Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in the fall.
Bondi is expected to testify on Oct. 9, and Patel will appear before the committee on Sept. 17 as part of the committee’s general oversight over the Justice Department, the Washington Examiner confirmed.
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The testimonies come as the Trump administration is under scrutiny for its handling of the files related to the since-deceased and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department has delivered its first batch of files to the Oversight Committee, but conservatives in President Donald Trump’s MAGA base, as well as a sizable bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, are insisting that all the files be made public.
The fight over Epstein reached a fever pitch after the DOJ, long promising to release all the records related to Epstein, said in a two-page memo that there were no more documents to publish. That came despite Trump and many of his allies calling for the files to be released before the 2024 presidential election.
Congress is divided on how to best handle the Epstein files, with Republicans like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) calling on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to bring a bill to the floor that would release all the information related to the convicted child sex offender.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee are taking a different approach from Massie to obtain the Epstein files. The committee launched an investigation earlier this month and subpoenaed many people to testify, such as the Clintons, DOJ officials, and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and convicted sex offender in his trafficking scheme.
Johnson has insisted that there is “no daylight” between the House and the White House and suggested Congress should wait as the Trump administration asked courts to unseal grand jury testimony from both Epstein’s criminal cases and Maxwell’s 2021 indictment. So far, those requests have been denied.
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Maxwell’s deposition before the Oversight Committee was rescheduled from Aug. 11 as her petition to appeal her criminal conviction is to be considered by the Supreme Court on Sept. 29. She is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
Heading into September, eyes will be on Massie to see whether he will use a discharge petition to force a vote on his bill to release the files. Most, if not all, Democrats are expected to sign the petition, so Massie would only need a handful of GOP lawmakers to join. His bill already has several Republican co-sponsors, though the DOJ sending some of the files to the Oversight Committee may appease some lawmakers for the time being.