Days after the Justice Department asked a federal judge to unseal grand jury testimony related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, Republicans and Democrats suggested on Sunday that the move was insufficient and called for the release of more information.
“I think it’s a good start,” Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, said in an interview on CNN. But he still wanted to see as many files as possible released, he added later.
President Trump has been contending with fierce criticism from some of his supporters over his administration’s handling of materials related to the sex trafficking investigations of Mr. Epstein and his connections to rich and powerful figures on the left and right. Mr. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while in federal prison awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Mr. Trump and many of his allies vowed to release a trove of files in the case, including a so-called “client list” that many involved in the case insist never existed. But the release of some documents earlier this year offered no new revelations. And the Justice Department said this month that it had closed the case and would not release more documents, concluding that there was no client list.
One of Mr. Epstein’s former lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” that the grand jury testimony was unlikely to contain the information that has most interested Mr. Trump’s supporters.
Mr. Trump has encouraged his base to move on. But the backlash seemed to be on his mind on Sunday morning, when he accused “Radical Left Democrats” of exposing the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”
Mr. Burchett also took up Mr. Trump’s argument on Sunday, saying that Democrats had the chance to release the materials when former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in office.
At the same time, Mr. Burchett is one of 10 Republicans who has signed on to an effort to force a vote on whether the administration should release the files. The procedural maneuver would require a majority of House members, and Mr. Burchett said he was not sure if it would succeed.
“I have no earthly idea,” he said on CNN. “You know this town buries secrets.”
Democrats in Congress have seized on the divide that has opened up between Mr. Trump and his supporters, trying to force votes on measures that call for the release of Epstein-related files and pressing for hearings. They have rejected Mr. Trump’s efforts to redirect the blame to them.
“The president blaming Democrats for this disaster, Jake, is like that CEO that got caught on camera blaming Coldplay,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, referring to a viral video that showed the married chief executive of a tech company with his arms around a woman who is not his wife.
Ms. Klobuchar instead blamed the public’s clamoring for the files on right-wing politicians, including President Trump, who she said had sown distrust in federal prosecutors over the case.
“People have a reason that they want to know what’s in there,” Ms. Klobuchar said. “They believe the president when he said there’s stuff in there that people should see.”
Alyce McFadden contributed reporting.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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