Attorney General Pam Bondi takes her seat before testifying at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice on February 11, 2026, at the Capitol in Washington.
Robert Schmidt AFP | Getty Images
At Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared to have a printout of Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s search history of the Justice Department’s database of documents related to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A photo of a black binder held by Bondi at the hearing showed the words “Jayapal Pramila Search History” and a list of documents matching numbers in the Epstein file.
Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who serves on the Judiciary Committee, and other lawmakers have been visiting the Justice Department in recent days to view Epstein-related documents that are not available to the public.
Jayapal blasted Bondi in an X post Wednesday night.
“The Justice Department’s oversight of those of us investigating the Epstein files is completely inappropriate and contrary to the separation of powers,” Jayapal wrote.
“Bondi showed up today with a burn book that had a printout of the search history of the emails I searched,” the congressman said.
“It is outrageous and I intend to pursue this and stop spying on our members.”
Asked by MS Now whether Bondi’s alleged actions were appropriate, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) initially said, “I’m not going to comment on baseless allegations. I don’t know anything about it.”
“I’ve never seen or heard anything like that, but it would be inappropriate if it happened,” Johnson said.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi holds up a sign that reads “Jayapal Pramila Search History,” a reference to U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, during a committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 11, 2026.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
At the beginning of Wednesday’s hearing, Jayapal had a controversial exchange with Bondi after asking Epstein’s abuse victims in the room to stand up and indicate whether they were denied access to the Justice Department.
Several women stood up and raised their hands.
When asked by Jayapal to apologize to the victims for the Justice Department’s failure to fully redact their names when the files were released to the public, Ms. Bondi said, “I’m not going to get into a ditch because of her theatrics.”
Later, in an interview with MS Now, Jayapal raised the possibility that the Justice Department had given members of Congress access to the full Epstein files in order to gather information about possible questioning at the hearings.
“Is this the whole reason they released (the files) to us two days early? I mean, could they have been monitoring the members and knowing that we were going to question her?” Jayapal told the news outlet.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s questions about whether Bondi had a printout of the congressman’s search history, why he had it, or whether the Justice Department was recording the search history of other congressmen.
