The House Oversight Committee approved a subpoena for Ghislaine Maxwell, the onetime girlfriend of pedophile and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, by voice vote on Tuesday.
Lawmakers voted to compel Maxwell’s testimony before the committee as the issue of whether a so-called “client list” of Epstein’s co-conspirators exists continues to consume Washington and much of American political discourse across X, Truth Social and other social platforms.
In the House of Representatives, the investigation provoked a rare moment of unity between some of Donald Trump’s closest supporters in the GOP, some of his strongest critics on the left, and even a Republican representative who has become one of the biggest thorns in the president’s side.
While the committee’s vote to compel Maxwell to testify is clearly significant, a bipartisan cohort of lawmakers is threatening to take it a step further by forcing a vote on a resolution directing the Justice Department to release the entirety of its evidence on the Epstein and Maxwell cases.
Congressional subpoenas carry the weight of a court order, and Maxwell remains incarcerated oj a 20-year sentence following her conviction for sex trafficking of a minor and other charges. As Epstein’s lead accomplice, she’s thought to know more about the inner workings of his social circles than anyone besides Epstein himself.
Arrested for similar charges after a prior conviction, Epstein died in 2019 in federal custody. The circumstances of his death are another mysterious angle in the saga, given that it was ruled a suicide and occurred in what was supposed to be tightly controlled federal custody.
The Justice Department released video of an area outside Epstein’s cell earlier this year that contained at least a full minute of missing footage, drawing further speculation.
The alleged ties between a dead pedophile and powerful figures and institutions in American society are now under the microscope as Americans of all political stripes question whether the federal government is engaged in a cover-up to protect them. The relationship between Epstein and President Donald Trump is central to those questions, as the president was a known friend of Epstein for years.
Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published the contents of a birthday note the paper reported as allegedly authored by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday celebration in 2003. The contents of the bawdy alleged note hint at a “secret” shared by the two men.
Trump, in response, denied the authenticity of the note and said the reporting was false. Hours later he filed a $10 million libel suit against the WSJ in Florida federal court.
Epstein’s efforts to cultivate powerful relationships went far beyond Trump, who at the time was a real estate mogul in New York. The billionaire financier held an office at Harvard University and was connected to other U.S. intellectual and political figures, including former President Bill Clinton. Britain’s Prince Andrew was also engulfed in scandal over his own friendship with Epstein.
A top Justice Department official, deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, tried to stifle some of the speculation about a supposed Justice Department cover-up on Tuesday. In a tweet, he wrote that the agency would have investigators meet with Maxwell to determine whether she “has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims” of Epstein.
The statement was bizarre on its face; Maxwell, as Epstein’s co-conspirator, obviously would be the prime source of such information and Blanche’s statement implies that such information was not gathered as part of the prosecution leading to her 20-year sentencing in 2022.
A statement from the Justice Department and FBI accelerated the backlash after officials declared that there was no list of Epstein’s co-conspirators and no evidence definitively linking others besides Maxwell to his crimes. On the right, conversations about the issue veered quickly towards accusations of a cover-up involving the president himself.
Trump, in response, sought to distract from the growing scandal by deploying some of his typical strategies. In statements and a now-deleted Truth Social post, he attacked his own followers and supporters as “weak” and “stupid”, and blamed them for focusing on an issue he claimed was unimportant.
Separately, he has launched a wave of attacks against his favorite targets, from Barack Obama to Rosie O’Donnell and the Washington Commanders, vowing improbable retribution for imagined slights
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