The Capitol Hill battle over Jeffrey Epstein is poised to heat up when Congress returns to Washington next month.
While GOP leaders left town early to avoid the radioactive issue, the conspiracy-ridden saga is set to ramp back up come September for a number of reasons.
A bipartisan pair of lawmakers have vowed to force a vote on their resolution requiring the administration to release the federal files it’s withholding and plan to bring survivors of Epstein’s abuse to Capitol Hill in the first days of Congress’s return.
Separately, a number of court cases surrounding the fate of those files could reach a resolution in the coming weeks.
The House Rules Committee, which was brought to a standstill in July over Democratic efforts to force votes on the Epstein affair, will likely be compelled to revisit the issue if Republicans want to move any piece of their legislative agenda next month.
And bipartisan motions in the House Oversight and Government Committee that forced Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) to issue a flurry of subpoenas related to the Epstein matter could reignite public interest in the saga.
All of this is likely to create new headaches for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team, who want to move beyond fights over Epstein when they return to Washington to face another tough task — funding the government to avoid an Oct. 1 shutdown.
“I don’t think it’s going to go away,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said of the Epstein issue. “Maybe our leadership thinks that sticking their head in the sand and running out of town was the right decision. … Once we go back into session, I think this picks up where it left off.”
Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) are fighting to make sure that happens.
They’ve scheduled a press conference on Sept. 3, the day after Congress returns to Washington, to promote their legislation forcing the release of the Epstein files. To help bring attention to the bill, they’ve invited several victims of Epstein’s abuse.
Massie acknowledged that his office has not been getting a lot of calls about Epstein during the August break — but he said people haven’t been getting calls on any other major issues like the national debt or abortion either.
“A lot of America is on vacation right now,” Massie said. “Just generally, people tune out when Congress is not in session.”
The saga surrounding Epstein has posed a huge challenge to President Trump in the early months of his second term.
A number of Trump supporters who had fueled the conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein — namely, that the government was concealing the files to shield powerful “elites” from criminal charges — have since assumed positions of high power in the Trump administration, such as FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
Top administration officials continued to fan those flames in the early months of the Trump administration, with Attorney General Pam Bondi handing out binders titled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” to conservative influencers at the White House, and Vice President Vance saying in June it was “important” to release the “Epstein list.”
Those placements led to expectations among the MAGA faithful that releasing the Epstein records would be a top priority of Trump’s second term.
Instead, the Department of Justice (DOJ) last month released an unsigned memo refuting all of the most damning theories surrounding the case. Epstein had no “client list,” the DOJ said, nor is there evidence that he tried to blackmail powerful figures who might have committed crimes against minors.
The agency also reaffirmed that Epstein’s 2019 death in a Manhattan prison was by suicide, not foul play, as some far-right voices have proposed.
The DOJ memo infuriated many of Trump’s most ardent supporters, in and out of Congress, posing the most serious threat to the unity of the MAGA movement since Trump’s entrance into the world of politics.
In response, the Trump administration — despite the president himself dismissing the Epstein saga as a “hoax” — made new efforts to reveal previously unseen information.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche sat down with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend who was convicted on sex trafficking charges. The DOJ also made motions to unseal grand jury testimony transcripts from the Epstein case and from Maxwell’s case, but both were denied.
The controversy also raged on Capitol Hill, where Johnson was forced to cut the legislative calendar short just before the recess as GOP rebels on the House Rules Committee, who did not want to face Democratic amendment votes on the matter, refused to take up the radioactive issue.
Still, there’s a long history of July scandals disappearing down the memory hole of the long August break. And some analysts think that signs point to the Epstein furor dying down.
CNN data guru Harry Enten pointed to Google searches for Epstein being down 89 percent versus three weeks ago.
Trump’s approval rating is holding, indicating the Epstein outrage is not hurting his base of support.
Even before Congress returns, Epstein-related deadlines could turn up the heat on the issue.
A House Oversight Committee subpoena set an Aug. 19 deadline for the DOJ to provide documents and communications in the Epstein matter — pursuant to a motion in a subcommittee that was initiated by Democrats and supported by three Republicans.
The same panel also approved a Republican motion to subpoena 10 top former government officials to testify about the Epstein investigation — including a number of Democrats such as former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who are scheduled to be deposed in October.
Comer has highlighted the Clinton element of the investigation, calling the former president a “prime suspect.” The Clintons knew Epstein and socialized with him, and flight logs show that former President Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane more than two dozen times, though they do not show the former president traveled to Epstein’s infamous Virgin Islands residence.
The Rules Committee is also poised to bring greater attention to the Epstein issue. While Republicans on the panel had stopped convening in July to avoid votes on the issue, Democrats will likely continue offering those amendments next month in an effort to highlight Trump’s past associations with the disgraced financier and underline Republican divisions on whether to release the Epstein files.
“We are going to keep up the pressure,” a spokesperson for Democrats on the Rules Committee said in an email. “It’s not just that Democrats don’t want to move on — MAGA voters feel betrayed by the decision to keep the Epstein files hidden.”
Vance has also fueled the flames by saying Americans want and deserve “answers” related to Epstein’s actions and associations, undermining the administration’s official line that no additional disclosures are merited.
And other cases continue to move through the courts, including a lawsuit brought by an advocacy group seeking all communications between Trump administration officials related to the Epstein affair. Bondi, in May, reportedly told Trump that he is named in the unreleased files.
Other Capitol Hill action on the matter is possible, too.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) told The Palm Beach Post this week that Alex Acosta, a former U.S. attorney who helped draft and approve Epstein’s original 2008 plea deal, could still be called by the Oversight Committee to testify alongside the slew of other former government officials. Acosta served as Labor secretary in Trump’s first term but resigned after Epstein’s 2019 arrest renewed scrutiny on the earlier plea deal.
Highlighting the women who were subject to Epstein’s abuse and are supporting the push to release more information, meanwhile, could add weight to the push for more disclosures.
“I think it’s an insult to the survivors to call this a hoax,” Massie said, referring to Trump’s dismissal of Epstein.
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