US Justice Department to begin giving Congress files from Epstein investigation

Eric Tucker, Associated Press

The US Justice Department has agreed to provide to Congress documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, a key House of Representatives legislator said in announcing a move that appears to avert, at least temporarily, a potential separation of powers clash.

The records are to be turned over starting on Friday to the House Oversight Committee, which earlier this month issued a broad subpoena to the Justice Department about a criminal case that has long captivated public attention, recently rocked the top rungs of President Donald Trump’s administration and been a consistent magnet for conspiracy theories.

‘Redacted’

“There are many records in DOJ’s custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,” Kentucky Representative James Comer, the Republican committee chairman, said in a statement.

“I appreciate the Trump Administration’s commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter.”

A wealthy and well-connected financier, Epstein was found dead in his New York prison cell weeks after his 2019 arrest in what investigators ruled a suicide.

Disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

The committee’s subpoena sought all documents and communications from the case files of Epstein and Maxwell, his former girlfriend.

Joe Biden’s administration

It also demanded records about communications between Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration and the Justice Department regarding Epstein, as well as documents related to an earlier federal investigation into Epstein in Florida that resulted in a non-prosecution agreement in 2007.

It was not clear exactly which or how many documents might be produced or whether the co-operation with Congress reflected a broader change in posture since last month, when the FBI and Justice Department abruptly announced that they would not be releasing any additional records from the Epstein investigation after determining that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted”.

That announcement put the Trump administration on the defensive, with officials since then scrambling both to tamp down angry questions from the president’s base and also labouring to appear transparent.

Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche interviewed Maxwell at a Florida courthouse over two days last month – though no records from those conversations have been made public – and the Justice Department has also sought to unseal grand jury transcripts in the Epstein and Maxwell cases, though so far those requests have been denied.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on Monday.

The panel separately issued subpoenas to eight former law enforcement leaders as well as former Democratic president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clinton was among a number of luminaries acquainted with Epstein, a wealthy financier, before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago.

Mr Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.