Democratic members of Congress walked out of a closed-door Justice Department briefing Wednesday about files tied to Jeffrey Epstein, and said they will press to compel Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions under oath. Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had come to Capitol Hill to try to address bipartisan frustration over the handling of millions of pages of documents from the Epstein sex-trafficking investigation. Less than an hour into the session, Democrats left in protest and said they will move to enforce an existing subpoena that would require Bondi to give a sworn deposition next month. Lawmakers said Bondi repeatedly declined to commit to complying with the subpoena.
Democratic lawmakers said they want sworn testimony because they do not trust Bondi’s assurances. Republicans on the panel dismissed the walkout as political theater, saying Bondi and Blanche provided substantive answers and that Bondi stated she would follow the law regarding the subpoena. The Republican-led committee accused Democrats of staging a partisan stunt rather than seeking justice for survivors.
Justice Department officials had hoped that releasing the records would quiet controversy that has dogged the administration, but the agency continues to face criticism over how it managed the files. Bondi defended the department’s work and accused Democrats of using the episode to divert attention from President Trump’s political successes, even as some criticism has come from members of his own party.
The House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena for Bondi to appear April 14 to address questions about the Epstein case and the investigative records. Lawmakers contend the department has withheld too many documents and has made careless redactions that exposed intimate details about victims.
The Justice Department called the subpoena unnecessary, noting that members of Congress have been offered the chance to review unredacted files at the department and that agency leaders have made themselves available. DOJ officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence in the released records to support prosecutions of additional people at this time, but they maintain investigators stand ready to act on credible new information. Blanche defended the department’s current efforts and rejected the idea that officials have ignored Epstein’s victims.
The documents were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed after months of pressure to open files on Epstein and his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell. After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress, the department deployed hundreds of lawyers to review records for necessary redactions. In January, DOJ released more than 3 million pages of documents along with over 2,000 videos and roughly 180,000 images.
