Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of showing up to a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday with what Jayapal called a "burn book" — a printed record of exactly which Epstein-related files the congresswoman had been searching on a government computer.

Jayapal fired off a social media post shortly after:

"It is totally inappropriate and against the separations of powers for the DOJ to surveil us as we search the Epstein files. Bondi showed up today with a burn book that held a printed search history of exactly what emails I searched. That is outrageous and I intend to pursue this and stop this spying on members."

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) independently confirmed the tracking — from a different angle entirely. According to Breitbart, Mace, who has been reading through the Epstein documents herself, said she verified that the DOJ is flagging every document that members of Congress search for, open, and review.

"Yes. I will confirm. DOJ is tracking the Epstein documents Members of Congress search for, open, and review. I was able to navigate the system today and I won't disclose how or the nature of how; but confirmed the DOJ is TAGGING ALL DOCUMENTS Members of Congress search, open and review."

Mace added that timestamps are associated with the tracking.

A convenient sense of outrage

Jayapal's fury would carry more weight if it didn't arrive so selectively.

This is the same congresswoman who, back in July, tried to tie President Trump to the Epstein files, claiming he was "hiding something" about those materials. That accusation collapsed under the weight of a newly unsealed court document released Monday by the DOJ, which contained a now-retired cop's account, relayed to FBI agents in 2019, of Trump describing Epstein as "disgusting" and Ghislaine Maxwell as "evil" back in 2006.

So the man Jayapal accused of hiding something had, a full thirteen years before the FBI even came asking, already expressed revulsion toward the people at the center of the scandal. The narrative didn't hold up. But Jayapal never corrected the record — she just moved on to the next accusation.

And that's the pattern. During the Biden administration, Jayapal was silent about Epstein. She was silent when FBI Director Kash Patel revealed in October that former special counsel Jack Smith had allegedly tracked the private communications of several Republican senators and a representative. No separation-of-powers outrage then. No "burn book" metaphors. No social media posts demanding accountability.

The surveillance of elected officials only becomes a constitutional crisis when it touches Pramila Jayapal.

The Epstein files and who's actually pushing transparency

The DOJ has now released millions of pages from the Epstein files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act — the law born from months of public and political pressure that forces the government to open its records on Epstein and his procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell.

This release didn't happen by accident. It happened because the political will finally existed to drag these documents into daylight. Members of Congress on both sides are now combing through the material — and evidently, the system logs who's looking at what.

Whether that logging constitutes "surveillance" or standard IT auditing on a government system handling sensitive material is an open question. Jayapal frames it as espionage. Mace frames it as a confirmed fact worth flagging. Neither the DOJ nor Bondi's office has publicly responded to the allegations.

But there's a meaningful difference between Jayapal's complaint and Mace's. Mace disclosed the tracking to inform the public. Jayapal disclosed it to build a persecution narrative — one that conveniently distracts from the substance of whatever she was searching for, and from the broader question of why Democrats spent years showing zero urgency about getting these files released in the first place.

The real surveillance scandal nobody on the left wants to discuss

If Jayapal is genuinely concerned about the DOJ monitoring elected officials, she has a ready-made case study sitting right in front of her — one she's never addressed.

Patel's revelation that Jack Smith allegedly tracked communications of Republican members of Congress during the Biden administration represents something far more serious than a printout at a committee hearing. That was a special counsel, operating under a Democratic president, reportedly surveilling the opposition party's legislators.

Patel didn't mince words about the broader culture he inherited:

"That abuse of power ends now. Under my leadership, the FBI will deliver truth and accountability, and never again be weaponized against the American people."

Jayapal said nothing about that. Not one statement. Not one social media post. Not one demand for accountability. The separation of powers apparently only matters when the separation protects her.

What this is really about

Strip away the theatrics, and you're left with a straightforward picture. The Epstein files are out. The public is watching. Members of Congress are reading through millions of pages of material on a government system — a system that, like most government systems, tracks user activity. One Democrat is furious that her search history exists in printable form. One Republican confirmed the tracking and moved on.

The question isn't whether the government logs activity on its own computers. The question is why Jayapal — who months ago was demanding these files be weaponized against a political opponent — now wants to make herself the victim of the transparency she claimed to champion.

The Epstein files aren't about Pramila Jayapal. They're about the victims of a convicted pedophile and the powerful people who enabled him for decades. Every minute spent litigating a congresswoman's bruised ego is a minute not spent on accountability for the people whose names actually appear in those millions of pages.