A House committee voted Wednesday to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify about her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Five Republicans joined with all Democrats in support of a motion to call the nation’s top law enforcement official up to Capitol Hill for questioning, and the motion itself was offered by GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
It underscores the increasing frustration with Bondi among members of her own party, catalyzed in part by the Epstein saga.
The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment.
Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Michael Cloud of Texas were the other Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to break rank Wednesday afternoon.
Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) attempted to stave off the subpoena effort, saying Bondi’s chief of staff had told him the attorney general would be available to give member-level briefings around her department’s approach to the Epstein case.
But critics in both parties have accused Bondi of slow-walking the release of the Epstein files. It was her announcement that the DOJ would not make further information available in the Epstein matter that sparked outrage last summer, culminating in a vote by an Oversight subcommittee to force her hand.
In November, Congress passed legislation further demanding all materials in DOJ’s possession relating to the convicted sex offender be released. After a delay in publication of documents by the statutory deadline, the department announced earlier this year that it would be withholding millions of additional pages.
“We’re gonna be talking about real, substantive issues, like the 65,000 documents that are being hidden by the DOJ right now,” Mace told reporters Wednesday after the vote.
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