The House Oversight Committee is increasing its investigation into convicted little one intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein and looking for new targets — guaranteeing that the Epstein controversy is unlikely to die down even after the Justice Department was compelled by Congress to launch the recordsdata that it has in its possession.
This week, the investigative panel run by Republican Rep. James Comer issued subpoenas to 2 banks, referred to as for a slew of paperwork from the US Virgin Islands lawyer normal and solicited recommendation from Epstein survivors about what the committee ought to subsequent goal. The panel has up to now released tens of hundreds of paperwork, emails and communications that it obtained from the Epstein property that proceed to open new strains of investigative inquiry.
On Friday, the committee threatened contempt of Congress if Bill and Hillary Clinton didn’t adjust to their subpoenas and rapidly schedule their depositions. NCS has reached out to the Clintons for remark.
Investigators additionally nonetheless need to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s confederate. Her attorneys not too long ago informed the panel that Maxwell would assert her fifth Amendment rights and would refuse to reply questions, a supply acquainted with the matter informed NCS.
“The House Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough review of the federal government’s investigation of Jeffrey Epstein in order to bring transparency for the American people and accountability for survivors,” Comer stated in a press release to NCS.
The panel additionally has its personal subpoena to DOJ for all 300 gigabytes of the Epstein recordsdata. Sources acquainted with the investigation say it’s totally different than the law recently signed by President Donald Trump in that the committee’s subpoena doesn’t have any exceptions to it, whereas the legislation permits for DOJ to determine if any paperwork pertaining to an ongoing investigation might be withheld.
Those sources acquainted with the investigation stated that investigators wish to increase the subpoenas to banks to over a dozen and are actively increasing the investigation’s witness checklist, together with survivors who need to share their tales, people concerned in Epstein’s 2008 so-called sweetheart deal, and former Palm Beach officers associated to a separate investigation.
“The committee is in a constant state of interviews and talking to people. We’re having conversations regularly with survivors, we’re taking information from them. We’re talking regularly to folks that were in Epstein’s network that knew him,” one of many sources informed NCS. “We have an active whistleblower line and people send information to us.”
In a closed-door assembly on Tuesday, congressional workers requested survivors and their attorneys the place the committee ought to look subsequent in its ongoing probe of Epstein. One particular person responded that the panel ought to subpoena Harvard, remarking that the elite college was once a quintessential “old boys’ club.”
Staff within the room responded positively to the suggestion and affirmed that the panel was in actual fact prepared to look into investigating the college, sources stated, although issuing a subpoena just isn’t usually step one.
The change comes as Harvard University is as soon as once more embroiled in an Epstein scandal after the Oversight panel launched final week tens of hundreds of paperwork that it obtained from the Epstein property.
The trove of paperwork launched final week showed that Larry Summers, Harvard’s former president and one in all its most distinguished school, had a years-long, intimate correspondence and friendship with Epstein. In emails between the years 2013 and 2019, the 2 males often bantered about present occasions and high-profile figures in elite orbits; at different occasions, the 2 males appeared to debate Summers’ romantic endeavors, with Epstein providing recommendation.
Summers has since resigned from quite a few public roles, together with board member of OpenAI and Santander and senior fellow on the Center for American Progress. In an preliminary assertion, Summers stated he was “deeply ashamed” about his relationship with Epstein however that he would proceed his instructing commitments. Later in the identical week, Harvard stated Summers wouldn’t be ending the semester as an teacher on the college.
Harvard, which has lengthy had deep ties to Epstein, introduced this week that it’s launching an investigation not solely into Summers’ reference to the pedophile, but additionally another college associates implicated in final week’s paperwork launch, The Harvard Crimson first reported.
More subpoenas and interviews to come back
The Justice Department has 30 days to adjust to the Epstein recordsdata legislation Trump signed Wednesday, however how precisely the company will launch the recordsdata and any potential restrictions are removed from clear.
Trump has individually instructed the Department of Justice to additional examine Epstein’s relationship with a lot of high-profile people, together with Summers.
On the identical day that the House voted to launch the entire Epstein recordsdata, the Oversight panel subpoenaed JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank for Epstein’s monetary data as Republicans imagine Epstein’s funds present an entire new wealth of data.
“I think we have just scratched the surface on Epstein,” GOP Rep. Tim Burchett, who serves on the House Oversight Committee, informed NCS. “I think we are going to have to dig very deep into his finances and we may never know the full extent to his network.”
Specifically, the Republican-led panel is demanding paperwork pertaining to a 2019 JPMorgan Chase inside investigation into Epstein, often known as “Project Jeep” that retroactively flagged 4,700 Epstein transactions as suspicious. Epstein held accounts with JPMorgan Chase for roughly 20 years till 2013 when the financial institution reportedly closed all of Epstein’s accounts and he banked with Deutsche Bank from 2013 via doubtlessly late 2018.
“In short, the records sought by this subpoena are critical to further the Committee’s investigation,” Comer wrote in his subpoena letters on November 18.
“We may never know.” Senator Chris Murphy on chance that Trump redacts mentions of himself in Epstein recordsdata.
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden released a report this week claiming that not too long ago unsealed courtroom data present that JPMorgan Chase “underreported Epstein’s suspicious transactions to the federal government for nearly two decades.”
In response to Wyden’s report, JPMorgan’s Patricia Wexler stated in a press release to NCS, “We acted appropriately in filing SARs as early as 2002. The second the government finally made public the sex trafficking details in 2019 — information they clearly had for years — we identified for law enforcement a range of Epstein’s past transactions intended to assist with the investigation.”
The Oversight committee additionally requested a tranche of paperwork from US Virgin Islands Attorney General Gordon Rhea to additional dig into Epstein’s life on his two non-public islands the place he allegedly leveraged his private and enterprise relationships to barter profitable tax breaks and even repay native legislation enforcement, based on the panel’s letter. The committee needs to be taught extra about USVI’s 2020 legislation enforcement motion in opposition to Epstein and the next settlements to the tune of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
“The Committee believes that the documents related to Mr. Epstein, his estate, and the USVI litigation will aide its ongoing investigation into Mr. Epstein, Ms. Maxwell, and the federal government’s investigation into both individuals,” Comer’s subpoena letter states.
NCS has reached out to Rhea for remark.
Given Epstein’s communication with USVI Governor Kenneth E. Mapp and textual content messages throughout a 2019 congressional listening to with Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat who represents the US Virgin Islands in Congress as a non-voting delegate, the committee argued in its letter to Rhea that there’s an “interconnectedness between the USVI and Mr. Epstein.”