Where the Epstein files fight in Congress goes next
The Epstein files explosion on Capitol Hill last week — headlined by emotional accounts from Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers — fueled speculation that more information could soon be public, with a discharge petition poised to gain enough signatures to force a vote on the matter.
But opposition from the Trump administration and political realities in the Senate could thwart that effort, putting pressure on a GOP leadership-endorsed investigation into the convicted sex offender and Ghislaine Maxwell in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The dynamics have laid the groundwork for an explosive fall as the issue accelerates back up to full throttle even in the face of aggressive efforts by President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to put the scandal to bed — with Trump calling it the “Democrat Epstein Hoax.”
The debate will resume immediately this week, since an Oversight panel subpoena gave the Epstein estate a Monday deadline to deliver a host of documents that could shed light on the elite associations maintained by the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in 2019 in a jail cell where he was awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking.
The list of records sought by the committee includes Epstein’s will, the travel logs for his private plane, anything resembling a client list, and a notorious “birthday book” assembled by Maxwell when Epstein turned 50 in 2003. That leather-bound volume reportedly contains a lewd note written by Trump when he was still a private........
© The Hill
