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Five Republicans joined all Democrats in attendance on the GOP-led House Oversight Committee in passing a motion to subpoena U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify on the administration\u2019s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s vote means Bondi could soon be in front of the same committee that grilled former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over their ties to Epstein last week. The motion was proposed by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and supported by Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Michael Cloud (R-TX), and Scott Perry (R-PA), along with every Democrat who was present for a 24-19 vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cAG Bondi will testify about missing Epstein evidence. The videos, the audio, the documents the DOJ is hiding,\u201d Mace said<\/a>. \u201cThe American people deserve transparency. Survivors deserve justice. We\u2019re delivering both. Accountability is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n It would not be the first time for Bondi to testify under oath about her handling of the Epstein case. The attorney general faced numerous questions from Democrats and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last month. Bondi blasted Democrats\u2019 focus on the Epstein case as a \u201ccircus.\u201d<\/p>\n Bondi has faced intense scrutiny since she suggested last year that Epstein\u2019s so-called client list was sitting on her desk, but later clarified that she was referring to a file on the Epstein case, not an actual client list. When the Justice Department closed its investigation into Epstein in July, it said that it found no evidence of a client list.<\/p>\n The Justice Department has also been criticized for its messy rollout of the millions of documents and tens of thousands of images related to the Epstein case. After the final file dump in late January, the Justice Department scrambled to remove unredacted nude images of young women. Other files had to be removed because they revealed personal information of people, which should have been redacted, including full names and addresses.<\/p>\n After the final Epstein document dump in January, the Justice Department took down more than 47,000 files, which made up around 65,000 total pages, as it worked to redact sensitive information. While those files contain some of the sensitive photos and information that should have been redacted, it\u2019s unclear why most of the 65,000 pages continue to be held by the Trump administration. Mace accused the Justice Department of hiding the missing 65,000 pages.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re gonna be talking about real, substantive issues, like the 65,000 documents that are being hidden by the DOJ right now,\u201d Mace said<\/a> after voting to subpoena Bondi.<\/p>\n Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said<\/a> before the vote, \u201cLook, the American public has significant questions about the DOJ and the process for releasing of the files. \u2026 I think it\u2019s important that [Bondi] is in front of our committee, she can directly answer questions about the release of the files, about transparency, about ensuring that victims and survivors are protected.\u201d<\/p>\n After the Clintons were deposed last week, Democrats called for the committee to subpoena President Donald Trump, arguing that the Republican effort to grill the Clintons \u201cset a new precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n While Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein\u2019s crimes, the Epstein case has been a thorn in his administration\u2019s side for most of his second term. On Tuesday, Trump\u2019s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick agreed to testify before the Oversight Committee on his ties to Epstein.<\/p>\n