For nearly a year, public demand and increasingly outspoken calls from the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse have driven Congress to mostly set aside party politics and search for accountability.
Yet even after interviews with some of the highest-ranked officials to ever appear before a congressional investigation, including a former president, lawmakers have little to show in terms of criminal culpability for Epstein’s crimes or a definitive acknowledgment of government failure.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who sponsored legislation to force the release of case files on Epstein, told The Associated Press he is still asking, “Why there has not been a single investigation of people who have allegedly abused or committed financial crimes?”
Lawmakers hoped to get some answers to those questions during a transcribed interview Friday with Pam Bondi, President Donald Trump’s former attorney general who oversaw the release of the files.
But the interview left Democrats fuming at Ms. Bondi’s decision to defend the Trump administration’s handling of that material, as well as her refusal to answer questions about the Republican president’s involvement. Democratic lawmakers also singled out Republican Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, saying he has allowed administration officials to dodge tough questions from Congress.
For survivors of Mr. Epstein’s abuse, including several who traveled to Washington to confront Ms. Bondi, it was a frustrating development at a time when many are weary of pleading their case before government officials. They say the Department of Justice’s chaotic release of the files, which included nude photos and personal information of potential victims, has only added to a wider failure by the criminal justice system to believe or protect them.
“The government’s refusal to acknowledge the failures that were there have led to so much harm,” said Annie Farmer. “And I think whenever you’re thinking about things from a perspective of justice or healing, without acknowledgment, it’s really hard to move forward.”
Push for accountability scrambled political lines
The committee’s investigation has been remarkably bipartisan at many moments, with Democrats and Republicans joining to issue subpoenas and force witness testimony. Besides Ms. Bondi, lawmakers have interviewed former Democratic President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.
That effort shows lawmakers are willing to cross political lines when there is overwhelming public pressure to act. Dozens of women have accused Mr. Epstein, a wealthy and well-connected financier, of sexual abuse and rape, including in the years after he reached a deal with federal prosecutors in 2008 to dispose of a federal investigation in exchange for pleading guilty to state level sex offense charges in Florida.
Mr. Epstein, who was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges, was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them.
His case has captured the public imagination as an example of how the rich and powerful escape accountability for wrongdoing. Lawmakers took up the cause last year after the administration failed to meet promises to provide transparency on the case.
Different continents, different standards?
Despite the investigation originating in the United States, the reckoning over Mr. Epstein has been relatively mild in the country compared with Europe. There, senior figures in governments including the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, and Slovakia have all been forced to step down over their ties to Mr. Epstein.
In its investigation, the House committee spoke to some of Mr. Epstein’s closest associates, including his former financial client Les Wexner, his lawyer Darren Indyke, and his accountant Richard Kahn. The Clintons, Mr. Lutnick, and others were also called to testify.
All have said more or less the same thing: They knew nothing about Mr. Epstein abusing underage girls.
Still, the release of Epstein files has had consequences. At least eight American academic and business figures have been forced from positions of power, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers from teaching at Harvard University and Kathy Ruemmler from her post as the chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs.
Bank of America and Mr. Epstein’s estate have reached multimillion-dollar settlements with women who have accused the institutions of facilitating Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operations.
Mr. Comer, R-Ky., said last week that the names of three people allegedly involved in abuse had come up in an interview with Mr. Epstein’s former personal assistant, Sarah Kellen. The congressman plans to interview six more people with connections to Mr. Epstein in the coming weeks, including billionaire Bill Gates, private equity investor Leon Black, the former CEO of Barclays Bank Jes Staley and Ruemmler.
“The government has failed the survivors. There’s no doubt about that,” Mr. Comer said, adding, “What we’re trying to do is connect all the dots and see if there is a way to hold people accountable.”
But it has stung lawmakers to see a reckoning over Mr. Epstein for figures such as Britain’s former Prince Andrew at time when the administration has tried repeatedly to move past the issue.
“A prince has been taken down and here in the United States, our Department of Justice, which is sitting on millions of files, is refusing to act,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., pointing to unreleased case files that the Justice Department is withholding on the grounds that they are duplicative or illegal to make public.
“That is not a failure, that is a choice,” Ms. Stansbury said.
Survivors and Democratic lawmakers have also taken issue with the administration’s decision to move Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s longtime confidant and former girlfriend, to a minimum-security prison camp. She is serving a 20-year sentence for luring teenage girls for Mr. Epstein to abuse.
Will survivors be heard?
Scattered across the country and busy with lives of their own, survivors of Mr. Epstein’s abuse have made repeated trips to Washington to push for government action. After years of fighting in court and sharing traumatic stories privately, they have become increasingly outspoken in their quest for accountability.
“It is very taxing to be continually focused on this case,” Ms. Farmer said. She added that even if the government’s response has not met her hopes, she has seen a wider cultural movement to address sexual predation.
To Marina Lacerda, another survivor, “Accountability is kind of hard right now. But we are looking for saving the next generation.”
But they also want the administration to listen to their stories. Pressing for the president’s ear, several victims spoke this month at a hearing just miles away from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that was organized by Democrats on the House committee.
For some of the survivors, the return to South Florida was also an opportunity to finally be heard. Jena-Lisa Jones told the panel that she was 14 years old when she was abused by Mr. Epstein in Palm Beach.
She implored the lawmakers: “Find a way to bring closure to the story of Jeffrey Epstein to allow survivors and this country to finally begin to move forward so that one day, and I pray soon, Jeffrey Epstein’s name is no longer something we are forced to hear every single day.”