WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) – A U.S. congressional committee said on Tuesday it has issued a subpoena to Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify behind closed doors in its probe of the late convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Under the subpoena, Bondi would give a sworn deposition to the House of Representatives Oversight Committee on April 14.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bondi faces accusations that the Justice Department has concealed the names of powerful associates of Epstein in its release of millions of documents related to the late financier, who cultivated close ties to powerful political and business leaders before and after he was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Epstein was arrested again in 2019 and died in jail while facing federal sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.
Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, are due to give the committee a separate private briefing on Wednesday.
Lawmakers have complained that redactions in the Justice Department’s files appear to go beyond the limited exemptions allowed in a law Congress passed nearly unanimously in November. The department has also declined to publish a large volume of material, citing legal privileges.
Bondi said more than 500 Justice Department lawyers worked on a compressed timeline to review reams of material.
The Epstein files have dogged Bondi throughout her tenure as Trump’s attorney general. Some of Trump’s supporters accused her of a coverup last year when the Justice Department said it would initially not release material related to its investigations of Epstein, drawing new scrutiny of Trump’s past friendship with him.
Trump says he broke off ties with Epstein years before his 2008 conviction and has repeatedly said he did not see any evidence of sex trafficking. He has not been accused by law enforcement authorities of criminal activity related to Epstein.
(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones, Susan Heavey and Andrew Goudsward; editing by Andy SullivanEditing by David Ljunggren)
