The news release couldn’t have been more spartan: three brief sentences announcing the release of “20,000 pages of documents received from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein.”
The Republicans in control of the majority on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee did not frame the documents in any way.
Included in the materials were several emails from the late New York financier discussing his onetime friendship with Donald Trump, alleging that Trump knew about the activities of Epstein, who pleaded guilty to sex crimes in 2008.
It was the sort of bombshell document drop that the prominent committee is known for, by conducting painstaking investigations involving subpoenas and interviews with witnesses.
The dustup initially began after Democrats on the Oversight Committee released on Wednesday just three select emails from the Epstein estate that the convicted sex offender had sent to his friends and allies, including one alleging that Trump “knew about the girls.” Not long after, committee Republicans made public more than 20,000 pages.
President Donald Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing or taking part in Epstein’s sex trafficking operations. Trump has also denied knowing about the solicitation of underage prostitution before Epstein’s 2008 plea, and he reiterated that to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday night.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday the latest emails “prove absolutely nothing, other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
Over the last several days, Trump focused his ire not on the documents’ contents but on Democrats, whom he accused of pushing an “Epstein Hoax” to distract from the divisive fight over the 43-day government shutdown.
“They’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done,” he wrote on social media.
But this congressional investigation is unlike almost any of the modern era.
This is a case of unexpected friendly fire as committee Republicans are leading this investigation into the sprawling crimes committed by Epstein, who killed himself in a federal prison cell in 2019 weeks after his arrest.
On several occasions, the GOP has released documents that raised questions about the connections between the president and Epstein. As has happened a couple of times before, the GOP committee staff found itself on Wednesday responding to the Democrats.
That more-expansive trove of documents from the Epstein estate included quite a few unflattering allegations about Trump.
By Friday, Trump turned to social media again and ordered the Justice Department to investigate Democratic figures with connections to Epstein, including former president Bill Clinton. Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, quickly dispatched a federal prosecutor to handle.
But the most scrutinized information that has been released since early September all came from subpoenas and document requests ordered by Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), the committee chair.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) boasted to reporters that Wednesday’s release of documents had come from Epstein’s estate, which he said had provided a lot of valuable information to the committee.
Johnson told reporters that the information from the Epstein estate “has been a treasure trove,” and he promised that more subpoenas “are on the way.”
Democrats agree that the estate has been cooperative in providing information. But they added that the Justice Department has been slow to respond to requests for documents related to its investigations into Epstein that first started almost 20 years ago. They credit this latest turn of events to a more active approach by the younger generation of their party’s lawmakers, who are now in charge of the panel.
“We have been very aggressive. I think we’re scrappy. I think that we are guided by justice for the survivors. I don’t think that the majority was ready for our aggressiveness,” Rep. Robert Garcia (California), the top Democrat on the committee, told reporters after the document dump.
Republican critics contend that Johnson misplayed his hand when GOP leaders maneuvered to try to block the petition to release the investigative files led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Ro Khanna (D-California).
The House majority’s leadership traditionally fights hard against these discharge petitions when the minority party tries to find an issue where enough majority lawmakers will sign the resolution. Once the petition hits 218 signatories, it forces a vote on the issue.
Republicans have said that releasing the files, even in redacted form, would lead to the identities of Epstein’s crime victims becoming public.
But staunch conservatives have been afraid to do nothing, especially after years of calls for Epstein transparency, which has also been a battle cry of Trump’s MAGA base. Democrats on the powerful Rules Committee kept trying to force amendments regarding Epstein investigations into legislative debates on unrelated matters, leading to several GOP members of the panel unwilling to block the amendments out of fear of being accused of ignoring Epstein’s offenses.
This summer, legislative business ground to a halt and Johnson sent lawmakers home a little early for their recess, but not before a July 23 hearing of the oversight subcommittee investigating an unrelated immigration matter about unaccompanied minors who crossed over the border.
After winning the race to become the new ranking minority-party member on June 24, Garcia huddled with committee staff and other lawmakers with an eye toward that hearing. Democrats sprang the Epstein issue and pushed for a vote to subpoena the Justice Department for its files. Despite Republicans having a 7-4 majority on the panel, three GOP lawmakers voted with Democrats.
The only response from Republicans was to also subpoena a few older but prominent Democrats, such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, and a bipartisan list of former top Justice officials such as Merrick Garland, James B. Comey and Alberto Gonzales.
Republican leaders had hoped that letting the oversight panel handle this investigation would fend off GOP support for the discharge petition that would compel the Justice Department to release more information related to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein. Then, Comer agreed with Democrats in late August to expand the investigation and ask the estate to hand over relevant documents. That led to the significant moment when unflattering information went public.
“We needed all the other subpoenas that came after. We needed them to at least support us from the full committee. And they have been,” said Rep. Summer Lee (Pennsylvania), the top Democrat on the subcommittee that launched the initial investigation in July.
Lee credits the testimony of Epstein’s survivors who came to the Capitol and met with committee members to share their stories. Other Democrats attribute their success to many years of influencers — such as current FBI Director Kash Patel — feeding right-wing conspiracies about Epstein, prompting enough Republicans to politically fear being accused of covering up the files.
“The base really wants it. A lot of MAGA wants it out, a lot of their base wants it out,” Khanna said.
On Sept. 8, Democrats released a few details from a 50th birthday book that was given to Epstein that included a page purportedly signed by Trump that has a suggestive drawing and note. The president denies the note was from him, and he sued the Wall Street Journal and others at the news organization, alleging defamation, after the Journal wrote about the note’s existence in July. The suit is ongoing.
Republicans responded a little later on Sept. 8 by releasing a tranche of thousands more documents, after Comer accused the minority of “cherry-picking” things to make Trump look bad.
“Committee Republicans are focused on running a thorough investigation to bring transparency and accountability for survivors of Epstein’s heinous crimes,” Comer said.
The momentum did not stop further investigation by the committee, nor momentum toward a vote to force the release of the files. When the government shutdown ended Wednesday, in a House vote, Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona) was sworn in after a long delay from her Sept. 23 special election victory.
She became the 218th signature, and Johnson said he plans to hold a vote in a few days on the discharge petition, acknowledging that it would probably pass.
Massie said the speaker could have avoided a lot of headaches if he would have let the resolution pass in the summer with little fanfare and then have Senate Republicans sit on the issue without bringing it up for a vote. They would probably be less susceptible to public outrage over the matter.
“I think he finally learned his lesson. He should have brought this to the floor back in July or September. He drug this out. It’s caused nothing but political pain when he could have done the right thing politically, but also morally by bringing this to the floor immediately,” Massie said.
He said he doesn’t believe there is incriminating information about Trump in any of the files. “I think this is all about the president trying to protect his friends and his donors,” he said.
Other Republicans, such as Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona), believe the testimony from the survivors who said that they never saw Trump do anything wrong. Biggs did not sign the discharge petition, nor did he vote for the subcommittee’s initial investigation, but he supports moving forward on the inquiry.
“You’re gonna keep finding more and more stuff about the Epstein files,” he said Wednesday.
Democrats think he’s right.
The post GOP-led Epstein probe in House creates political friendly fire for Trump
appeared first on Washington Post.
