The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the estate of the late Jeffrey Epstein on Monday as congressional lawmakers try to determine who was connected to the disgraced financier and whether prosecutors mishandled his case.
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The committee’s subpoena is the latest effort by both Republicans and Democrats to respond to public clamour for more disclosure in the investigation into Epstein, who was found dead in his New York prison cell in 2019.
Lawmakers are trying to guide an investigation into who among Epstein’s high-powered social circle may have been aware of his sexual abuse of teenage girls, delving into a criminal case that has spurred conspiracy theories and roiled top officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration.
The subpoena, signed by congressman James Comer, the Republican chairman of the oversight committee, and dated Monday, demands that Epstein’s estate provide Congress with documents including a book that was compiled with notes from friends for his 50th birthday, his last will and testament, agreements he signed with prosecutors, his contact books, and his financial transactions and holdings.
Comer wrote to the executors of Epstein’s estate that the committee “is reviewing the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death, the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials”.
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The Justice Department, trying to distance Trump and Epstein, last week began handing over to lawmakers documentation of the federal investigation into Epstein.