidence that Donald Trump committed any crime,” Bondi said to questions from Democrat Ted Lieu about the presence of underage girls at a party attended by the president and the late sexual attacker.
At the hearing, Bondi also launched personal attacks against congressmen such as Republican Thomas Massie, co-author of the law that forced the Department of Justice to release Epstein’s files and one of the most vocal defenders of transparency in the case, whom he called a “failed politician”.
Massie harshly criticized the prosecutor for the inadvertent disclosure, by the justice system, of the victims’ identities and the concealment of the identities of alleged accomplices.
On Truth Social, Trump reiterated his criticism of Massie, calling him “a loser and a hypocrite”, who, according to him, “made a fool of himself [na quarta-feira]aimlessly striving for a desperate agenda of hate and stupidity, as clearly demonstrated by the precipitous drop in his approval ratings for his work in the great commonwealth of Kentucky.”
“No one worried about Epstein while he was alive. They only worried when they thought he could cause political damage to a very popular president who saved our country from the brink of extinction — and very quickly!”, added the US president, highlighting that, “in fact, this attempt by Democrats to divert attention from the tremendous Republican success is failing spectacularly.”
with Lusa
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