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house oversight committee
DOJ Under Fire for Withholding Epstein Files Related to Alleged Trump Child Sex Assault
"Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the president of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House," said one Democratic congressman.
Feb 24, 2026
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee announced Tuesday that an investigation will be opened into the US Department of Justice's withholding of Epstein files related to an alleged sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl committed by President Donald Trump decades ago.
“For the last few weeks, Oversight Democrats have been investigating the FBI’s handling of allegations from 2019 of sexual assault on a minor made against President Donald Trump by a survivor," Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said in a statement.
“Yesterday, I reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Department of Justice. Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes," he continued. "Oversight Democrats will open a parallel investigation into this."
"Under the Oversight Committee’s subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these records must immediately be shared with Congress and the American public," Garcia added. "Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the president of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover-up."
Oversight Dems have access to a list of documents, including interviews detailing serious allegations against President Trump, that are missing from the DOJ’s so-called “unredacted” files.Where are the missing files? What do they say? This all points to yet another cover up.
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— Rep. Robert Garcia (@robertgarcia.house.gov) February 24, 2026 at 2:21 PM
The Trump administration is accused of continuously flouting the Epstein Files Transparency Act—which mandated that all materials related to convicted child sex criminal and longtime former Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein be released by December 19. But critically, the law gives Attorney General Pam Bondi wide discretion to redact large amounts of information that could harm "national security."
Files on Epstein—who died under mysterious circumstances in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges—that have not been released to the public despite the transparency law "include what appears to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, and notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor," NPR reported Tuesday.
That minor was allegedly introduced to Trump around 1983, when she was 13 years old.
“[REDACTED] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump, who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit," a DOJ file on the alleged incident states. "In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out."
The child is one of more than two dozen women who have accused Trump of raping, sexually assaulting, or sexually harassing them.
In 2023, a civil jury in New York City found Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming journalist E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million. In a separate defamation trial, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll another $83.3 million.
Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, is challenging these civil awards. Trump also denies an allegation that he and Epstein "brutally raped" a 13-year-old girl identified by the pseudonym "Katie Johnson" at a 1994 party.
As NPR reported Tuesday:
Other files scrubbed from public view pertain to a separate woman who was a key witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial of Epstein's co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. Maxwell is seeking clemency from Trump. Some of those documents were briefly taken down and put back online last week, while others remain hidden, according to NPR's comparison of the initial dataset from January 30 with document metadata of those files currently on the Justice Department website.
Earlier this month, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that the unreacted Epstein files, which he had viewed, contained "more than million" references to Trump.
Robert Glassman, an attorney representing a woman who testified against Maxwell, blasted the DOJ for its "ridiculous" handling of the Epstein files.
"The DOJ was ordered to release information to the public to be transparent about Epstein and Maxwell's criminal enterprise network," he told NPR. "Instead, they released the names of courageous victims who have fought hard for decades to remain anonymous and out of the limelight. Whether the disclosures were inadvertent or not—they had one job to do here and they didn't do it."
Responding to the NPR report, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said on X, "I guarantee if these files exonerated Trump, they would have been released," adding that Bondi "must resign, and she must be prosecuted."
Democratic National Committee Rapid Response Director Kendall Witmer released a statement Tuesday asserting that "Donald Trump continues to lie about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, while his administration works overtime to hide the truth about Epstein’s heinous crimes from the American people."
"Tonight at the State of the Union, Trump will be in the same room as survivors of Epstein’s crimes, whom he has denied transparency and justice," Witmer added. "He and his administration must be held accountable for protecting pedophiles.”
Democratic lawmakers including Garcia, Raskin, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have invited Epstein survivors as guests to Tuesday night's speech by Trump.
Elisa Batista, campaign director at the advocacy group UltraViolet Action, said in a statement Tuesday that we are in solidarity with the courageous survivors showing up in defiance of Trump’s attempts to change the conversation at the State of the Union tonight."
Batista continued:
Their bravery represents the will of millions of Americans who are demanding accountability not just for all those who enabled Jeffrey Epstein, but also for public officials like Attorney General Pam Bondi who continue to protect those abusers and enablers by refusing to release all of the Epstein files.
When it comes to the Epstein class, the real state of the union remains unchanged: These powerful abusers and enablers believe they will be shielded by their wealth, networks, or influence. Now, like before, it’s been the fearless insistence of survivors that’s stood in the way of efforts by politicians like Trump and Bondi to sweep the full legacy of Epstein’s child sex trafficking network under the rug.
“No matter how much Trump and Bondi try to distract us from the fact that they broke the law to keep the public in the dark about the extent of Epstein’s child abuse, we, survivors and allies, will not allow them to forget their role in offering cover for Epstein and his enablers," Batista added.
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Arrest of Ex-UK Ambassador Peter Mandelson Over Epstein Ties Sparks Renewed Calls for Justice in the US
"In the UK, they are prosecuting the Epstein class..." said Rep. Ro Khanna. "We need accountability in the United States."
Feb 23, 2026
After a second prominent associate of Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in the UK, calls are growing louder for those in the US who may have been complicit in his crimes to face similar accountability.
Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the US, was arrested by police on Monday on "suspicion of misconduct in public office.” The arrest is reportedly in connection with an investigation opened into the former minister earlier this month.
Mandelson was dismissed from his ambassadorship by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in September after leaked emails showed that he'd maintained a close friendship with Epstein long after the financier had been convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008.
A criminal probe was opened last month after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released more files, suggesting that in 2009, Mandelson—then a member of the UK government—had passed Epstein sensitive internal economic information that could have affected international markets.
Bank statements also show Mandelson accepting $75,000 from Epstein over several years for an unknown purpose.
He is the second powerful figure in British society to be arrested amid scrutiny of his relationship with Epstein this month. Last week, former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in office, after emails showed him forwarding trade reports to Epstein, which were produced during his role as an official UK envoy.
Epstein had been charged with the sex trafficking of dozens of underage girls before his death in jail in 2019, and connections with the financier have led prominent individuals across Europe to be shamed out of office or out of influential corporate positions.
Neither Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor nor Mandelson has been criminally charged with any sexual misconduct related to the billionaire. However, at least two women have publicly accused Mountbatten-Windsor of having sex with them while underage after procuring them through Epstein.
In 2022, Mountbatten-Windsor settled a civil suit for about £12 million with Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that the former prince had sex with her when she was 17.
The arrest of yet another British government official for inappropriate dealings with Epstein has only heightened the contrast with the unaccountability of American elites, who have thus far emerged from the Epstein scandal unscathed despite damning connections.
"Peter Mandelson, the former British Ambassador to the US, was arrested today on suspicion of misconduct in public office. This is after files revealed Jeffrey Epstein sent $75,000 to accounts connected to him," wrote the official social media account for the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, which oversees the release of the files. "As we have said before: No one is above the law. We will make sure accountability and justice come to everyone in Epstein's world."
Files released by the DOJ in January, in compliance with a law passed last year, showed that at least one woman had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the 1980s after being introduced to him by Epstein, and that the FBI considered her to be credible, speaking to her on at least four occasions. It is not known what happened as a result of the investigation, and the DOJ slideshow referencing her allegation has since been scrubbed from the department's website.
Meanwhile, at least six other members of the current Trump administration have documented ties to Epstein revealed by the files.
Most notably, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was revealed to have lied when he claimed to have cut off connections to the billionaire in the early 2000s. In fact, Lutnick maintained a relationship with Epstein for nearly a decade after the billionaire registered as a sex offender and even visited his infamous Caribbean island with his family.
Many other figures in the upper echelon of American society also maintained close relationships with Epstein despite his criminal conviction, including former President Bill Clinton, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
Following news of Mandelson's arrest, US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—who has led the charge for the release of the files in full to the American public, along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)—said he wanted to see similar investigations and charges against Epstein's American associates.
"In UK, they are prosecuting the Epstein class [Massie] and I have exposed," Khanna wrote on social media. "We need accountability in the United States."
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GOP Votes Down Pressley's Motion to Investigate Minneapolis ICE Shooting
"Republicans shamefully voted it down—demonstrating once again that they have never cared about law and order or keeping our communities safe," said the congresswoman.
Jan 08, 2026
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley told her fellow members of the US House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that a motion she was introducing during a hearing was "pretty straightforward": The committee, she said, should conduct oversight regarding a federal agent's fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a woman in Minneapolis who was killed in her car earlier in the day.
But the motion failed, with every Republican on the panel voting against it.
Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced the motion during a hearing regarding a fraud scandal in the state, hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot Good, who was in the driver's seat of her car as multiple officers approached her. Good was acting as a legal observer, according to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), monitoring ICE actions following the Trump administration's surge of federal agents into Minnesota, in part to target members of the Somali community.
Footage of the shooting shows an officer trying to open the car door and the driver turning the wheel before starting to drive forward. An agent who had approached the driver-side bumper draws his gun and shoots the driver multiple times.
Despite what is shown in the widely available video, President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Vice President JD Vance were quick to place blame on Good. Trump said she “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over” the ICE agent, while Noem said Good had committed an "act of domestic terrorism."
Pressley called on the congressional committee to investigate the case.
"Since this committee is responsible for oversight of federal law enforcement, we must investigate," she said. "This subpoena will get to the truth, and it should have bipartisan support."
Pressley condemned her GOP colleagues for blocking the effort to get to the bottom of what happened in Minneapolis, which has also been described by multiple eyewitnesses who dispute the Trump administration's narrative.
“DHS’ claim that an agent shot in self-defense is a bold-faced lie and the video footage is damning," said Pressley. "But after I moved to subpoena all records and footage related to this killing, Republicans shamefully voted it down—demonstrating once again that they have never cared about law and order or keeping our communities safe.
“What happened today is a despicable consequence of Donald Trump’s campaign of terror, fear, and demonization of vulnerable communities and we cannot allow it to be normalized in America," said Pressley. "I demand a thorough and independent investigation into this tragedy so the victim, her loved ones, and the public get the accountability and transparency they deserve. It’s time for the Trump administration to end its cruel, unlawful mass deportation agenda once and for all.”
The ACLU on Wednesday noted that Good was killed as Congress negotiates the Department of Homeland Security's budget for the coming year, months after lawmakers voted to add "an unprecedented $170 billion to the Trump administration’s already massive budget for immigration enforcement."
“For months, the Trump administration has been deploying reckless, heavily armed agents into our communities and encouraging them to commit horrifying abuses with impunity, and, today, we are seeing the devastating and predictable consequences,” said Naureen Shah, director of policy and government affairs at ACLU. “Congress must rein ICE in before what happened in Minneapolis today happens somewhere else tomorrow. That means, at a minimum, opposing a Homeland Security budget that supports the growing lawlessness of this agency.”
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