US Lawmakers Threaten Pam Bondi With Contempt Prosecution Over Unpublished Epstein Documents

Two US lawmakers have threatened to sue US Attorney General Pam Bondi after her deadline to release all government records related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was only partially met.

The release of the Department of Justice (DoJ) documents was eagerly awaited, but in the end, only a portion of the available documents were made public.

One of the leading campaigners on the issue, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, said he might try to bring contempt proceedings against the attorney general as a result.

The DoJ insists it is following its legal obligations, and Bondi herself has said she is part of “the most transparent administration in American history.”

In addition to Massie’s decision in the House, the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, announced his own effort to pressure the DoJ.

On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Schumer said he would introduce a resolution in the Senate to take his own legal action against the Trump administration for failing to fully disclose the records and “to hold the Justice Department accountable.”

The matter will be considered at the next meeting of the Upper House in January. Schumer called for support from Republican senators, emphasizing that the legislation to release the entire treasury was a bipartisan effort.

The term “Epstein files” refers to the trove of information gathered by the U.S. Department of Justice during its two criminal investigations into Epstein.

A law demanding the release of the entire treasure was signed by US President Donald Trump in November, under pressure from his supporters and members of his own Republican Party. Friday was the deadline for publishing the material.

Although some documents were released, numerous redactions were made and other information was withheld — which angered Massie and her allies, as well as survivors of Epstein’s abuse. Trump himself has yet to comment.

The DoJ said more documents would follow in the coming weeks.

But speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Massie suggested the Justice Department was “disregarding the spirit and letter of the law.”

He added: “The quickest, and I think the quickest, way to get justice for these victims is to bring an inherent contempt filing against Pam Bondi, and that doesn’t require going to court.”

Inherent contempt is a little-used legal remedy that can be used by either the Senate or the House of Representatives – the upper and lower houses of Congress, respectively – and has not been invoked in nearly a century, according to the American Bar Association.

Massie added that “Ro Khanna and I are discussing this and drafting this right now,” referring to a Democratic congressman who also played a significant role in the campaign to release the full Epstein files.

Speaking to the same programme, Khanna gave more details on how the contempt proceedings could work. “We are building a bipartisan coalition, and Pam Bondi would be fined for every day she fails to release these documents,” he said.

Unlike an impeachment attempt — another option that would theoretically be available to Bondi’s critics — the contempt ruling would only require the support of the House of Representatives, Massie pointed out in Sunday’s interview.

In an interview with another channel on Sunday, Bondi’s deputy, Todd Blanche, was defiant.

Asked by NBC News’ Meet the Press whether he took the threats from members of Congress seriously, the deputy attorney general replied: “Not even a little bit. Go ahead. We’re doing everything we’re supposed to do to comply with the law.”

Blanche underlined the scale of the task. “You’re talking about a million pages of documents,” he said. “Virtually all of them contain information about the victims.”

He continues: “And if by respecting the law we do not produce everything on Friday, we produce things next week and the week after, that is still respect for the law.”

Speaking on the same program, another member of Khanna’s party, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, said contempt or impeachment efforts would be “premature.”

“We have tools in appropriations bills and other tools to force compliance if someone is dragging their feet and I’d rather focus on those tools,” Kaine said.

Blanche said elsewhere on Sunday that some Epstein-related files initially released on Friday were later removed from its website by the Justice Department because of concerns raised by victims.

One of those files — an image depicting Trump — was later reinstated after review, Blanche said.