Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Newsmax on Thursday that the Justice Department should have informed lawmakers it was tracking their searches of the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files, calling the practice "uncomfortable" and raising concerns about separation of powers.
Appearing on "Rob Schmitt Tonight," Mace said she witnessed how the system operates.
"I saw it with my own eyes, and I know that they are doing that," Mace said.
"They give each member their own login. And the very second — within a half, a second millisecond — of you opening the file, those files are tagged with your name and a time stamp to track what files you opened."
Mace said she also reviewed images from a recent Judiciary Committee hearing that heightened her concerns.
"In the Judiciary hearing yesterday ... Attorney General [Pam] Bondi was actually walking around with a binder – that had some of those searches that members of Congress and the documents they were looking at – had a list of them based on that member and based on that member's searches," she said.
The South Carolina lawmaker said the practice raises constitutional questions.
"So we do have to ask about the separation of powers here and what's really going on," Mace said. "It's uncomfortable."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Thursday any surveillance of lawmakers' searches would be inappropriate.
"I don't think it's appropriate for anybody to be tracking that, so I will echo that to anybody involved with the DOJ. And I'm sure it was an oversight," he said.
Mace stressed that lawmakers should have been notified in advance that their activity in the database was being monitored.
"It should have been disclosed to members of Congress before walking into the room and before looking up documents in the database," she said.
While declining to speculate on the DOJ's motives, Mace reiterated that the tracking was real.
"I can't answer for the DOJ, or why they're doing it, but I saw it with my own eyes," she said. "It's unfortunate."
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