Bondi Announces New Epstein Investigation Days Before House Vote, Creating Cover for Redactions

On Friday, November 15, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced via X (formerly Twitter) that she had ordered a new federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political opponents, assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe. The announcement came just three days before the House was scheduled to vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 18, and hours after Trump publicly demanded the investigation on Truth Social. Bondi’s directive targeted Democratic figures including Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, and Reid Hoffman, despite the FBI concluding in July 2025 that it “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The timing of Bondi’s announcement raised immediate concerns about its true purpose. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), co-sponsor of the transparency bill, warned that the investigation “might be a big smokescreen…as a last-ditch effort to prevent the release of the Epstein files,” noting that “if they have ongoing investigations in certain areas, those documents can’t be released.” The Epstein Files Transparency Act contains an explicit exception allowing the Attorney General to withhold information that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution,” creating a legal mechanism for Bondi to justify massive redactions based on the newly announced probe.

Bondi’s November announcement represented a stunning reversal from her department’s July 2025 position. In July, the DOJ had formally closed its investigation into Epstein co-conspirators with a memo stating “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted” and that investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” When pressed in mid-November to explain what had changed, Bondi struggled to articulate a coherent rationale, offering only vague references to “information that has come for, um, information. There’s new information, additional information” without specifying what this new information consisted of or why it suddenly emerged just days before the transparency vote. The Daily Beast characterized her explanation as incoherent “word salad,” highlighting the lack of any substantive justification for the reversal.

The strategic timing of the announcement—announced on Friday November 15, three days before the Tuesday November 18 House vote—revealed its political nature. Trump had opposed the Epstein Files Transparency Act for months, with Speaker Mike Johnson sending the House home early in July 2025 to avoid a vote and keeping Congress closed for 50+ days during the government shutdown to prevent the discharge petition from succeeding. However, after the petition reached 218 signatures on November 12 (forcing a House vote), Trump reversed his opposition over the weekend of November 16-17, claiming “we have nothing to hide” and stating “I’m all for it” on Monday, November 17. The House subsequently voted 427-1 to pass the bill on Tuesday, November 18.

Legal experts and former prosecutors immediately recognized the investigation as a mechanism to obstruct transparency. Barbara McQuade, former U.S. Attorney, explained: “If there is a pending investigation, the DOJ can assert executive privilege and try to prevent any more documents from being released.” Stephen Saltzburg, a former DOJ official, characterized the investigation as a potential delay tactic, while Bruce Green, a former federal prosecutor, described the investigation itself as “illegitimate” given that prior prosecutors had found insufficient grounds for additional indictments. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) warned that “people who feel very strongly about this will feel like they’ve been duped” if the Justice Department claims “we can’t release anything because we have an active investigation.”

Bondi’s announcement also raised profound concerns about DOJ weaponization and erosion of prosecutorial independence. NPR described the episode as “the latest example of the erosion of the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House since Trump took office.” Rather than maintaining institutional independence by evaluating whether evidence warranted investigation, Bondi immediately complied with Trump’s public demand to investigate his political opponents within hours of his Truth Social post. Notably, none of the men Trump named—Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, or Reid Hoffman—have been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims, despite extensive victim testimony in multiple legal proceedings. The investigation exclusively targeted Democrats while omitting Republicans mentioned in the same document releases.

The episode exemplified how Trump weaponized the “active investigation” exception to create legal cover for redactions. By ordering an investigation just days before the transparency vote, Trump and Bondi manufactured a justification to withhold documents that the Epstein Files Transparency Act explicitly permits: materials that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation.” Even though the bill specified such withholding must be “narrowly tailored and temporary,” it left the determination of what meets this standard to Attorney General Bondi herself—the same official who announced the investigation at Trump’s direction. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers called on Bondi not to use the investigation to delay or obstruct file release, recognizing the transparent coordination between Trump’s directive and Bondi’s compliance to create legal cover for avoiding transparency about Trump’s own extensive Epstein connections.