The recent eruption of the Epstein files on Capitol Hill, marked by moving testimonies from Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, has sparked speculation that additional information might soon be disclosed. This comes as a discharge petition nears a sufficient number of signatures to prompt a vote on the issue.
However, the Trump administration’s opposition, coupled with political complexities in the Senate, may obstruct this initiative. This situation places pressure on a GOP-supported inquiry into the convicted sex offender and Ghislaine Maxwell within the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
These circumstances set the stage for a potentially tumultuous autumn, as the matter gains momentum, despite vigorous attempts by President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to downplay the scandal—Trump referring to it as the “Democrat Epstein Hoax.”
Discussions are set to resume immediately this week, following a subpoena from the Oversight panel, which has given the Epstein estate a Monday deadline to submit numerous documents. These could reveal the high-profile connections Epstein maintained. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges.
Among the documents the committee is seeking are Epstein’s will, travel logs for his private jet, any potential client lists, and a notorious “birthday book” compiled by Maxwell when Epstein turned 50 in 2003. This book allegedly contains a note from Trump, then a private citizen in New York, but Trump has denied authoring it.
The Oversight panel also intends to reveal additional Epstein files secured from the Department of Justice (DOJ). In August, the panel subpoenaed the DOJ for the “complete, unredacted Epstein Files,” and recently released over 30,000 DOJ documents related to the case.
Still, the critics of the Oversight investigation say it’s incomplete, accusing GOP leaders of working with the White House to create the appearance of DOJ transparency while allowing agency leaders to withhold files they don’t want disclosed. A vast majority of the files released by the committee were already public, the critics charge, and even then, the aggressive redactions make them all but meaningless.
“We don’t want to see the materials the White House is sending over. We want to see the materials the White House is not sending over,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
Democrats are unanimously supporting an alternative effort led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to use a procedural gambit known as a discharge petition to bypass GOP leadership and force a vote on their bill that directs the Department of Justice to release virtually all information relating to Epstein.
“The DOJ and government are implicated in this, too,” Massie said. “You can’t trust them. You can’t let them curate all of the evidence that implicates the DOJ and their best friends.”
Three more Republicans have joined that effort so far: Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), and Nancy Mace (S.C.). And even if no other Republicans join, that discharge petition is on track to reach the 218-signature threshold to force action as soon as two more Democrats are elected in special elections later this month.
That assumes, though, that Boebert, Greene, and Mace keep their names on the petition in the face of what some members describe as an aggressive White House campaign against the effort.
“Helping Thomas Massie and Liberal Democrats with their attention-seeking, while the DOJ is fully supporting a more comprehensive file release effort from the oversight committee, would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration,” a White House official said last week.
Boebert said the morning after she signed the petition that no one had asked her to remove her name. Asked about signing the petition in wake of the White House characterization of it being a “hostile act,” Boebert said: “However we can get justice for the victims, I’m in favor for.”
Greene, meanwhile, said in an interview on Real America’s Voice last week that she got “phone call after phone call” urging her to not sign the discharge petition, calling the unnamed official who called the move a “hostile act” a “coward.”
Mace has made her personal story of surviving sexual assault central to her political identity, but is also courting Trump’s support as she runs for governor of South Carolina.
Massie, who clashes frequently with Trump, bashed the administration, saying the “hostile act” characterization amounts to nothing less than “a political threat.”
“I think it’s also an insult,” he added. “Why is the White House trying to bully women in Congress who are trying to protect women who are just regular people who haven’t been heard? That’s the question that needs to be asked.”
Even if the discharge petition is successful, the underlying bill would have to clear many more hurdles. GOP leaders successfully swayed members to kill a push to allow proxy voting for new parents despite a successful discharge petition earlier this year.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said last week he has no plans to bring up an Epstein-related bill in the upper chamber, and the legislation would have to be signed by Trump — or overcome his veto — to have the force of law.
That means the Oversight probe, even as it is decried by Democrats for being insufficient, is perhaps the best shot Congress has of uncovering — and revealing — new information in the Epstein matter. Comer and Johnson have argued the panel’s investigation is seeking more information than the Massie-Khanna petition. And it has some major depositions and inquiries on deck, in addition to subpoenas of the DOJ and Epstein estate.
The Oversight panel is set to hold a transcribed interview Sept. 19 with Alex Acosta, the former Labor Secretary from Trump’s first administration who resigned when Epstein’s 2019 arrest prompted new scrutiny of a 2008 plea deal Acosta negotiated with Epstein as U.S. attorney in Miami. The wealthy sex offender avoided federal charges and served 13 months in prison for state charges of soliciting minors for prostitution.
The panel has also subpoenaed a swath of former attorneys general and FBI directors, as well as former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Clintons’ deposition dates are scheduled for mid-October.
Comer has requested the Treasury Department turn over suspicious activity reports that were generated by banks related to activities by Epstein and Maxwell, which could provide new information and leads.
And he pledged to have the committee make its own “Epstein List,” if victims help to do so.
“We’re going to compile a list from the victims, so at the end of the day, there’s going to be a list,” Comer said on NewsNation last week. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that people know who was involved.”
