House Democrats Call for Hearing on Epstein, Capitalizing on G.O.P. Rift

New York Times

a day ago

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee urged the Republican majority on Tuesday to call top Trump administration officials to testify about their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, moving to capitalize on G.O.P. divisions over the Justice Department's closing of the case.
President Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other senior administration officials have dabbled in conspiracy theories around the death of Mr. Epstein, a disgraced financier who died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Administration officials promised to investigate fully and publicize their findings.
But the Justice Department and F.B.I. released a memo last week closing the inquiry and affirming previous findings that Mr. Epstein had killed himself, and Mr. Trump urged his supporters to move on. The shift has opened a rift in the MAGA movement and within Mr. Trump's administration, as Dan Bongino, the right-wing podcaster-turned-F.B.I. deputy director, threatened to quit over Ms. Bondi's handling of the matter.
In a letter to the committee's Republican chairman, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, on Tuesday, the Democrats asked that the panel publicly question officials over the handling of Mr. Epstein's case and their divergent views on the matter. They requested that four officials be brought before the committee: Ms. Bondi; Mr. Bongino; Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director; and Todd Blanche, a top deputy to Ms. Bondi.
The Democrats, led by Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, wrote that the fighting over the Epstein case and Mr. Trump's apparent shift on the matter 'have not restored anyone's trust in the government but have rather raised profound new questions about their own conduct while increasing public paranoia related to the investigation.'
Representatives for Mr. Jordan did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But he told NBC that he trusted Mr. Trump and his team when it came to the matter.
Earlier this year, Mr. Jordan and the committee drew criticism over a since-deleted post on the Judiciary Committee Republicans' official X account that claimed to link to the Epstein files but instead, in a throwback to an old internet prank, linked to the music video for the British singer Rick Astley's song 'Never Gonna Give You Up.'
Even after Mr. Trump's plea for his followers to accept the Justice Department's decision, several Republicans who generally adhere to his views have urged federal officials to release more information.
Mr. Raskin, in an interview Monday night, said that Mr. Trump and several congressional Republicans had created a furor by indulging conspiracy theories around Mr. Epstein.
'I've called for a release of all the information in the Biden administration, and I'm calling for that now,' Mr. Raskin said. 'I don't know whether there's anything to what the mega-conspiracy theories allege.'
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.