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Top officials in President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) briefed the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday to aid Congress’ ongoing Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche were on Capitol Hill late Wednesday afternoon for a closed-door meeting with House lawmakers, who said they had questions regarding the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the Epstein case and the agency’s compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It comes a day after committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., subpoenaed Bondi for a sworn deposition in connection with the probe, to take place April 14.
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Following the closed-door hearing, which some Democrats called “fake” and walked out of, Bondi said that she had made it “crystal clear” that she would follow the law and comply with the subpoena. Bondi also responded to questions about her handling of the Epstein case, telling reporters “we did our very best to comply with the law.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi conducts a news conference at the Department of Justice on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“We had 30 days to redact and release under the law that was passed 3 million documents. If you stack those up, that’s the height of the Eiffel Tower,” Bondi said. “No other administration — under the Biden administration they released zero documents. So we did our very best to comply with the law. And of course, we don’t want any victim to be further victimized.”
“We said from the beginning that any mistakes that were made — and there should be no mistakes,” added Blanche after the hearing completed. “We took pains to protect victims. When someone identified that there was a victim, we immediately pulled that document down, fixed it and put it back up.”
Meanwhile, when asked if she regretted any steps taken throughout the process dealing with the Epstein case, Bondi returned to her earlier remarks about how the case languished under former administrations and reiterated how she and her colleagues at the DOJ “did our very, very best to protect” the identities of Epstein victims.
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The Department of Justice released a trove of Epstein documents on Dec. 19 following Trump’s signature on the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November 2025. (Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Both the House and Senate voted in near-unanimous fashion late last year to compel the DOJ to make public all of its files related to Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
On Jan. 30, the DOJ announced it had released all required documents, but some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pushed back on that claim. A DOJ spokesperson also panned the subpoena in a statement to Fox News on Tuesday.
“This subpoena is completely unnecessary. Lawmakers have been invited to view the unredacted files for themselves at the Department of Justice, and the Attorney General has always made herself available to speak directly with members of Congress,” the spokesperson said. “She continues to have calls and meetings with members of Congress on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which is why the Department offered to brief the committee tomorrow.”
Comer’s subpoena came after a vote by five Republicans and all Democrats on the committee earlier this month, initiated by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after a closed-door deposition with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and confidante of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 9, 2026. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
Mace said in a statement after Comer followed through on the subpoena, “We moved to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi because the Department of Justice has not complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. They claim all files have been released. The facts say otherwise. Key evidence remains hidden from the public and from victims seeking justice.”
The committee’s months-long probe has seen lawmakers hear from figures on both sides of the aisle and non-political players within Epstein’s inner circle.
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Last month, the panel deposed former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in their hometown of Chappaqua, New York. Lawmakers also recently heard from Richard Kahn, Epstein’s former longtime accountant. Ex-Trump Attorney General Bill Barr and former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta also appeared before the panel.
Following the closed-door hearing Wednesday evening, Bondi also slammed Democrat complaints about the hearing, telling reporters that Democrats were given “as much time as they wanted” to ask her questions after pleading for answers from her on social media all day prior.
“We were there to answer questions. It’s the evening – we came at their convenience. We gave them really as much time as they wanted. And one congresswoman screamed – C-SPAN wasn’t in there, so she didn’t want to ask questions, yet all day long they’ve been on social media saying they had all these questions,” Bondi told reporters. “We sat there saying, anything you want to ask us, ask us anything you want to ask us, and they screamed C-SPAN wasn’t there one of them, and then they stormed out of the meeting.”
