The warning could not be clearer. With days remaining before a firm federal deadline, the nation’s attorney general has been told she could face impeachment if she fails to release records tied to one of the most consequential scandals in modern American history. Court orders are pending, lawmakers across party lines are signaling impatience, and the unresolved legacy of Jeffrey Epstein has returned to the center of public life.

As the deadline approaches, political pressure and moral expectation have converged into a single demand: disclosure without exception. Pam Bondi now stands at the focal point of that demand. When Ro Khanna raised the prospect of inherent contempt and impeachment, it was more than rhetorical escalation. It signaled a growing view in Congress that delay—whether procedural or political—has exhausted its legitimacy.

The partial release of 68 images, many involving prominent figures but alleging no proven crimes, has only intensified concern about what remains sealed. For critics, the disclosure feels incomplete by design. For lawmakers, it raises a sharper question: whether selective transparency undermines the statute’s intent and Congress’s authority to compel compliance.

Warnings have come from both parties. Several members have argued that failure to meet the deadline would deepen public mistrust—not only in the Justice Department, but in the idea that the powerful are subject to the same scrutiny as everyone else. Donald Trump has pointed to his role in signing the governing law, while Khanna and Thomas Massie have indicated that accountability efforts will continue regardless of political fallout.

For Bondi, the choice has narrowed. Full compliance would invite discomfort and potential political damage. Resistance or partial release risks something broader: the perception of institutional protection and the erosion of congressional authority. Legal outcomes will follow their own course, but the moment itself has already taken shape.

Whether this episode becomes a turning point for transparency—or another chapter in a long record of unfinished reckoning—now depends less on rhetoric than on action.