The U.S. House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Department of Justice 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 repeatedly tried to move past the Justice Department’s decision not to release a full accounting of the investigation, but lawmakers from both parties, as well as many in the president’s political base, have refused to let it go.
Trump Denies Knowledge of Ghislaine Maxwell’s Prison Transfer
Asked about Maxwell going from a federal prison in Florida, to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas, Trump said, “I didn’t know about it all,” but added, “It’s not a very uncommon thing.”
Trump was also asked about Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche having interviewed Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, and said he’d not spoken to Blanche about the encounter. He did say, however, that, “Whatever he asked would be totally appropriate.”
He also said that “anything he talked about with her” is “something that would be totally above board.”
DOJ: Much of What’s in Grand Jury Transcripts is Already Public
Much of the information “was made publicly available at trial or has otherwise been publicly reported through the public statements of victims and witnesses,” prosecutors wrote in court papers Monday. They noted that the disclosures excluded some victims’ and witnesses’ names.
The filing aimed to support the DOJ’s request to release the usually secret grand jury records amid a public clamor for more transparency about the investigation into Epstein, six years after the financier died in prison.
Prosecutors also said last week that some of what the grand jurors heard, the public eventually did too, referring to Maxwell’s 2021 trial and various victims’ lawsuits. There were only two grand jury witnesses, both of them law enforcement officials, prosecutors said.
DOJ attorneys made clear Monday that they’re seeking to unseal only the transcripts of grand jury witnesses’ testimony, not the exhibits that accompanied it.