On Tuesday (September 2), the House of Representatives Oversight Committee released a trove of files related to the investigation of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein given to them from the Department of Justice. However, the base of supporters of President Donald Trump were incensed after reviewing the files, learning that the majority of them were already released to the public.
Democratic Representative Robert Garcia of California confirmed that fact in an earlier report to the Washington Post. “The 33,000 pages of Epstein documents [House Oversight Chair and Republican Rep.] James Comer has decided to ‘release’ were already mostly public information,” he said, adding: “To the American people – don’t let this fool you. After careful review, Oversight Democrats have found that 97% of the documents received from the Department of Justice were already public. There is no mention of any client list or anything that improves transparency or justice for victims.”
The revelation has stoked the fury of Trump supporters, who have been highly vocal about the administration’s lack of transparency regarding the case of Epstein, who died in 2019 in federal custody while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Far-right nationalist Evan Kilgore blasted Trump in a post on X, formerly Twitter, writing: “We got played again.”
It has led to division among Republican members of Congress, led by Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky who has co-sponsored a bill with Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California to force a vote on the House floor demanding that the administration release all of its files concerning Epstein. He stated that Trump “may be covering for some rich and powerful people,” during an apperance with Chris Hayes of MSNBC.
The measure to vote already has the support of all the 212 Democrats in the house, and got support from three GOP members – Representatives Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. This was in spite of pressure from House Majority Leader Mike Johnson of Louisiana, and the White House which called it a “very hostile act to the administration,” shortly after the vote. Trump’s supporters aren’t the only ones irate over the purported release. Several women who were survivors of abuse by Epstein met with the House committee yesterday before the release, and on Wednesday morning vowed to create their own list to release to the public at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
