Newly released Epstein files fall short of full transparency, Democrats say

The ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee on Saturday criticized the Justice Department’s initial release of documents to Congress from the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying it consisted mostly of materials that had already been made public.

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif. said in a statement that the “overwhelming majority” of the roughly 33,000 pages of materials the Justice Department sent the committee on Friday contained information the department and other law enforcement agencies had already disclosed.

The only new disclosure, Garcia said, was less than 1,000 pages from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s record of flight locations of Epstein’s plane from 2000 to 2014.

“DOJ’s limited disclosure raises more questions than answers and makes clear that the White House is not interested in justice for the victims or the truth,” Garcia said in a statement. “Democrats forced a bipartisan vote to subpoena the Epstein files in their entirety, and the Administration must comply.”

A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee’s Republicans said in a statement that a review was ongoing. “It’s important to note that this is the first batch of documents from the DOJ, with more to come,” the statement read.

Committee Chair James Comer , R-Ken., said Friday that he would not release the files to the public until they go through a “thorough review to ensure any victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted.”

This month, the committee subpoenaed all files from the Justice Department’s investigation of Epstein and his imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein and Maxwell were charged with sex trafficking and other crimes in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence. Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide.

Garcia said the files that the committee received Friday include video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan from the night of Epstein’s death, court filings and an inspector general report – all of which were previously available publicly. He said they also contained a memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi to FBI Director Kash Patel on releasing the Epstein files and court papers from Maxwell’s case.

The White House referred questions about the release to the Justice Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Separately, the Justice Department on Friday released a full transcript of the interview Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted in July with Maxwell, in which she praised President Donald Trump and said she never saw him do anything inappropriate. She also offered no new information when asked about dozens of other famous and connected people who knew Epstein.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of helping Epstein groom, traffic and abuse dozens of underage girls. She is asking the Supreme Court to hear her appeal of her sex-trafficking conviction, and her lawyer has repeatedly discussed the possibility of asking for a pardon from Trump.

Days after her interview with Blanche near the federal prison in Tallahassee where she was incarcerated, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.

The release of Maxwell’s interview – including hundreds of pages of transcripts and six hours of audio – offered no evidence to support conspiracy theories long fanned by Trump and his allies that the federal government had covered up a vast sex-trafficking ring to protect powerful public figures.

Some prominent MAGA figures have homed in on parts of the transcript in which Maxwell praised Trump and said she did not see him engage in misconduct. Trump was friends with Epstein from the 1980s, when they were neighbors in South Florida, until the early 2000s. Maxwell told Blanche that Trump “was never inappropriate with anybody in the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

Far-right activist Laura Loomer, who is an unofficial adviser to Trump, told the Washington Post in an interview that she thinks Maxwell’s interview “vindicated” Trump against false insinuations of potential wrongdoing fueled by his past association with Epstein.

“I think a lot of people owe President Trump an apology,” Loomer said. “I think it’s pretty obvious that everything that President Trump has been saying about Epstein and the Epstein files has been proven true, given the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell herself testified under oath that she’d never witnessed President Trump do anything inappropriate.”

Loomer and other right-wing influencers recently expressed outrage over the administration’s handling of the Epstein case files during the weeks since the Justice Department and FBI issued an unsigned memo saying investigators had found no evidence of an Epstein “client list” and that no further disclosures about the case would be forthcoming. Bondi suggested in a Fox News interview in February that such a list was on her desk awaiting review, but the department’s memo said the Epstein case files contained nothing of the sort.

Loomer told the Post she is satisfied with what the Justice Department has released so far, calling it “a good first step in promoting more transparency.”

Others on the right also focused on Maxwell’s statements about Trump.

“The leftist narrative is in SHAMBLES,” Nick Sortor, a conservative influencer, wrote on X over a screenshot of Maxwell’s quotes.

“If Trump was an Epstein client, the Deep State would’ve already leaked it. He’s clean,” Rogan O’Handley, a right-wing commentator, wrote in response.

Some Democrats blasted the administration for releasing only a small fraction of the subpoenaed materials.

Rep. Ro Khanna , D-Calif., who was among the first Democrats to demand release of the Epstein files, accused the Justice Department of “stonewalling.” Khanna is working with Rep. Thomas Massie, R- Ky., to force a vote on releasing the files, and the two lawmakers plan to hold a news conference with survivors of Epstein and Maxwell’s abuse when the House returns from recess next month.

“The survivors deserve justice and the public deserves transparency,” Khanna said in a statement Saturday to the Post.

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., who introduced the initial motion to subpoena the files, said the Justice Department was “pretending to respond.”

“This partial release is insulting to the survivors who have waited far too long for accountability,” Lee said in a statement. “Every name, connection, and institution involved in enabling this system of exploitation must be brought to light.”