U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi takes her seat before testifying before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 11, 2026.
Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images
Attorney General Pam Bondi at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday seemed to have a printout of Rep. Pramila Jayapal's history of searches of the Department of Justice's database of documents related to the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Photos of a black binder that Bondi had at the hearing showed the words "Jayapal Pramila Search History" and a list of documents whose numbers coincide with the number of Epstein files.
Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, and other members of Congress have visited the DOJ in recent days to view documents related to Epstein that are not available to the public.
Jayapal blasted Bondi in a post on X on Wednesday evening.
"It is totally inappropriate and against the separations of powers for the DOJ to surveil us as we search the Epstein files," Jayapal wrote.
"Bondi showed up today with a burn book that held a printed search history of exactly what emails I searched," the congresswoman said.
"That is outrageous and I intend to pursue this and stop this spying on members."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., when asked by MS Now if Bondi's alleged action was appropriate, at first said, "I'm not going to comment on an allegation that is unsubstantiated. I don't know anything about it."
"I haven't seen or heard anything about that, but that would be inappropriate if it happened," Johnson said.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi holds a piece of paper labelled "Jayapal Pramila Search History", in reference to U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, during the committee's hearing on oversight of the Justice Department, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 11, 2026.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
Jayapal earlier during Wednesday's hearing had a contentious exchange with Bondi after asking survivors of Epstein's abuse — who were in the room — to stand and indicate if they had been unable to meet with the DOJ.
Multiple women stood and raised their hands.
"I'm not gonna get in the gutter for her theatrics," Bondi said when Jayapal asked her to apologize to the victims for the DOJ's failure to fully redact their names when the files were released to the public.
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Jayapal later spoke with MS Now, and raised the possibility that the DOJ had given access to the full Epstein files to members of Congress to gather information about possible lines of questioning at the hearing.
"Is this is [the] whole reason they opened [the files] up to us two days early? So they could essentially surveil members to see what we were gonna ask her about?" Jayapal told the news outlet.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to CNBC when asked if Bondi had a printout of the congresswoman's search history, why she might have had it, or if the DOJ kept track of searches by other members of Congress.
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