One of the sponsors of the law requiring the release of the investigative files relating to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein said he’s giving the Justice Department the “benefit of the doubt” that it will make the files public by Friday — warning that there would be repercussions if it doesn’t.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last month by President Donald Trump, “calls for the release, publicly, of these files,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told NBC News in an interview.
He said officials at the Justice Department have not responded to requests for information about how and when the files will be made public, but noted that DOJ successfully moved to unseal grand jury records in the case, which he takes as an indication they’re trying to comply.
The law requires DOJ to make the files public by Dec. 19.
Khanna said in an interview Monday that he believes the information “will show in certain cases how powerful men said that they had control over the local police in New York or had contacts with the FBI and told survivors not to report things because they would not go anywhere. That needs to come out.”
He said he believes the files will also shed light on happenings on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.
“It needs to come out, who the other powerful men were on Epstein’s rape island,” Khanna said. “There were a lot of sex parties where women were trafficked for pay.”
A spokesman for the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on the files Tuesday.
“Until the 19th, let’s give some benefit of the doubt, given that they’ve been supporting these judicial rulings,” Khanna said. “And then we’ll see.”
The department has appeared to slow walk previous disclosures in the case.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for the entirety of its Epstein files by Aug. 19. The Justice Department later told the panel it needed more time and eventually turned over more than 33,000 pages to the panel, which became public in early September.
House Republicans called those documents, most of which were already public, the “first batch,” but the department has not turned over any other documents since.
Khanna said under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, if the information is not made public by Friday, “the Justice Department officials would be breaking the law.”
While they likely would not face charges during the current administration, “they could be subject to prosecution given the federal law, and the statute of limitations will likely run into a new administration.”
They also “could be hauled in front of Congress, the Oversight Committee,” and “there could be federal lawsuits” over any inaction, Khanna said.
The law requires the attorney general to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice” involving the late financier and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The politically connected Epstein, who at various points had ties to Trump, former President Bill Clinton and former Prince Andrew of Britain, among others, died by suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. All have denied wrongdoing.
He’d been investigated on similar charges a decade prior, but wound up pleading guilty to state charges involving a single underage victim after reaching a secret nonprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida. The deal resulted in Epstein serving just 13 months in a Palm Beach County jail, where he was allowed to leave almost daily via a work-release program and have his own private security detail.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term for conspiring to sex traffic minors.
The new law calls for DOJ to make available information on people, “including government officials, named or referenced in connection with Epstein’s criminal activities, civil settlements, immunity or plea agreements, or investigatory proceedings,” and “[e]ntities, (corporate, nonprofit, academic, or governmental) with known or alleged ties to Epstein’s trafficking or financial networks,” as well as information about any immunity deals.
There are some exceptions for what has to be turned over. The law allows the attorney general to withhold records that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.”
Trump last month directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Clinton, Clinton’s former treasury secretary Larry Summers and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman after their names appeared in emails that were produced by Epstein’s estate. None were accused of wrongdoing or implicated in any criminal activity in the emails. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, told Vanity Fair in a series of interviews published on Tuesday that Trump was “wrong” to say that there was anything incriminating related to Clinton in the Epstein files.
Khanna said even if some materials are withheld, “that would be like less than 5% of the files.”
“There are so many documents,” he said.
Epstein’s connections, the lenience he was shown and the circumstances of his death have fueled years of conspiracy theories, and Khanna acknowledged that even the full release of the files won’t bring those to an end. But he said they could bring some peace to his victims, which the FBI has said numbered over 1,000.
People “still have concerns about President Kennedy and Dr. King,” Khanna said, referring to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., “but do I think there’s going to be a sense that finally the government is trying to have accountability? Yes.”