The furor surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein case has taken on new life in Washington, with lawmakers, survivors, and the White House locked in a tense standoff over the release of thousands of pages of documents. As the House Oversight Committee continues to drip-feed files related to Epstein’s notorious sex trafficking operation, survivors and their advocates are demanding full transparency, while President Donald Trump and his allies attempt to dismiss the mounting calls as politically motivated attacks.
The controversy reached a boiling point in early September 2025, when the House Oversight Committee released more than 30,000 pages of Epstein-related documents, promising that more would follow. According to CNN, House Speaker Mike Johnson declared that the committee’s ongoing investigation would “uncover things that have never been uncovered before.” Yet, critics argue that much of what’s being released is already public knowledge, and the real fight is over the full, unredacted disclosure of the files.
That push is being spearheaded by Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who, along with Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California, is leading a bipartisan charge to force the House to vote on legislation compelling the complete release of Epstein’s case files. Massie is using a rarely successful maneuver known as a discharge petition, which requires 218 signatures to bring the bill to the floor. As of early September, only four Republicans—Massie, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina—had signed on. The petition’s momentum has stalled, with some House Republicans citing the recent document release as reason enough to hold back.
Both House Republican leaders and White House officials have reportedly discouraged further support for the petition. CNN quoted a White House official as warning that backing Massie’s effort would “be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration.” If Massie succeeds, he would still face a mandatory waiting period before the bill could reach the floor, and even then, there’s no guarantee the Senate would take up the measure. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN he doubted the need for further Senate action, pointing to the Justice Department’s ongoing release of documents.
Meanwhile, the Oversight Committee continues to subpoena records from the Justice Department and Epstein’s estate. One item of particular interest is Epstein’s so-called “birthday book”—a collection of letters and notes for his 50th birthday, which reportedly contains a note bearing Trump’s name. Trump has denied writing such a letter and is suing The Wall Street Journal for defamation over its reporting on the matter. According to CNN, the estate is expected to begin producing materials on September 8, though redactions are anticipated.
The committee has also scheduled a transcribed interview with Alexander Acosta, the former Labor Secretary and U.S. Attorney who oversaw Epstein’s controversial 2008 plea deal, for September 19. Testimony is being sought from other high-profile figures, including former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Amid the political wrangling, the voices of Epstein’s survivors have become impossible to ignore. At a recent press conference on Capitol Hill, several women shared their harrowing experiences and called for a meeting with President Trump. One survivor, Jena-Lisa Jones, who voted for Trump, expressed deep disappointment at his characterization of the case as a “Democrat hoax.” Speaking on MSNBC’s The Last Word, Jones said, “I voted for Trump. And for him to say what he’s saying is beyond me, because I put my hope in him and he’s supposed to protect us.” She continued, “You should be supporting us, you should be backing us. We spoke our truth and you are telling us pretty much that we’re lying.”
Trump, for his part, has doubled down on his assertion that the Epstein case is a partisan attack. When pressed by The Independent about whether he was shielding powerful friends by not releasing all the files, Trump replied, “From what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it’s really a Democrat hoax, because they’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president.”
This stance has not only alienated survivors but also created rifts within the president’s own party. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump ally, broke ranks to support Massie’s discharge petition and publicly advocated for the victims. She told Real America’s Voice that she had received “phone call after phone call” from the White House, urging her not to sign the petition. Nevertheless, Greene pledged at the press conference, “If they want to give me a list, I will walk in that Capitol on the House floor and I’ll say every damn name that abused these women. I can do that for them and I’d be proud to do it.”
The legal and constitutional stakes are high. Massie and Greene have indicated they are willing to use the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause—which protects lawmakers from litigation for statements made during legislative proceedings—to read the names of alleged abusers aloud on the House floor. Victims, they argue, could face devastating lawsuits if they attempted the same.
The White House’s efforts to contain the controversy have not gone unnoticed. The administration continues to face scrutiny nearly two months after the FBI and Justice Department released a memo stating that no further documents warranted release, and that there was no evidence Epstein kept a “client list.” That memo, far from quelling the outcry, only intensified calls for transparency, especially given the persistent conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein’s 2019 death by suicide in jail while facing sex trafficking charges.
The political drama has taken on an almost surreal quality. On September 6, MSNBC host Eugene Daniels could barely contain his laughter while reporting on Speaker Johnson’s claim that Trump was an “FBI informant” against Epstein. Johnson insisted that Trump had “kicked [Epstein] out of Mar-a-Lago” and had “great sympathy for the women who’ve suffered these unspeakable harms.” Yet, as Daniels noted, Trump has not made such statements publicly. Legal expert Maya Wiley, speaking on the same program, described the narrative as “a kind of reframing” and an attempt to “clean dirty laundry by spinning it.”
The origins of the “FBI informant” claim appear to trace back to attorney Bradley Edwards, who represents several Epstein victims. Edwards said this week that Trump had aided his original investigation into Epstein, telling MSNBC, “He didn’t think that it was a hoax then. In fact, he helped me. He got on the phone. He told me things that were helping our investigation. Now, our investigation wasn’t looking into him, but he was helping us then. He didn’t treat this as a hoax.”
As the Oversight Committee prepares for more subpoenas and interviews, and as survivors threaten to compile their own list of alleged abusers if full transparency isn’t achieved, the Epstein files saga shows no sign of fading from the national spotlight. With political alliances shifting and public pressure mounting, the coming weeks may finally bring long-sought answers—or only deepen the mystery and mistrust that have long haunted the case.
For now, the survivors’ call for truth and accountability remains at the heart of a scandal that continues to shake the corridors of power in Washington.
