type: timeline_event
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on February 11, 2026, Attorney General Pam Bondi was photographed by Reuters and Agence France-Presse with a document in her binder titled "Jayapal Pramila Search History." The sheet listed at least eight different files from DOJ's Epstein records database that Representative Pramila Jayapal had searched two days earlier in the DOJ reading room, including file numbers and content descriptions. Jayapal confirmed in an NPR interview that the listed searches corresponded exactly to ones she had made.
Jayapal stated: "It is totally inappropriate and against the separations of powers for the DOJ to surveil us as we search the Epstein files. Bondi showed up today with a burn book that held a printed search history of exactly what emails I searched. That is outrageous and I intend to pursue this and stop this spying on members." She raised the possibility that DOJ granted congressional access specifically to gather intelligence on potential lines of questioning: "Is this the whole reason they opened [the files] up to us two days early? So they could essentially surveil members to see what we were going to ask her about?"
DOJ defended the surveillance, stating it "logs all searches made on its systems to protect against the release of victim information." However, lawmakers were never informed their individual search histories would be compiled, tracked, and provided to the Attorney General for use in congressional hearings. House Speaker Mike Johnson issued a rare rebuke: "I think members should obviously have the right to peruse those at their own speed and with their own discretion and I don't think it's appropriate for anybody to be tracking that." Republican Representative Thomas Massie suggested the "most charitable" explanation was DOJ wanted to "improve their service," but said this view "is undercut by Bondi carrying with her a list of Jayapal's search terms at the hearing where she clearly was prepared with oppo research." The incident reveals DOJ's weaponization of ostensible transparency mechanisms as surveillance and intimidation tools against congressional oversight.