Democrats on the House Oversight Committee listed five new demands for Attorney General Pam Bondi to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The panel's Democratic minority walked out of a closed-door hearing with Bondi on Wednesday, saying she refused to commit to following a subpoena to testify next month. The following day, they sent the attorney general a letter accusing her of breaking and obstructing the law signed by President Donald Trump as part of an ongoing cover-up.
"From the start, DOJ failed to comply with the law," the Oversight Democrats wrote. "DOJ has withheld 3 million pages; redacted or withheld entirely hundreds of thousands of pages based on privileges expressly rejected by Congress in the EFTA; and released thousands of pages with survivors’ names, photos, and personal information visible to the public."
"Every day since these documents were first released, journalists, survivors, and members of the public have identified additional documents DOJ unlawfully redacted or withheld," they added. "Survivors have been forced to comb through the files to ensure their identities or likenesses were not revealed, and while doing so, many have confirmed that their witness interviews are not present in the files. [FBI summaries] have been mysteriously absent, and documents which appear to reflect allegations against co-conspirators are simply missing, while other documents are taken down from the DOJ website without explanation."
Democrats complained that Bondi prohibits lawmakers from seeing unredacted versions of documents or taking notes on their own paper, and they asked for five meaningful changes to the review process that would comply with the law Congress passed overwhelmingly last fall.
"First, provide Members of Congress with access to the full Epstein files," they wrote. "This includes the roughly 3 million files DOJ has withheld as duplicative or otherwise, and those that have not been uploaded to the database."
"Second, ensure that records available to Members of Congress are fully unredacted," they continued. "This will necessitate fulfilling the command in the EFTA to provide all files, including original unredacted copies of documents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that remain redacted in your database."
"Third, DOJ must provide a reasonable number of computers accessible on Capitol grounds," they demanded. "Members must be able to access these computers without restriction. We can discuss the exact number that will meet our oversight needs."
"Fourth, access must be provided for a select number of congressional staff identified by the Chairman and Ranking Member of the committees of jurisdiction; namely, the House Committee on the Judiciary, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs," the Democrats added.
"Fifth, there can be no monitoring, tracking, or recording of Members’ searches or communications, under any circumstances," their demands concluded. "We are happy to work with DOJ on a process that ensures that only Members and authorized staff have access to the room where the computers are located."
