A Republican-led United States House of Representatives committee on Tuesday released tens of thousands of pages from the probe into disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein amid the case becoming a political headache for the Trump administration.
The 33,295 pages, which are a part of a first batch of documents related to Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, were released by the House Oversight Committee on its website after being handed over by the Justice Department following a subpeona.
“We’re in the process of uploading those documents for full transparency so everyone in America can see those documents,” Republican Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told the media.
“It’s going as quick as we can get them uploaded,” Comer said. “We want those to be public as soon as possible.”
There have been mounting cross-party calls for more transparency in the infamous case.
What do the Epstein pages contain?
Epstein, an affluent financier with powerful connections, was charged with running a sex trafficking ring that exploited underage girls for a number of prominent clients.
He died in a New York prison cell in 2019, where he was awaiting trial. Authorities ruled his death a suicide.
It was not immediately clear whether the documents released on Tuesday contained previously unknown information.
US Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said 97% of the documents released Tuesday had already been made public.
“There is no mention of any client list or anything that improves transparency or justice for victims,” Garcia said in a statement. “House Republicans are trying to make a spectacle of releasing already-public documents. Pam Bondi has said the client list was on her desk. She could release it right now if she wanted to.”
Garcia said the Oversight Committee on Tuesday heard directly from the victims of Epstein and Maxwell.
“The stories were horrific and infuriating. In the days and weeks ahead we will be hearing more from these victims,” he wrote on X.
The House committee said in a statement that it expects to receive more records from the Justice Department and that they are being redacted to protect victim identities and remove any child sexual abuse material.
According to Reuters news agency, the materials released on Tuesday contained at least eight videos of what appeared to be police interviews with victims. Many of the interviews are timestamped between 2005 and 2006.
Trump administration under pressure
US President Donald Trump, who was a friend of Epstein, has been under pressure to release the documents after he vowed to do so during his presidential campaign.
Demands for the full disclosure of files related to the case have risen even within his own ranks in recent months, despite Trump’s statements that no one should “waste time” on the files.
Epstein’s death triggered conspiracy theories, especially among Trump’s supporters, that sensitive information had been covered up.
Many of Trump’s supporters, notably those in the core Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, have accused the administration of shielding powerful figures allegedly tied to the case.
Edited by: Sean Sinico
