US attorney general displayed records of Congress members’ searches into Epstein files during House hearing
Members of Congress are calling for investigations after discovering the Department of Justice created records of their research activities while they dug into files connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
Photographs taken by Reuters during a congressional hearing on Wednesday showed the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, holding a document titled “Jayapal Pramila Search History”, listing files that the Democratic US representative Pramila Jayapal had accessed during her review of the Epstein materials.
Access to the unredacted Epstein materials became available to legislators earlier this week under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Several members of Congress are demanding that the justice department halt the tracking, alleging that the department has violated the separation of powers.
“It is an outrage that [the justice department] is tracking members’ investigative steps,” said Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, who announced he would ask the justice department inspector general to open an inquiry into what he called “this outrageous abuse of power”.
