Topline
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said 97% of the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Department of Justice were already public, with Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., insisting the “overwhelming majority” of the 33,295 pages of documents produced contained no new information.
The Justice Department turned over more than 33,000 pages related to the case against the notorious financier after a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee.
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Key Facts
Many of the files released to Congress so far include were previously made public by the Department of Justice, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement or the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office, Garcia’s office told Forbes.
These include filings from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Report on Epstein’s death, a memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi to FBI Director Kash Patel on releasing the files, and the video of Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell on the night of his death previously released by the government in July.
The new documents included in the release were records from Customs and Border Protection on the location of Epstein’s private jet from 2000 to 2014, Garcia’s office said, which were less than 1,000 pages in total.
“Much of the material is already in the public record, but it will take some time to review the entire batch,” Garcia, the top-ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a post on X on Friday after the files were released, before noting “once again, DOJ could release all of the files today.”
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the chair of the Oversight Committee, previously praised the delivery and the Justice Department, writing in a post on X “the Trump DOJ is moving at a pace far faster than anything ever produced by the Biden DOJ” (Forbes has reached out to Comer’s office for further comment on the Democrats’ statement).
Tangent
At the same time, Democrats on the House Oversight slammed the Justice Department’s decision to release the testimony that Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein associate currently serving a prison sentence after being found guilty on sex trafficking charges, gave to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Maxwell is desperately seeking a pardon from the Trump Administration and cannot be trusted,” Garcia said in a statement on Saturday
Key Background
The release of Epstein files to Congress comes months after the Trump administration started the process to review and release documents the Justice Department had on disgraced financier Epstein, who was facing sex trafficking charges before his death in federal custody in 2019. In February, the Justice Department brought conservative influencers to a White House press event and handed out binders of newly “declassified” files—but most of these files had previously been available through court filings or leaked to the press, and the release yielded little new information. The Justice Department said in a July memo that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,” sparking fierce backlash on both sides of the aisle. Lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena for the files in August, while the Trump administration has pushed for the courts to unseal grand jury documents related to the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell—an effort that has been unsuccessful so far.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2025/08/23/democrats-say-97-of-epstein-files-given-to-congress-were-already-public/
