A group of House Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in voting to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi Wednesday as part of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a bipartisan rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to release the Epstein files.
Representative Nancy Mace (R., S.C.) led the push to subpoena Bondi and gained support from four GOP colleagues alongside all the Democrats present. The bipartisan 24-19 vote will compel Bondi to appear before the congressional panel to answer questions about the Epstein files.
Mace, who is a victim of sexual abuse herself, moved to subpoena Bondi because of her dissatisfaction with the Trump administration’s approach to releasing the Epstein files over the past few months.
“Three million documents have been released, and we still don’t have the full truth. Videos are missing. Audio is missing. Logs are missing. There are millions more documents out there. We want to know why the DOJ is more focused on shielding the powerful than delivering justice,” Mace said in a social media post.
GOP Representatives Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Michael Cloud (Texas), and Scott Perry (Penn.) — all considered MAGA stalwarts — joined Mace’s effort. Some corners of MAGA have criticized Bondi for how the Trump administration has handled the Epstein files over the course of Trump’s term.
Mace was one of the first Republicans to support bipartisan legislation last year to compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. The push ended up succeeding overwhelmingly after President Trump relented on his opposition and gave House Republicans permission to vote for the legislative effort.
Mace is also running for South Carolina governor in a competitive GOP primary where she has not received the coveted Trump endorsement. Mace has built her political brand on attention-grabbing social-media antics and high-profile fights, even within her own party.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed the Epstein files as a “hoax” conjured up by the Democratic Party. A friend of Epstein’s in the 1990s and early 2000s, Trump appears numerous times in the 3 million Epstein files the Justice Department has released. The Oversight Committee’s investigation also led to the release of files from Epstein’s estate, including a birthday card Trump appears to have written for Epstein’s 50th in 2003. Trump has called the birthday card fake and sued the Wall Street Journal for first reporting on it.
Authorities have not accused Trump of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. Trump stopped associating with Epstein well before Epstein’s 2008 conviction on state-level sex offenses in Florida. Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in Manhattan. The Trump administration has endorsed the official determination that Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell.
Trump’s friendship with Epstein was vaulted back into the spotlight after the administration’s initial decision last year not to release the Epstein files. Democrats seized on the issue and hammered Trump for the administration’s lack of transparency. The scrutiny eventually led to the Oversight Committee’s sweeping bipartisan investigation, which will soon feature testimony from Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell is the only person in Epstein’s orbit to have been convicted in the U.S. on charges related to their activities with him. Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in federal prison for sex trafficking. She invoked her Fifth Amendment rights in February when the Oversight Committee brought her in to testify.