First posted on Instagram · @profilopolitics
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released their final report on Jeffrey Epstein on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, after a 15-month investigation, concluding that federal prosecutors and investigators mishandled the cases against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell for decades and that crimes Epstein committed after 2005 could have been prevented if federal authorities had acted differently.
The 136-page report, drawn from 19 transcribed interviews and seven depositions as well as Justice Department files, financial records and documents from Epstein's estate, centers on the 2007 non-prosecution agreement in which the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, under then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser state charges.
The report revisits the long-running question of whether Epstein had ties to intelligence. Acosta told the Trump transition team that he had been told to back off the Epstein case because Epstein "belonged to intelligence," though he later denied that Epstein was an intelligence asset. The report does not conclude that Epstein was an intelligence asset.
It also details the scale of Epstein's network and the money that flowed through it. Billionaire Leon Black paid Epstein at least $158 million — and by some accounts up to $170 million — for purported tax and estate-planning advice after Epstein's 2008 conviction, and the House held Black in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas about the relationship. Senator Ron Wyden referred findings to the committee that Epstein kept track of women Black had reached settlements with and reached out to Russian government officials to help Black with those matters. The committee interviewed former President Bill Clinton, former Victoria's Secret owner Leslie Wexner and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, among others, who said they were unaware of Epstein's crimes.
The report faults the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files after the Epstein Files Transparency Act became law in November 2025, saying the department failed to communicate adequately about its releases, improperly exposed sensitive information about victims, and kept victims from full access to their own records. It urges the department to reinterview key witnesses, investigate Epstein's associates — including his former assistant Lesley Groff — and give survivors unredacted access to their own files. "The federal government has failed the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's horrific crimes for decades," committee chairman James Comer said.
Democrats on the committee dismissed the report as misleading and partisan. "Oversight Republicans have released a report based on an incomplete investigation and zero public hearings on Jeffrey Epstein," ranking member Robert Garcia said, vowing to continue the investigation with public hearings when Democrats take control of the committee in January, when the 120th Congress begins. The report also accuses Democrats of being preoccupied with implicating President Donald Trump, and says it found no material tying Trump to Epstein's crimes.