A bipartisan group of senators is demanding a fresh probe into embattled Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files.
Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, and Dick Durbin of Illinois have joined forces with Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to ask the Government Accountability Office on Wednesday to investigate the Justice Department’s controversial efforts.
The bipartisan group is demanding answers regarding its partial release, which they think contravenes the Epstein Transparency Act, a law signed by President Donald Trump that required the disclosure of all possible files by a certain date.
While the Justice Department has released millions of documents so far, it missed the December deadline, and many additional Epstein file entries have yet to be made public.
In an open letter shared Wednesday morning, the lawmakers also criticized Bondi’s department for failing to redact victims’ names in some instances and for withholding the names of associates of the late sex offender that they argue should be identified.
It comes after Bondi, 60, faced bipartisan calls to testify about how she has handled the saga.
The new cross-party missive provides a fresh headache for Bondi, who will already be sweating after Trump axed Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem following her own hatchet job and the resulting humiliation before the House Judiciary Committee.
The group of lawmakers asked the GAO, an independent agency that is part of the legislative branch, to look at the botched handling of the files and particularly how “the resulting failure of the Department to follow the law, respond to Congress and protect victims.”
They ask specifically about how many people were tasked with reviewing and redacting the files. This appears to relate to various reports that stated victims’ identities were left unobscured in some cases, whilst nudity and others’ personal details were also visible.
This sloppy job was nearly the opposite of how information regarding some powerful people was treated, they argued. “Contrary to Congress’s explicit directive to protect victims, these records included email addresses and nude photos in which the names and faces of publicly-identified and non-public victims could be identified,” the senators wrote.
“But when it came to information identifying powerful business and politics figures who are alleged co-conspirators or material witnesses, DOJ appears to have heavily redacted those records.”
Their assessment follows similar cross-party criticism. Last month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the DOJ of “a massive coverup” to protect President Trump and Epstein’s most powerful associates.
On the other side of the aisle, South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace has become a vocal critic of Bondi’s handling of the files, which, early on in her tenure as AG, she claimed were “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
Mace, who calls herself a sexual abuse survivor, risked Trump’s ire by, like Schumer, accusing his Justice Department of a “cover-up.”
“The Epstein case is one of the greatest cover-ups in American history. His global sex trafficking network is larger than what is being revealed,” she wrote on X last week as Bondi was subpoenaed by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee.
It passed 24-19, with bipartisan support. Mace was joined by Democrats and fellow Republicans Tim Burchett, Michael Cloud, Lauren Boebert, and Scott Perry.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
