STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Elsewhere in today's program, we hear from Republican lawmaker Nancy Mace, who had a look at the unredacted Epstein files yesterday. Mace described going into a room at the Justice Department where it appeared the administration monitored her searches on a computer.
NANCY MACE: There is a tech person who logs you into the computer. They log you into the computer because they're giving you your own identification. They are tracking all of the documents that members of Congress open, and they're tracking everything that you do in that room.
INSKEEP: This description of Justice Department surveillance becomes all the more interesting when you see an image from yesterday's congressional hearing. A Reuters photographer captured Attorney General Pam Bondi holding a document labeled, quote, "Jayapal Pramila search history" - last name first there. The document had a list of what appeared to be individual Epstein file searches. She had it in hand while sidestepping questions from Representative Pramila Jayapal, who is our next guest. Good morning.
PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What are your thoughts about that paper with your search history in the attorney general's hand?
JAYAPAL: Well, I think it's completely against the separation of powers. We are supposed to be able to, as lawmakers, go in, review the files, take whatever we want from there, not be surveilled and spied on by the Department of Justice. And it's - that was my search history. It was much more extensive than that, but that was the first page. And she clearly came in prepared with that information. In fact, I think she probably opened it up to us on Monday, two days before the hearing, so she could see what we were going to search and ask her about. Totally unacceptable. And we've asked for, immediately, a change in the process so that the DOJ is not spying on us.
INSKEEP: House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about this. He said, I know nothing about it. Not going to comment on it. But if it happened, it's inappropriate. Are you getting any support from Republicans on that?
JAYAPAL: Yeah. I actually spoke to Mike last night about this, and I do think that there is bipartisan agreement that we should be able to review those files without the Department of Justice surveilling us. And that's exactly what she was doing, and I think she was doing it in preparation for the hearing. But also, I think they want to know what we're going to - what we're pulling up so that they can use it in some way. That was in her Burn Book. That's what we call that binder with all the opposition research against us that she kept trying to insult different members of Congress with. And I think that she - you know, I think there is bipartisan support to say this cannot continue to happen, and we need a whole new process for how we review these files and who tracks, you know, any of this.
INSKEEP: Just so I understand - and he'll speak for himself - but did you understand Speaker Johnson to be on board with taking some kind of action here?
JAYAPAL: Well, I think I'll just - I won't say what he said to me, but I'll just say what he said in the public quote. And I showed him and told him exactly what had happened and that the search was my search, and it clearly was surveilling.
INSKEEP: Now, you raised in the hearing the failure to redact the names of victims and then the redaction of other people who are in the files, one of them a man named Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. As far as I could tell, you didn't get an answer about that particular case, but you brought it up in any case. What draws that particular redaction to your attention?
JAYAPAL: Well, the point I was trying to make is that the Transparency Act that we passed in Congress specifically said you have to redact the private information of survivors and you have to not redact the private information, the personal information of any potential predators or co-conspirators. And that's clearly what that email indicated, is that there was a powerful person who was being protected. He happened to - as I mentioned in my remarks, he happened to also be somebody with financial ties to Donald Trump and personal ties to Steve Bannon. And so I wanted to get her answer about why she was violating - allowing the violation of the law in both these instances, the nonredaction of that personal information of survivors and then the redaction of powerful people that she seemed to be protecting. She didn't want to answer that question.
The most important thing to me was getting her to turn around to the survivors and apologize to them because the harm is irreparable. That information is out there now. Nude photographs are out there. Even if the Department of Justice redacts that, that does not bring justice to the survivors. And, you know, it was just stunning to me that she refused to turn to them and take responsibility for what her Department of Justice had done to re-traumatize these survivors.
INSKEEP: In the absence of an answer from the Justice Department, I want to understand what you suppose happened here, what you suspect or surmise happened here. Are you saying that you think Justice Department lawyers or somebody else went through the Epstein files looking for names that might be sensitive for the president and tried to redact them?
JAYAPAL: Yes. I am absolutely saying that because it - there were too many instances where you saw that happen. It was a pattern of redactions. And on the other side, it was a pattern of not redacting victims' names that I think was meant to intimidate survivors who did try to come forward, because there was a list of 32 survivors. You could have said that that was a mistake - that everything was not redacted - except that there was one name on that list that was redacted. And the title of the email was Epstein Survivors - Victims List. Epstein Victims List.
INSKEEP: So somebody clearly got a look at that. It's not like they didn't...
JAYAPAL: That's right.
INSKEEP: ...Look at the document.
JAYAPAL: Exactly.
INSKEEP: I want to put you in conversation in a sense with Nancy Mace, who we heard from elsewhere. She clearly agrees with you that she was surveilled in some way, or she thinks so. But she also would push back, perhaps, on some of what you're saying. She alleged in the interview - she alleges in the interview here on NPR that this matter has been politicized, that she feels Trump specifically was exonerated by the files that we have seen so far and that the left, as she puts it, is just wanting to score political points. Do you?
JAYAPAL: No. I think that what we want is a full investigation of everyone. Trump is certainly in the files a lot. He clearly had close associations with Epstein. But listen. I think that every single person in here, Democrat or Republican, should be investigated, because there's a lot. I mean, there - this was a big ring of people, and I don't think it was limited to one party. But I do think that Donald Trump tried to use this as a political issue in his campaign, and then found out that he was all over the files and has fought us every step of the way. Had he just at the beginning said, yes, let's release the files - let's go after these people - but that is not what happened.
INSKEEP: In about 20 seconds, did you ultimately gain anything, learn anything from that hearing yesterday?
JAYAPAL: I mean, I think what I learned is how much Pam Bondi was playing to an audience of one, and that was Donald Trump. She's not the people's lawyer. She's still acting as Trump's personal attorney and turning the Department of Justice into a revenge unit rather than being the lawyer for the people. And I think that was important for the country to see.
INSKEEP: Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State. Thanks very much, as always.
JAYAPAL: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: She is on the House Judiciary Committee, the top Democrat on the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.
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