House Oversight Committee widens its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein
CNN
By Annie Grayer, MJ Lee, CNN
(CNN) — The House Oversight Committee is expanding its investigation into convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and searching for new targets — guaranteeing that the Epstein controversy is unlikely to die down even after the Justice Department was compelled by Congress to release the files that it has in its possession.
This week, the investigative panel run by Republican Rep. James Comer issued subpoenas to two banks, called for a slew of documents from the US Virgin Islands attorney general and solicited advice from Epstein survivors about what the committee should next target. The panel has so far released tens of thousands of documents, emails and communications that it received from the Epstein estate that continue to open new lines of investigative inquiry.
On Friday, the committee threatened contempt of Congress if Bill and Hillary Clinton did not comply with their subpoenas and quickly schedule their depositions. CNN has reached out to the Clintons for comment.
Investigators also still want to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice. Her attorneys recently told the panel that Maxwell would assert her 5th Amendment rights and would refuse to answer questions, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
“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 said in a statement to CNN.
The panel also has its own subpoena to DOJ for all 300 gigabytes of the Epstein files. Sources familiar with the investigation say it is different than the law recently signed by President Donald Trump in that the committee’s subpoena does not have any exceptions to it, while the law allows for DOJ to decide if any documents pertaining to an ongoing investigation can be withheld.
Those sources familiar with the investigation said that investigators are looking to expand the subpoenas to banks to over a dozen and are actively expanding the investigation’s witness list, including survivors who want to share their stories, individuals involved in Epstein’s 2008 so-called sweetheart deal, and former Palm Beach officials related 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 the sources told CNN. “We have an active whistleblower line and people send information to us.”
In a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, congressional staff asked survivors and their attorneys where the committee should look next in its ongoing probe of Epstein. One individual responded that the panel should subpoena Harvard, remarking that the elite school used to be a quintessential “old boys’ club.”
Staff in the room responded positively to the suggestion and affirmed that the panel was in fact willing to look into investigating the university, sources said, though issuing a subpoena is not typically the first step.
The exchange comes as Harvard University is once again embroiled in an Epstein scandal after the Oversight panel released last week tens of thousands of documents that it received from the Epstein estate.
The trove of documents released last week showed that Larry Summers, Harvard’s former president and one of its most prominent faculty, had a years-long, intimate correspondence and friendship with Epstein. In emails between the years 2013 and 2019, the two men frequently bantered about current events and high-profile figures in elite orbits; at other times, the two men appeared to discuss Summers’ romantic endeavors, with Epstein offering advice.
Summers has since resigned from numerous public roles, including board member of OpenAI and Santander and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. In an initial statement, Summers said he was “deeply ashamed” about his relationship with Epstein but that he would continue his teaching commitments. Later in the same week, Harvard said Summers would not be finishing the semester as an instructor at the university.
Harvard, which has long had deep ties to Epstein, announced this week that it is launching an investigation not only into Summers’ connection with the pedophile, but also any other university affiliates implicated in last week’s documents release, The Harvard Crimson first reported.
More subpoenas and interviews to come
The Justice Department has 30 days to comply with the Epstein files law Trump signed Wednesday, but how exactly the agency will release the files and any potential restrictions are far from clear.
Trump has separately instructed the Department of Justice to further investigate Epstein’s relationship with a number of high-profile individuals, including Summers.
On the same day that the House voted to release all of the Epstein files, the Oversight panel subpoenaed JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank for Epstein’s financial records as Republicans believe Epstein’s finances provide a whole new wealth of information.
“I think we have just scratched the surface on Epstein,” GOP Rep. Tim Burchett, who serves on the House Oversight Committee, told CNN. “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 documents pertaining to a 2019 JPMorgan Chase internal investigation into Epstein, known as “Project Jeep” that retroactively flagged 4,700 Epstein transactions as suspicious. Epstein held accounts with JPMorgan Chase for approximately two decades until 2013 when the bank reportedly closed all of Epstein’s accounts and he banked with Deutsche Bank from 2013 through potentially 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.
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden released a report this week claiming that recently unsealed court records show 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 said in a statement to CNN, “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 also requested a tranche of documents from US Virgin Islands Attorney General Gordon Rhea to further dig into Epstein’s life on his two private islands where he allegedly leveraged his personal and business relationships to negotiate lucrative tax breaks and even pay off local law enforcement, according to the panel’s letter. The committee wants to learn more about USVI’s 2020 law enforcement action against Epstein and the subsequent settlements to the tune of millions 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.
CNN has reached out to Rhea for comment.
Given Epstein’s communication with USVI Governor Kenneth E. Mapp and text messages during a 2019 congressional hearing 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 is an “interconnectedness between the USVI and Mr. Epstein.”
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