The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the estate of the late Jeffrey Epstein on Monday as congressional lawmakers try to determine who was connected to the disgraced financier and whether prosecutors mishandled his case.
The committee's subpoena is the latest effort by both Republicans and Democrats to respond to public clamor for more disclosure in the investigation into Epstein, who was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. Lawmakers are trying to guide an investigation into who among Epstein's high-powered social circle may have been aware of his sexual abuse of teenage girls, delving into a criminal case that has spurred conspiracy theories and roiled top officials in President Donald Trump's administration.
The subpoena, signed by Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, and dated Monday, demands that Epstein's estate provide Congress with documents including a book that was compiled with notes from friends for his 50th birthday, his last will and testament, agreements he signed with prosecutors, his contact books, and his financial transactions and holdings.
Comer wrote to the executors of Epstein's estate that the committee “is reviewing the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death, the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials.”
The Justice Department, trying to distance Trump and Epstein, last week began handing over to lawmakers documentation of the federal investigation into Epstein. It has also released transcripts of interviews conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend. But Democrats on the committee have not been satisfied with those efforts, saying that the some 33,000 pages of documents they've received are mostly already public.
“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,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
Pressure from lawmakers to release more information is likely to only grow when Congress returns to Washington next week.
A bipartisan group of House members is attempting to maneuver around Republican leadership to hold a vote to pass legislation meant to require the Justice Department to release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.
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