(Washington) Democratic elected officials in the US Congress on Thursday condemned the Trump administration’s monitoring of their research carried out at the Department of Justice into documents from the Epstein file which have not yet been made public.
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“It is completely inappropriate and against the separation of powers for the Department of Justice to monitor us while we look into the Epstein file,” said elected Democrat Pramila Jayapal.
Several elected officials have obtained access since this week to the unredacted documents from the file on the sex criminal, who died in prison in 2019. They were able to consult them at the Department of Justice, which confirmed in a press release to AFP that the research carried out by the elected officials was recorded.
During a hearing Wednesday before a committee of the House of Representatives, the Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi, came with several documents, at least one of which included the research carried out by this deputy, an AFP photo showed.
“It’s scandalous,” said Pramila Jayapal on X.
For the leader of the Democratic minority in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, this follow-up is not “surprising”.
PHOTO J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Minority Leader in the House of Representatives
“There are no limits for the Trump administration, for Pam Bondi, and for the other bootlickers who are part of this corrupt administration,” the official thundered during a press conference Thursday.
Asked by AFP, the Department of Justice affirmed through a spokesperson that this recording of searches carried out by elected officials on the department’s computers had been carried out “in order to protect against the disclosure of information on the victims”.
On the right, some Donald Trump loyalists have also expressed their rejection of this follow-up carried out by the administration.
“I think members (of Congress) should obviously have the right to go through (the documents) at their own pace, and according to their own judgment,” said Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone to follow this,” he added to the press, even if he felt that it was surely an “overlook” by the department.
During Pam Bondi’s hearing on Wednesday, Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee accused her of “covering up” the Epstein affair and of having transformed her department into an “instrument of revenge” for Donald Trump.
The Republican’s government is once again facing accusations of lack of transparency after the publication at the end of January of millions of pages of the file of sex criminal Jeffrey. Several elected officials notably criticized on Wednesday the fact that the names of Jeffrey Epstein’s possible accomplices had been redacted, contrary to what is required by a law promulgated in November.
