US President Donald Trump has continually blamed Democrats for pushing for information on Jeffrey Epstein. Photo / Demetrius Freeman, The Washington Post
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 one-time 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 United States committee is known for, by conducting painstaking investigations involving subpoenas and interviews with witnesses.
The dust-up initially began after Democrats on the Oversight Committee released on Thursday 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 afterwards, committee Republicans made public more than 20,000 pages.
US 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 Saturday NZT.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that 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 Republican President and Epstein.
As has happened a couple of times before, the GOP committee staff found itself on Thursday responding to the Democrats.
That more-expansive trove of documents from the Epstein estate included quite a few unflattering allegations about Trump.
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 scrutinised information that has been released since early September all came from subpoenas and document requests ordered by Representative James Comer (Republican-Kentucky), the committee chairman.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) boasted to reporters that Thursday’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 co-operative 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,” Representative 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 manoeuvred to try to block the petition to release the investigative files led by Representatives 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.
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 offences.
In July, Democrats sprang the Epstein issue and pushed for a vote to subpoena the Justice Department for its files. Despite Republicans having a seven-four majority on an oversight subcommittee 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 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.
Some 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 September 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 organisation, alleging defamation, after the Journal wrote about the note’s existence in July. The suit is ongoing.
Republicans responded a little later on September 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.
When the government shutdown ended, Representative Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona) was sworn in after a long delay from her September 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 Representative 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 [going to] keep finding more and more stuff about the Epstein files,” he said.
Democrats think he’s right.
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