By Holmes Lybrand, Annie Grayer, Manu Raju, CNN
(CNN) — Attorney General Pam Bondi obtained Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s search history of the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files and even President Donald Trump’s most powerful ally in Congress has a problem with it.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday said the Justice Department’s tracking of lawmakers’ search history was inappropriate, a rare rebuke from the Republican who is usually in lockstep with the administration.
“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,” Johnson told CNN. “I will echo that to anybody involved in the DOJ.”
Johnson’s comments come after photographs of Bondi’s notes during a Wednesday congressional hearing revealed the Justice Department is tracking which documents lawmakers are reviewing in the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files, prompting some on Capitol Hill to sound the alarm.
CNN first reported the apparent surveillance from a photo taken of Bondi’s notes during her testimony, which included Jayapal’s “search history” of the documents, with a list of which files the congresswoman had searched.
Jayapal told CNN she did not know the Justice Department had surveilled her search until CNN contacted her Wednesday for comment on the matter.
“I think everyone should be concerned about this. It’s a violation of our separation of powers,” Jayapal said. “We should be able to look at any document we want and not feel like it’s going to be surveilled or used against us in any way. And this was just so obviously egregious.”
When Johnson initially called the allegation of DOJ tracking lawmakers’ search history “unsubstantiated” on Wednesday, Jayapal, who is close with the speaker from his days serving on the Judiciary panel, immediately called him to explain what happened.
“I said, ‘Mike, it’s real. That’s my search history exactly in the order that I searched it,’” Jayapal told CNN of her conversation with Johnson.
Lawmakers have been scheduling times this week to go into a Justice Department building in Washington, DC, to review unredacted versions of the files and have since pressured the Justice Department to unredact the names of individuals who were at one time considered as co-conspirators in Epstein’s crimes.
Lawmakers have not been allowed to bring phones or members of their staff into the building to review the documents and are limited to four computers set up with the unredacted files.
When Jayapal went into the room to view the unredacted Epstein files, a Justice Department employee logged her into one of the four computers available for lawmakers, the lawmaker said.
During the duration of her time in the room, Jayapal said DOJ staffers remained with her, and at one point one of the employees sat directly behind her, able to view her computer screen. Even though lawmakers were allowed to bring in notes with them, Jayapal said she was instructed to only take notes on the pads of paper the Justice Department provided her.