Fight over Epstein disclosures brings House to standstill

The US Justice Department is seeking to interview the disgraced financier’s jailed associate Ghislaine Maxwell amid calls for transparency.

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and US financier Jeffrey Epstein. Picture via AFP

Furore over disclosures from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation brought the House of Representatives to a standstill, prompting Republican leadership to cut short this week’s session and put off any action until September as some GOP members demanded votes on more releases related to the disgraced financier and sex offender.

Leaders said on Tuesday that the final votes of the week would be Wednesday, and then lawmakers would leave early for their summer break.

GOP leaders on Monday cancelled House Rules Committee meetings over concerns Democrats would force votes to release material related to Epstein that could put Republicans in uncomfortable positions.

Without passing rules, the House can only approve legislation on the floor with a two-thirds majority.

Justice demands courage. For the first time, the Department of Justice is reaching out to Ghislaine Maxwell to ask: what do you know? At @AGPamBondi’s direction, I’ve contacted her counsel. I intend to meet with her soon. No one is above the law—and no lead is off-limits. https://t.co/3IZh9viI7i

— Todd Blanche (@DAGToddBlanche) July 22, 2025

Congressman Ralph Norman of South California said leadership was “stalling” on a nonbinding resolution he led to call for disclosures regarding Epstein.

“The American people deserve action, not excuses,” he wrote on X. “Let’s vote on it before August recess and get it DONE!!”

Washington has been gripped by the fallout from the Justice Department’s decision this month to refuse to release more documents from the FBI’s probe of Epstein.

In an unsigned memo, the Justice Department had concluded an “exhaustive review” had turned up neither any list of Epstein’s clients nor additional documents that warranted public disclosure.

The FBI also confirmed a medical examiner’s finding that Epstein killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

A vocal group of the President’s allies saw the move as a betrayal.

Some Democrats have also joined the calls for the administration to reveal any relevant information in its possession about Epstein and his high-profile friends and associates.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on X: “Donald Trump and House Republicans have the power to release the Epstein files today. They refuse to do it. What are they hiding from the American people?”

Earlier on Tuesday, a senior Justice Department official said he would seek to interview Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.

If Maxwell “has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and DOJ will hear what she has to say”, Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche said in a post on X.

Blanche said he had contacted Maxwell’s lawyer to see if she would be willing to speak with federal prosecutors and that he anticipated personally meeting with her in the coming days.

A lawyer for Maxwell, David Oscar Markus, said in a post on X: “I can confirm we are in discussions with the government and that Ghislaine will always testify truthfully. We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.”

On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee also passed a GOP-led motion to subpoena Maxwell.

Speaker Mike Johnson called for “maximum transparency” but said he wanted to give the Trump administration space to handle the issue.

He noted that the administration had sought to publicly release grand-jury transcripts from the sex-trafficking cases of Epstein and Maxwell.

Judges overseeing those cases said on Tuesday that they intended to decide the requests “expeditiously” but requested more information from representatives for the government, Maxwell, Epstein and victims before doing so.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson blames Democrats, former president Joe Biden and others over the Jeffrey Epstein situation, in a news conference. Picture: AP

Johnson also criticised a bipartisan effort led by Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky to demand the release of Epstein-related material, saying he could have proposed it during the Biden administration.

“We’re not going to play political games with this,” Johnson said.

Prosecutors said Maxwell selected young, vulnerable victims for Epstein and at times participated in the abuse herself. She has appealed her conviction to the US Supreme Court. At her sentencing in 2022, she called Epstein, her one-time boyfriend, a manipulative, cunning and controlling man who fooled all those in his orbit.

“It is the greatest regret of my life that I ever met Jeffrey Epstein,” she said.

Maxwell did not testify during her trial.

Maxwell, 63, is currently serving her sentence at FCI Tallahassee, which the Bureau of Prisons calls a low-security federal correctional institution with a detention centre. She is expected to be released in 2037, according to the BOP.

Blanche, who worked as Trump’s criminal-defence lawyer before being tapped for the government role, said in his X post that the Justice Department “does not shy away from uncomfortable truths, nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead”.

Last week, the Justice Department fired Maurene Comey, one of the prosecutors at the Southern District of New York who worked on the cases against Maxwell and Epstein.

Comey is also the daughter of James Comey, the former FBI director who became a vocal Trump critic after being fired by the President in 2017.

Allegations that Epstein had been sexually abusing girls became public in 2006 and he was arrested that year in Florida.

Epstein was arrested a second time in 2019 and charged by federal prosecutors with sex-trafficking conspiracy.

A message calling on Donald Trump to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein is projected on to the US Chamber of Commerce building across from the White House. Picture: AFP

Epstein and Trump spent time together in the 1990s and early 2000s and were photographed at social events, including with Maxwell and Melania Trump.

Both men said they subsequently had a falling-out.

Trump has said their friendship ended before Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008, served time in a Florida jail and registered as a sex offender.

When Epstein was arrested again, Trump said he had not talked to Epstein for about 15 years.

A Wall Street Journal article published last week described a bawdy letter bearing Trump’s name that was included in a 2003 birthday album for Epstein.

Pages from the leather-bound album – assembled before Epstein was first arrested – are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have viewed the pages.

It is unclear if any of the pages are part of the Trump administration’s recent review of Epstein materials.

Trump denied writing the letter. On Friday, the President filed a lawsuit against the Journal’s publisher, alleging the newspaper defamed him in the article.

A Dow Jones spokeswoman said: “We have full confidence in the rigour and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

Trump said on Tuesday that he wasn’t aware of Justice Department plans to interview Maxwell, but said it “sounds like the appropriate thing to do”.

“I didn’t know that they were going to do it. I don’t really follow that too much,” Trump said. “It’s sort of a witch hunt, just a continuation of the witch hunt.”

The Wall Street Journal