Did Bondi spy on Democrats’ search history of unredacted Epstein Files? Rep. Raskin calls it ‘outrageous abuse of power’

Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a prominent House Democrat, is alleging that Attorney General Pam Bondi “spied” on her online searches while she was reviewing documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.

The accusation comes after Bondi was seen at a contentious congressional hearing on Wednesday holding what appeared to be a record of the lawmaker’s search history.

Rep. Jamie Raskin released a statement regarding the Trump Department of Justice's (DOJ’s) alleged monitoring of Democrats’ search history for unredacted Epstein documents.

During the hearing, one of the printouts Bondi referred to was labelled “Jayapal Pramila Search History". According to photos taken by journalists covering the session, the document included at least eight files from the Justice Department’s collection of Epstein records, showing their file numbers along with brief descriptions of their contents, reported CBS News.

Jayapal demanded that Bondi apologise to Epstein survivors for not protecting their personal information and asked those survivors attending the hearing to raise their hands if they had not yet met with the Justice Department.

Jayapal is not the only Democrat in Congress to question the Justice Department's system for accessing the Epstein files.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia described earlier Wednesday that lawmakers were limited to four computers in a very small room, each with a unique login and password. He noted that phones were prohibited and that only handwritten notes in a separate notepad were allowed. Subramanyam told The Parnas Perspective, the streaming show hosted by Aaron Parnas, that the setup seemed designed to make it as difficult as possible for lawmakers to piece together information.

In response, Bondi hit out at Biden-era Attorney General Merrick Garland for his handling of the Epstein case, adding, “I'm not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics.”

What did Rep. Jamie Raskin say?

Raskin slammed the DOJ and Bondi, accusing them of illegally withholding documents from Congress and the public, failing to pursue any indictments against Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell’s co-conspirators, and allegedly monitoring members of Congress as they carried out oversight duties, describing it as a further intrusion into congressional oversight.

“It is an outrage that DOJ is tracking Members’ investigative steps undertaken to ensure that DOJ is complying with the Epstein File Transparency Act and using this information for the Attorney General’s embarrassing polemical purposes,” Jaskin said, the report noted.

He added, “DOJ must immediately cease tracking any Members’ searches, open up the Epstein review to senior congressional staff, and publicly release all files—with all the survivors’ information, and only the survivors’ information, properly redacted—as required by federal law.”

Raskin further said that he plans to request the DOJ Inspector General launch an investigation into what he called an “outrageous abuse of power,” and urged that the revelation about the Attorney General’s conduct be used as an opportunity to fully reassess the handling of the Epstein case.