The US Congress is demanding answers from the Trump administration over its handling of the Epstein files after a congressional committee voted to call attorney general Pam Bondi to give evidence.
The House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee passed the motion by 24 votes to 19 on Wednesday.
Five Republican members backed it, reflecting the frustration some in Donald Trump’s party feel over how the justice department has approached the issue.
Their anger has been shared by sections of Mr Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) support base.
‘People want answers’
The department, which has not commented, released more than three million files relating to the activities of the convicted paedophile in January, including email exchanges, more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 pictures.
Being mentioned in the files does not indicate wrongdoing.
The move to call Ms Bondi to give evidence was led by Republican Nancy Mace, who posted on X: “The American people want answers on the Epstein files, and so do we.”
Ms Mace, a vocal advocate for sexual assault victims, recently tried unsuccessfully to force the publication of misconduct and harassment reports involving members of Congress.
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Epstein, a wealthy and well-connected financier, was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges and was found dead in his prison cell in August that year.
Ms Bondi, who gave binders of documents from the files to conservative influencers at the White House last year, has defended the department’s handling of the files and has accused Democrats of using the issue to distract from the achievements of the administration.
Former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, met the House Oversight Committee last month to discuss their own connections to Epstein from more than two decades ago.
Both have denied wrongdoing and knowledge of his crimes and called on others – including Mr Trump – to testify.
The justice department said in July that it had finished reviewing the files and decided that no Epstein “client list” existed and there was no reason to make additional files public.
That prompted widespread criticism, leading to Congress passing legislation demanding that the entire collection be released.
Last week, the justice department said it was investigating whether it had improperly withheld documents from the files.
