By Eduardo Bacci — The Investigative Journal
Capitol Hill entered the middle of April with a crowded agenda that blended high-stakes oversight, judicial confirmations, and the tail end of a bruising appropriations cycle. Tuesday’s activity underscored a split-screen Congress: a Senate grinding through executive branch business while the House Oversight Committee pressed an investigation into the federal government’s handling of records tied to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. Below is The Investigative Journal’s accounting of the most consequential actions on and off the chamber floors.
Oversight Showdown: DOJ Says Former AG Bondi Will Not Appear for April 14 Deposition
The defining Capitol Hill story of April 14 was not a floor vote but a no-show. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) had scheduled a sworn deposition of former Attorney General Pamela Bondi for today as part of the committee’s investigation into how the Department of Justice handled the release of records pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The Department of Justice informed the committee last week that Bondi would not appear, arguing that because she no longer leads the department, the subpoena — which DOJ says was issued in her official capacity — is moot.
Committee Democrats pushed back. Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) argued in a statement that the March 17 subpoena named Bondi personally rather than by title, and that her departure from DOJ does not extinguish her obligation to testify about decisions made while she led the department. Records released by the committee indicate Garcia has told colleagues he is prepared to move to hold Bondi in contempt if the witness does not sit for a deposition at a rescheduled date.
Comer has not yet indicated whether he will support a contempt referral, but the chairman confirmed last month that DOJ is otherwise complying with the committee’s records subpoena. The dispute is a critical test of the enforceability of congressional subpoenas against former executive branch officials — a question courts have resolved inconsistently, and one that filings indicate is likely to define the Oversight Committee’s work through the remainder of the 119th Congress.
Senate Moves to Cloture on Judge Shepherd
On the Senate floor, Majority Leader scheduled a cloture vote for approximately 5:30 p.m. ET on the nomination of John Thomas Shepherd of Arkansas to serve as United States District Judge for the Western District of Arkansas. Shepherd’s nomination has drawn limited floor opposition, and the Senate executive calendar shows his confirmation is expected to proceed on a near-party-line basis, consistent with the chamber’s pattern throughout the 119th Congress of confirming district-court nominees on compressed timelines.
The Shepherd vote caps a week of lower-profile judicial activity in the Senate, as leadership continues to work through a backlog of pending nominations on the Executive Calendar. Records on the Senate’s Pending Nominations page show dozens of district and circuit court nominees still awaiting floor action.
Oversight Committee Sets Thursday Hearing on State-Run Federal Programs
Chairman Comer’s committee is also scheduled to convene a full-committee hearing Thursday, April 15, titled “Fraud Prevention: Understanding Fraud in Federally Funded Programs Run by the States.” The hearing, announced on the Oversight Committee’s website, will examine improper-payment rates in Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — categories in which the Government Accountability Office has previously documented multi-billion-dollar annual losses. Committee filings indicate the witness list will include state inspectors general and federal program administrators.
The hearing dovetails with a broader Republican oversight push to reframe entitlement reform as an integrity problem rather than a benefits fight. Data from GAO’s most recent improper-payments compendium, cited in the hearing memo, suggests federal outlays lost to fraud and error exceed $230 billion annually across major benefit programs.
Appropriations Subcommittees Grill Trade and Agriculture Leaders
Two House Appropriations subcommittees held significant budget hearings this week that will shape fiscal year 2027 spending. The Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies heard from Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on the department’s FY27 budget request. Records from the hearing indicate members pressed Rollins on rural broadband buildout timelines, commodity program outlays, and the department’s approach to avian influenza response funding.
Separately, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies took testimony from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Subcommittee transcripts show Greer fielded questions on the revenue effects of the administration’s tariff regime — revenue that CBO, in its most recent baseline, projects will reduce cumulative deficits by roughly $3.0 trillion over the 2026–2036 window, offsetting a portion of the costs of the 2025 reconciliation law.
House Foreign Affairs Examines U.S. Commercial Diplomacy in Asia
The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific held a hearing titled “Helping American Businesses Win Abroad: Strengthening U.S. Commercial Diplomacy,” with testimony from former Commerce Department official Arun Venkataraman, career Foreign Commercial Service officer Jim Golsen, and Christina Sharkey of the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council. Witness statements, available on the committee website, emphasized gaps in Foreign Commercial Service staffing across the Indo-Pacific and recommended expanded export-promotion authorities as countermeasures to subsidized Chinese state-owned enterprise competition.
The hearing is particularly salient for TIJ’s ongoing coverage of Chinese-affiliated logistics and delivery firms operating in North American markets, where commercial diplomacy and export-control authorities increasingly intersect.
Ways and Means Holds Health Care Field Hearing
The Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health held a field hearing, “Modernized Health Care in Practice: Empowering Americans to Live Healthier Lives,” focused on site-neutral payment policy, pharmacy benefit manager transparency, and telehealth permanence. Filings submitted to the subcommittee indicate witnesses pressed members to act on pending legislation before statutory telehealth flexibilities lapse at the end of the fiscal year.
CBO Baseline Frames the Fiscal Debate
Overshadowing this week’s hearings is the Congressional Budget Office’s updated baseline, released earlier this year and refreshed in CBO’s most recent monthly budget review. CBO projects the FY2026 federal deficit at approximately $1.9 trillion, with publicly held debt on track to reach roughly 120 percent of GDP by 2036. The office’s mid-year analysis attributes $4.7 trillion of additional deficits over the budget window to the 2025 reconciliation law (Public Law 119-21), another $0.5 trillion to administrative immigration actions, and a $3.0 trillion deficit reduction from higher tariff revenue.
The first-half-of-fiscal-year figures released by CBO this month show the deficit running $139 billion below the prior-year pace, which the office attributes primarily to tariff receipts and slower discretionary outlays following the FY26 appropriations package enacted earlier this year.
Bipartisan Legislation Advances on Housing, Mental Health, and PBMs
Several bipartisan measures continue to move through the Capitol. The Senate’s housing affordability package — described by sponsors as the largest housing bill in decades — cleared the chamber last month on an 89-10 vote, combining deregulatory provisions with restrictions on institutional investors purchasing single-family homes. The measure now awaits House action, where conference negotiations are reportedly underway.
Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) introduced the Mental Health Access and Provider Support Act, a bipartisan, bicameral measure that would adjust Medicare reimbursement for behavioral health clinicians. Separately, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) filed S. 3822, the Break Up Big Medicine Act, which would prohibit common ownership of pharmacy benefit managers, insurers, and provider groups — a structural competition measure that records suggest has attracted attention from both the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general.
Items on TIJ’s Investigative Beats
Several items this week intersect with the Investigative Journal’s core reporting priorities. First, the Oversight Committee’s Thursday fraud hearing is expected to surface new data on state administration of federal benefit programs — a topic TIJ has covered in connection with unemployment-insurance fraud losses. Second, the Foreign Affairs commercial-diplomacy hearing comes as congressional attention to Chinese-affiliated firms operating in U.S. logistics, e-commerce fulfillment, and last-mile delivery continues to grow; committee filings suggest additional hearings on related export-control and outbound-investment questions are likely in May. Third, the Senate Armed Services Committee has posted notice of an April 23 posture hearing with U.S. Central Command and U.S. Africa Command — a venue historically used to probe Chinese and Russian activity in contested theaters.
Looking Ahead
The week’s remaining schedule includes the Thursday Oversight fraud hearing, continued Senate floor action on judicial nominations, and House Appropriations markups expected to roll into next week. The Bondi deposition dispute will be the most closely watched procedural flashpoint: if Chairman Comer agrees to a contempt referral, the full House could be asked to act on a resolution before the Memorial Day recess. Records indicate the Senate Judiciary Committee is also tentatively planning an executive business meeting next week to consider additional circuit-court nominations.
This briefing relies exclusively on public records, official congressional websites, and on-the-record statements. Pending matters — including the Oversight Committee’s Epstein-records investigation and any contempt proceedings that may follow — are characterized as allegations or investigative inquiries rather than findings. Parties named in ongoing investigations are entitled to right of reply; TIJ will update this digest as responses are received.
Key Sources:
- Congress.gov — Committee Schedule, Week of April 13–19, 2026
- House Oversight Committee — Epstein-Related Subpoenas
- House Oversight — Bondi Subpoena Cover Letter (March 17, 2026)
- U.S. Senate Executive Calendar
- U.S. Senate — Pending Nominations
- Office of the Clerk, U.S. House — Floor Summary
- CBO — The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036
- Congress.gov — Roll Call Votes
- Senate Armed Services Committee — Hearings
- House Appropriations — FY26 Completion Announcement