DOJ logged members of Congress's search histories as they reviewed unredacted Epstein files

On February 12, 2026, it came to light that the Department of Justice had been logging and tracking the searches that members of Congress ran while reviewing unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files on DOJ systems. The disclosure followed a House Judiciary Committee hearing the prior day at which a printout titled "Jayapal Pramila Search History" — itemizing the specific records Rep. Pramila Jayapal had searched during her review — was photographed among Attorney General Pam Bondi's materials. Jayapal confirmed that the searches listed corresponded to ones she had made at the DOJ. In response to the ensuing uproar, the department acknowledged that it "logs all searches made on its systems," casting the practice as a measure to protect the information of Epstein's victims.

The reaction was bipartisan and pointed. Speaker Mike Johnson said the tracking of lawmakers' searches was not "appropriate," while Reps. Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, and Robert Garcia demanded the DOJ halt what they characterized as secret surveillance of members reviewing the files and establish a new review protocol. Critics noted that the department's letter authorizing the review had disclosed only that members' dates and times of access would be recorded, making no mention that individual search histories would be tracked, documented, or circulated — leaving lawmakers to discover the monitoring only when one member's history appeared in the Attorney General's hands at a public hearing. This event is distinct from the separately recorded DOJ withholding of pages from the public Epstein release.

This is recorded as an attack on legislative independence and an obstruction of congressional oversight. The executive branch's monitoring of which records individual legislators examined — and the surfacing of that monitoring at a hearing — chills and intimidates members conducting oversight of the very department under scrutiny, and impedes Congress's ability to review documents it is entitled to examine. The bipartisan objection underscores that this functioned not as a routine security control but as surveillance of the legislative branch by the executive it is charged with overseeing.