WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department on Tuesday for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, part of a congressional probe that lawmakers believe may show links to President Donald Trump and other former top officials.
The Republican-controlled committee also issued subpoenas for depositions with former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and eight former top law enforcement officials.
The committee’s actions showed how even with lawmakers away from Washington on a monthlong break, interest in the Epstein files is still running high. Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and claimed he cut off their relationship long ago, and he has repeatedly tried to move past the Justice Department’s decision not to release a full accounting of the investigation. But lawmakers from both major political parties, as well as many in the Republican president’s political base, have refused to let it go.
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Since Epstein’s 2019 death in a New York jail cell as he awaited trial for sex trafficking charges, conservative conspiracists have stoked theories about what information investigators gathered on Epstein — and who else could have been involved. Republican lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee nodded to that line of questioning last month by initiating the subpoenas for the Clintons, both Democrats, as well as demanding all communications between President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and the Justice Department regarding Epstein.
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The committee is also demanding interviews under oath from former attorneys general spanning the last three presidential administrations: Merrick Garland, William Barr, Jeff Sessions, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder and Alberto Gonzales. Lawmakers also subpoenaed former FBI directors James Comey and Robert Mueller.
However, it was Democrats who sparked the move to subpoena the Justice Department for its files on Epstein. They were joined by some Republicans to successfully initiate the subpoena through a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee.
“Democrats are focused on transparency and are pushing back against the corruption of Donald Trump,” Rep. Robert Garcia, who is the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told reporters last month. “What is Donald Trump hiding that he won’t release the Epstein files?”
The committee had previously issues a subpoena for an interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, who had been serving a prison sentence in Florida for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the wealthy financier but was recently transferred to a Texas facility. However, the committee’s Republican chairman, Rep. James Comer, has indicated he is willing to delay that deposition until after the Supreme Court decides whether to hear an appeal to her conviction. She argues she was wrongfully prosecuted.
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