The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday to sit for a deposition about the Department of Justice’s handling of its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The panel voted 24-19 after Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) introduced a motion to subpoena Bondi, due to growing criticism of the DOJ’s release of the Epstein files and accusations that the agency removed tens of thousands of documents previously made public.
Four Republicans — Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Michael Cloud (R-TX), and Scott Perry (R-PA) — voted with Mace and all Democrats to subpoena Bondi.
Mace, who is running for governor of South Carolina this year, told reporters after the vote that Bondi has testified before the House Judiciary Committee, “but she’s not testified before me or the oversight committee.”
“I need to get to the bottom of this for the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, I have a lot more questions, and I don’t expect to be talking about the stock market, so she better not bring those notes when she comes to the oversight committee,” Mace said.
House oversight committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said during the panel’s hearing on Wednesday that Bondi offered to meet individually with lawmakers at the DOJ to discuss the investigation into Epstein and the release of the files.
Mace said, “That’s nice.”
The South Carolina Republican said that she opposed the attorney general’s proposal for individual meetings. She said such meetings would not require Bondi to be under oath, compared to a deposition. Mace insisted that a deposition would be more than “five minutes” and would be videotaped, transcribed, and released to the public.
No date has been set for Bondi to appear before the oversight panel.
The White House has tried to keep its distance from the Epstein files. President Donald Trump and his advisers had originally launched a pressure campaign to convince House Republicans not to vote in favor of measures to make all the files public. The White House eventually reversed course when it appeared that enough Republicans would vote with Democrats to make the documents public anyway.
Mace said she hadn’t spoken to the Trump administration about moving forward with the subpoena of Bondi.
HOUSE SINKS MACE’S PUSH TO MAKE ALL CONGRESSIONAL SEXUAL HARASSMENT RECORDS PUBLIC
“So I think to me, it doesn’t matter Republican or Democrat, current administration, previous administration, or a former prosecutor, current prosecutor,” Mace said. “To me, it doesn’t matter. This was going to go down as one of the greatest cover-ups in American history, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to put a stop to it.”
Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), and Jim Jordan (R-OH) did not vote on the motion to subpoena Bondi. Crockett lost the Democratic nomination to run for the Senate in Texas, conceding early Wednesday morning. She said in a post on X that she would be back in Washington to hear Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testify before the judiciary committee.