A House Oversight panel voted on Wednesday to subpoena files regarding deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and testimony from former President Bill Clinton, his wife and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and several ex-law enforcement leaders.

NBC News reported the Federal Law Enforcement Subcommittee passed a motion from Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) to issue a subpoena to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for records from Epstein-related investigations.

“The American people deserve transparency and accountability, and his victims deserve justice,” Lee declared in a post on X. “The wealthy and powerful are not above the law.”

Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Scott Perry (R-PA) and Brian Jack (R-GA) joined with five Democrats in approving the measure. Subcommittee Chairman Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) voted against it.

As noted by The Hill, Mace succeeded in amending the motion to ensure that the identities of victims, personally identifying information, and possible child sexual abuse material are redacted.

The panel also voted to approve a motion from Perry to subpoena the Clintons, former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller, and former Attorneys General Merrick Garland, Eric Holder, William Barr, Loretta Lynch, Jeff Sessions, and Alberto Gonzales.

Further, lawmakers opted to pass a measure from Biggs to demand “all communications between President Biden or the Biden officials and the prosecuting agency related to the Epstein prosecutors also be released.”

The subpoenas, which must be signed off by Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY), “will be issued in the future,” a panel spokesperson told reporters.

Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender with connections to several high-profile people, was found dead at the age of 66 in his New York City jail cell in 2019 — after being arrested on sex trafficking charges involving young girls.

A growing number of lawmakers have been pushing GOP House leadership on the disclosure issue after the Trump administration’s DOJ claimed it had no evidence that Epstein had a client list, blackmailed powerful people, or was murdered.

In adherence to an earlier vote from a different subcommittee this week, Comer announced on Wednesday that he subpoenaed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell to participate in a deposition on August 11 at a federal correctional facility in Florida.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being found guilty of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. Her attorney told CNN that a discussion with the DOJ would inform how Maxwell would proceed.

Attorney General Pam Bondi asked judges to unseal grand jury testimony from the cases against Epstein and Maxwell at the behest of President Donald Trump, who has argued that people are falling for a “hoax” spun by the Democrats.

One federal judge denied the Trump administration’s request in Florida. on Wednesday. CBS News reported that judges who oversaw other cases in New York have yet to decide how to proceed.

A potential House vote on demanding the Trump administration release secret documents it has on Epstein, the focus of a bipartisan discharge petition that would force leadership’s hand, likely will not happen until after the August recess.

Democrats have accused GOP leadership of balking on Epstein transparency, while Republicans have raised questions about why their colleagues across the aisle did not seem interested in the issue when they had power.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said this week that Congress needs to give the Trump administration “space,” but would consider action if it became necessary. He also said House Republicans want “maximum transparency.”

Assistant Attorney General For Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday about the dangers of using Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices in the federal government.

Committee Chairman Eric Schmitt (R-MO) began the hearing by saying that “For at least the last decade, America’s civil rights laws have been used not to prohibit discrimination but to institutionalize it…It slunk in through the backdoor cloaked in bureaucratic double-speak and soothing euphemisms.”

Dhillon testified that, based on one of President Donald Trump’s early executive orders, her department has been working to end DEI and antisemitism in the federal government and at other organizations.

She referenced the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, which recently sparred with Harvard University over antisemitism among students and staff. Dhillon also referenced the federal government’s legal action against many state governments — including California and Oregon — which have defied the Trump administration’s anti-DEI directive.

“The goal is clear: either DEI will end on its own, or we will kill it,” Dhillon said.

Ranking Member Peter Welch (D-VT) disagreed with Schmitt and Dhillon, saying “The question before this Congress is whether we’re going to save the Civil Rights Division or we’re going to destroy it.”

Welch alleged that the Department of Justice, namely the civil rights division that Dhillon leads, operated at the whim of Trump rather than the Constitution.

Welch brought Alabama State Senator Robert Stewart (D) to testify about the Justice Department’s cancellation of funds to install a septic system in poor parts of the state over DEI practices, accusing the department of intentionally harming poor black communities.

Stewart testified that “DEI initiatives are not preferences or perks. They are attempts to rectify generations of exclusion and ensure equal access to opportunity.” He continued by saying that ‘to eliminate these efforts under the guise of enforcing civil rights is to misinterpret history and undermine justice.”

Gene Hamilton, the president of America First Legal — a nonprofit aimed in part at eliminating DEI practices — responded later that “The civil rights division of the Department of Justice does not need to be involved with septic tanks. That is not a civil rights issue.”

Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) spoke about how he sees the real meaning of DEI. He said that “When someone says ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ — we’re talking about quotas.”

“The American people understand that souls have no color,” Kennedy added. “They believe that to a bear we all taste the same — like chicken.”

Schmitt recently cosponsored a bill aimed at strengthening Title VII to include the discrimination against those who express the belief in two genders as unlawful. In February, Schmitt also introduced legislation to codify Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders. Neither bill has reached the Senate floor as of yet.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) touted her counter-resolution to Schmitt’s anti-DEI bills, “A resolution affirming that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are fundamental values of the United States and emphasizing the ongoing need to address discrimination and inequality in the workplace, pre-K through 12th grade and higher education systems, government programs, the military, and our society.”

“My Republican colleagues are intent on teaching young people that people different from them are to be feared, mistrusted, and treated with suspicion,” Hirono said.

She continued, “This country was built by slaves dragged here against their will from a continent they would never see again. So we have always struggled with racism and exclusion in our country.”