The Department of Justice has been logging which documents members of Congress examine when they visit DOJ headquarters to review unredacted files from the Jeffrey Epstein case. Speaker Mike Johnson wants it stopped.
The surveillance came to light on Wednesday during Attorney General Pam Bondi's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, when a photograph of her research binder revealed a printed page cataloging the "Search History" of Rep. Pramila Jayapal. The binder sat open during a congressional hearing, meaning the DOJ wasn't just quietly tracking lawmakers' reading habits. It was bringing the receipts to Capitol Hill.
Johnson told reporters Thursday that the practice crosses a line.
"I don't think it's appropriate for anybody to be tracking that."
"Members should obviously have the right to peruse those at their own speed and with their own discretion."
He added that he would relay the concern directly to DOJ officials, suggesting the tracking was likely "an oversight."
According to Politico, a Justice Department spokesperson offered a tidy justification: the agency "logs all searches made on its systems to protect against the release of victim information." On its face, that sounds reasonable. Victim privacy matters.
But that explanation collapses the moment you ask the obvious follow-up question: Why was a specific lawmaker's search history printed out and tucked into the Attorney General's hearing prep binder?
Logging system activity for security purposes is standard IT governance. Compiling an individual congresswoman's search record and handing it to the AG before she faces that congresswoman's colleagues on the Judiciary Committee is something else entirely. The DOJ has not explained the gap between those two things.
This is the kind of institutional behavior that erodes trust between coequal branches of government. Congress passed the Epstein File Transparency Act. Members were invited to DOJ facilities this week, specifically to review materials from the federal case against Epstein that had not been scrubbed for public release. They showed up at the government's invitation, on government computers, to do the oversight work the law contemplates. And someone at DOJ decided to take notes on who looked at what.
Predictably, Democrats seized the moment to turn a legitimate separation-of-powers concern into campaign fodder. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, issued a statement:
"It is an outrage that DOJ is tracking Members' investigative steps undertaken to ensure that DOJ is complying with the Epstein File Transparency Act and using this information for the Attorney General's embarrassing polemical purposes."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries went further at his Thursday press conference, declaring that the tracking "does violate the principles of separate and coequal branches of government" before pivoting to the real purpose of his remarks:
"Of course, my Republican colleagues should be denouncing it, but they will not, because they simply are reckless rubber stamps for Donald Trump's extreme behavior."
Jeffries said he would follow up with Johnson to "make clear to him that his job is to defend this institution." He also tied the issue to the November midterm elections, suggesting that "accountability" would arrive at the ballot box if it didn't come sooner.
There's a pattern here worth noticing. Democrats spent years defending expansive surveillance powers, cheering on DOJ and FBI investigations of political figures they disliked, and treating executive branch intelligence activities as sacrosanct. Now that a DOJ search log surfaces with a Democrat's name on it, suddenly, the separation of powers is sacred again. The principle didn't change. The target did.
None of this means the underlying concern is wrong. Congressional oversight should not come with a surveillance receipt. But Jeffries's invoking "co-equal branches" while simultaneously framing every institutional question as a midterm talking point tells you where his priorities actually sit.
The Epstein files remain the story underneath the story. Congress fought to get these documents into the light. Members traveled to DOJ facilities to read materials the public hasn't seen. And the first major revelation to emerge from that process isn't about what's in the files. It's about the DOJ watching who reads them.
That should bother everyone, regardless of party. Oversight only works when legislators can investigate without the investigated agency looking over their shoulder and cataloging their curiosity. The chilling effect is obvious: if members know their specific searches are being logged, compiled, and potentially weaponized in hearings, some will think twice about digging into sensitive material. That's not a bug. It's a feature for anyone who'd prefer those files stay buried.
Johnson called it an oversight. Maybe it was. But oversights don't usually end up laminated in a hearing binder.
What matters now is whether the Speaker's disapproval translates into something concrete. A statement to reporters is a start. A formal directive ensuring that DOJ cannot track, compile, or disseminate records of congressional review activity would be a finish. The institution Johnson leads deserves that much.
The Epstein files exist because the public demanded transparency about how powerful people escaped accountability for monstrous crimes. If the price of reading those files is having your name end up on a government watchlist, transparency is just another word with no teeth behind it.