House Democrats say they have unfinished business in regards to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, and they believe their base is counting on them to deliver.
It’s a mandate they are taking even more seriously after last week’s wave election that will give Democrats their biggest majority in decades — and further reinforced by the Tuesday release of a Republican report that purported to close the book on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s 15-month investigation into the late, convicted sex offender.
“Our work is just getting started,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the incoming Oversight Committee chair, said in a statement. He decried the GOP report as “based on an incomplete investigation and zero public hearings” as the Justice Department “continues to illegally withhold over 2.5 million pages of documents.”
Democrats are now talking about recalling witnesses to testify under oath and issuing subpoenas to major banks that helped finance Epstein’s trafficking of young women and girls for years.
They are also suggesting there’s more to investigate surrounding Epstein’s relationship with President Donald Trump, and what DOJ might be hiding to protect him.
“So many survivors have called our office or found me in the grocery store, and [said], ‘you know, I wasn’t a victim of Epstein, but I’ve been a victim, and this gives me peace and a sense of justice,’” said Rep. Emily Randall (D-Wash.), a member of the Oversight Committee, of how her constituents are clamoring for a congressional investigation that brings justice to Epstein’s victims by exposing the web of powerful people who enabled his abuse.
But Democrats are also under pressure over the next two years to show they can do more than just conduct oversight of the Trump administration. That includes making good on the campaign promise that united the party in key races around the country: improving affordability and lowering the costs of everyday goods.
Reinforcing voters’ desire to see Congress legislate on pocketbook issues, recent POLITICO Poll findings show that, among those who voted for Democrats in the midterms, 71% said that, when forced to choose, they preferred to the party prioritize bringing down the cost of living — compared to 25% who said they preferred the party continue investigating Epstein.
Progressive Democrats were slightly more likely to prioritize the Epstein files at 31% when faced with that same choice, with moderate Democrats at 21%.
Some Democrats have said in recent days they are worried their leadership will find it easier to wield their new subpoena power than pass laws with Trump still in the White House and plan to push for a legislative agenda the party can run on in 2028.
They also could be turned off by Democrats’ efforts to keep trying to implicate the president in Epstein’s misconduct. Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, and no evidence has suggested he took part in Epstein’s crimes. However, incoming Judiciary Chair Jamie Raskin released a late-October report calling for a special counsel to investigate whether the president sexually assaulted a handful of women in Epstein’s orbit.
And Garcia, in his statement Tuesday, committed to “hold[ing] real public hearings uplifting survivors and asking tough questions of the powerful men who associated with Epstein, including Donald Trump.”
The Republican committee report, in its summary of findings, accused Democrats of “concentrat[ing] their investigative efforts on President Trump rather than the broader, decades long institutional failures that enabled Epstein’s abuse and robbed survivors of swift justice.”
But Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who also sits on the Oversight Committee, said that a continuation of the congressional Epstein investigation is actually exactly what voters asked for when they rejected Republicans at the polls last week.
“You essentially have all the problems people are concerned about in one thing: elites, billionaires, politicians getting away with crime because they have money and because they have political power,” Frost said in an interview. “Getting through this is not just going to help us have accountability for what wrongs have been done, but help us understand what more do we need to do as legislators to form legislation so it never happens again.”
Another Oversight Democrat, Rep. Wesley Bell of Missouri, also pointed to voters’ desire to see their elected officials hold powerful people to account: “Rooting out the corruption, getting to the bottom of this investigation that involves likely the largest sex trafficking scheme that this nation — maybe the world — has seen … that’s exactly what Americans want us to do.”
In the meantime, Democrats are pledging to plow ahead. Members are also still waiting to get the full slate of documents mandated by the law Congress passed nearly unanimously on Nov. 19, 2025. A top priority in the new Congress will likely be calling in Attorney General Todd Blanche, who oversaw the haphazard release of the Epstein files when he was still deputy to his ousted predecessor, Pam Bondi.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), who also sits on the panel, said she and her colleagues have a list of financial institutions that need to be scrutinized for their ties to Epstein. She cited Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase as “the top ones,” but added, “there’s a lot of them.”
Ansari also defended Democrats’ decision to continue the Epstein inquiry in the new Congress despite a loaded legislative and investigative agenda across other committees and issue areas.
“There’s one thing that I learned through this process, and even talking with the survivors — every interview you do and every piece of it you learn about, it just has become clear how vast this network was and the entire operation was,” she said.
“And there’s been so much coverup for so many years that I do think this is going to be a years-long endeavor to really get to the truth,” Ansari continued, “and will require a Department of Justice that is focused on it to take it to the point of real accountability.”
