WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing Democratic calls to testify before Congress following a newspaper’s revelation that she told President Donald Trump that his name appeared in the files of the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Bondi told Trump his name was among many high-profile figures mentioned in the files, which the Justice Department this month said it would not be releasing despite a clamor from online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and members of Trump’s base.

Earlier Wednesday, a House subcommittee voted to subpoena the Department of Justice for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein after Democrats successfully goaded GOP lawmakers to defy President Donald Trump and Republican leadership to support the action.

Trump’s personal ties to Epstein are well-established and his name is already known to have been included in records related to the wealthy financier, who killed himself in jail in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, responded to the report by calling on Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“We need to bring Bondi and Patel into the Judiciary Committee to testify about this now,” Schiff said in a video posted on X.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the report but issued a joint statement from Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche saying that investigators had reviewed the records and “nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution.”

“As par of our routine briefing, we made the president aware of the findings,” the statement said.

The mere inclusion of a person’s name in Epstein’s files does not imply wrongdoing and he was known to have been associated with multiple prominent figures, including Trump.

Over the years, thousands of pages of records have been released through lawsuits, Epstein’s criminal dockets, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests.

They include a 2016 deposition in which an accuser recounted she spent several hours with Epstein at Trump’s Atlantic City casino but didn’t say if she met Trump and did not accuse him of any wrongdoing.

Trump has also said he once thought Epstein was a “terrific guy” but they later had a falling-out.

White House spokesman Steven Cheung on Wednesday said the reports were “nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.”

Earlier Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson had said there was no need to vote on a separate piece of bipartisan legislation calling for the release of the Epstein files this week because the Trump administration is “already doing everything within their power to release them.”

Yet Democrats have delighted in pressing Republicans to support the release of the files. Their efforts halted the GOP’s legislative agenda for the week and turned attention to an issue that Trump has unsuccessfully implored his supporters to forget about.

“They’re fleeing our work, our job and sending us back home because they don’t want to vote to release these files. This is something that they ran on. This is something that they talked about: the importance of transparency, holding pedophiles accountable,” said Rep. Summer Lee, the Pennsylvania Democrat who pushed for the subpoena.

Democratic leaders are hoping to make the issue about much more than just Epstein, who died in his New York jail cell six years ago while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

“Why haven’t Republicans released the Epstein files to the American people? It’s reasonable to conclude that Republicans are continuing to protect the lifestyles of the rich and the shameless, even if that includes pedophiles,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a news conference. “So it’s all connected.”

It comes as both parties are gearing up to take their messaging to voters on Trump’s big multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts bill. For Republicans, it’s “beautiful” legislation that will spark economic growth; for Democrats, it’s an “ugly” gift mostly to the richest Americans that undermines health care for low-income people.

Yet as furor has grown on the right over the Trump administration’s reversal on promises related to Epstein, several Democrats have seized on the opportunity to divide Republicans on the issue.

“This goes to a fundamental sense of, ‘Is our government co-opted by rich and powerful people that isn’t looking out for ordinary Americans? Or can we have a government that looks out for ordinary Americans?’” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who has put forward a bipartisan bill meant to force the release of the files.

Republican leaders accuse Democrats of caring about the issue purely for political gain. They point out that the Department of Justice held on to the Epstein investigation through the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump’s Justice Department has also sought the release of testimony from secret grand jury proceedings in the Epstein case, but a federal judge in Florida rejected that request on Wednesday. A similar records request is still pending in New York.

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