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A photograph taken during U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s combative appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday suggests that the Justice Department has been tracking the search history of lawmakers who are combing through the unredacted Epstein files.
As Bondi launched into various tirades against lawmakers, photojournalists managed to snag a picture of her notes, showcasing that her paperwork included the search history of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington). Jayapal was one of many lawmakers who visited the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week to determine the motivation behind the agency’s numerous alarming redaction errors in the rollout of the Epstein files, which improperly revealed the identities of dozens of Epstein’s victims while concealing the names of many of his associates.
The paper in Bondi’s binder included a list of at least eight documents that Jaypal had examined from the Epstein files, including file numbers and descriptions.
In an appearance on MS NOW Wednesday evening, Jayapal said her team is in the process of reaching out to the DOJ to determine why she is being tracked, and if other lawmakers’ search histories are being surveilled, too.
“For us to go in and review the Epstein documents, and then to know that they have kept the search history of exactly what we searched for — and why was it that she brought that in her binder?” Jayapal asked in the interview. “Was she going to use that against me? Did they get that document for every single person? And what were they going to do with it?”
Jayapal added that a new process is needed “where we know that the Department of Justice is not spying on us, as members of Congress.”
Indeed, at the hearing on Wednesday, Bondi was hostile toward committee members, refusing to answer many of their questions and at times instigating vitriolic yelling matches. She also admonished lawmakers for refusing to “apologize” to or “thank” President Donald Trump, whom she described as being “the greatest president in American history,” despite data showing that most Americans believe otherwise.
Some news reports noted that Bondi’s responses appeared to be a “performance…targeted specifically for Trump” rather than genuine attempts to answer the congressional committee’s questions on the Epstein files.
Bondi’s responses often included non sequiturs alluding to Trump’s supposed greatness — at one point, she demeaned lawmakers for failing to recognize the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a topic that had nothing to do with the hearings, let alone her role as attorney general.
In one telling moment, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-New York) asked Epstein survivors who were present at the hearing to stand up and raise their hands if they had attempted to speak with the DOJ — all in attendance did so. When he asked them to raise their hands if they have actually been able to meet with the department, all kept their hands down. All of the victims present also agreed that they felt ignored by Bondi and the DOJ.
As that scene unfolded, Bondi sat with her arms crossed, refusing to look in the direction of the victims.
Jayapal continued to sound the alarm on Bondi’s apparent spying efforts in an interview with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! on Thursday.
“The Department of Justice should not be able to spy on us. We should be able to look at those files without anybody knowing what we searched and without that being used against us in some way,” Jayapal said.
“It’s certainly not going to stop me from continuing to review the files, but it is absolutely outrageous, and it has to stop, and we need a new procedure,” she added.
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