A Democratic congressman who sits on the House Oversight Committee alleged on CNN the night before Pam Bondi’s deposition that Donald Trump’s name runs throughout the Epstein investigative files, and that Bondi privately told the president he appears in them tens of thousands of times.

Rep. Wesley Bell of Missouri, a former prosecutor, made the allegation during aCNN News Central interview with anchor Kate Bolduan on 28 May 2026, less than 24 hours before former Attorney General Pam Bondi was due to appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for a transcribed deposition into the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. The deposition will not be under oath.

Bell also stated that the Trump administration had ‘corrupted’ an investigation that was not inherently complex, telling Bolduan: ‘Things aren’t complicated. Now they get corrupted is what we’re seeing by this administration.’

Bell opened the interview by describing what he said survivors of Epstein’s abuse are owed from the process. ‘What they are owed is a full, detailed and thorough investigation,’ he said. ‘That’s how we get to that concept of justice. And the survivors and victims deserve nothing less.’

Bell, who served as St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney from 2019 to 2025 before winning Missouri’s 1st Congressional District seat, said his prosecutorial background shaped how he approaches the inquiry. ‘I’ve led investigations like these as a prosecutor,’ he told Bolduan. ‘And we follow that investigation wherever those facts and evidence take us.’

In the same interview, Bell also alleged that Bondi had warned Trump that his name appears throughout the files, characterising the alleged scale of those mentions as tens of thousands of times. That specific claim has not been independently corroborated by a published transcript or official document as of time of writing, and the White House has repeatedly denied the framing. What is confirmed is that Bondi did brief Trump in May 2025 that his name appeared in the files multiple times.

Bell also raised the Epstein Files Transparency Act, legislation that mandated full disclosure, arguing that without every document, it is impossible to reach the bottom of what he called ‘likely the largest sex trafficking operation in this country and possibly in the world.’

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