When Rep. Robert Garcia walked into Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office in June to ask if she would once again run for the top Democratic job on the House Oversight Committee, he expected to convince her to try.
“I thought, this is someone that represents the next generation of Democrats,” Garcia said of Ocasio-Cortez during a recent interview with NOTUS. “She has a strong voice. She is aggressive in a way that I think is important for us to be.”
In Garcia’s eyes, Ocasio-Cortez had long been the right Democrat for the job, both when she ran against Rep. Gerry Connolly in December 2024 and when he died in May, creating a vacancy for the top spot. Garcia thought Ocasio-Cortez would be a force multiplier for Democratic messaging at a time when the party faithful are pleading for forceful opposition to President Donald Trump.
But after talking with Ocasio-Cortez in her office for what Garcia described as a “long time,” he was convinced that AOC — no longer a member of Oversight, and busy with new projects and perhaps presidential ambitions — would not run for the spot.
“That’s when I decided, well, everything I believed in when she ran, I still believed in,” Garcia said.
“We need more folks at the table that are from the next generation of Democrats,” he continued. “We have to expand the tent, get more folks engaged, and take a more aggressive approach in Oversight.”
The California Democrat has his own streak for eye-popping stunts and witty rejoinders that helped Democrats message against Republicans. He has gone viral for quoting a Real Housewife of Salt Lake City during a hearing, getting the phrase “dick pic” entered into the congressional record, and calling Elon Musk a “dick” during a CNN interview where he also suggested Democrats “bring actual weapons to this bar fight.”
Despite Ocasio-Cortez’s loss to Connolly, six months into this Congress, the House Democratic Caucus was apparently ready for Garcia. He won a four-way race, handily.
Now, a month into his job leading Democrats on Oversight, Garcia has been tasked with shepherding his party through an issue seemingly tailor-made for his style of pugnacious leadership: the Epstein files.
Questions about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring have dominated recent Capitol Hill interviews, as an unusual coalition of members seeks answers about Epstein’s high-profile contacts. The Trump administration’s bungled response to the existence of outstanding documents and new, bombshell details about the president’s connection to Epstein have only added to the questions.
In short, Democrats smell blood in the water, spotting a rare opportunity to exploit a fracture within the MAGA base while also amplifying questions about Trump’s history with his former acquaintance. And as Democrats have struggled for a cohesive message in 2025, they seem to have found a strategic goldmine in Epstein.
The challenge before Garcia now is giving the issue as much oxygen as possible, fanning the flames of disgust and indignation in pursuit of new revelations while also not making this a strictly partisan affair. (A big reason why Democrats have been successful with the message is that there are some Republicans who want answers, too.)
But serving in the minority, Garcia will have to get creative to uncover new information and to keep Epstein in the news cycle, particularly as House Republican leaders try to stop the news cycle.
“It’s definitely not going to fizzle, and we’re not going to lay the foot off the gas,” Garcia said of Epstein. “I think the American public want answers there.”
Democrats are trying to use Epstein to undermine the trust that some Republicans have in Trump and their party. For Garcia, the case is easy.
“This person is a liar and is gonna lie to you, not just on the Epstein files, but he’s gonna lie to you on health care and lie to you on tax breaks for billionaires,” Garcia said.
There’s plenty of merit to Garcia’s approach. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that most Americans believe the Trump administration is hiding details of the Epstein case. And it’s apparent that the Epstein issue has held voter attention.
In Garcia’s mind, he just has to keep it.
To do that, the new ranking member has tried to make real headway on releasing documents — and Democrats have made some headway on that front. Another leading Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Rep. Summer Lee, motioned to subpoena the Department of Justice for documents about the Epstein case during a subcommittee markup. That proposal was approved by an 8-2 vote, with three Republicans voting alongside the subcommittee Democrats. Oversight Chair James Comer formally issued that subpoena Tuesday, alongside subpoenas for other prominent Democrats like Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Garcia told NOTUS he is also working with Rep. Ro Khanna and Epstein’s estate to uncover files and “artifacts,” like the book of birthday cards that The Wall Street Journal reported includes a raunchy note from Trump. He also said Democrats are expanding their “whistleblower outreach” in August to streamline channels of communication between people who knew Epstein and the committee.
Meanwhile, Garcia is staying active with the media to keep public pressure and attention up. He’s done 30 interviews with “new media” outlets since he landed the top job on the Oversight Committee.
“I don’t care what political party you are, what position you held in politics, how powerful you are, how wealthy you are — if you’ve done something that is as horrific as what’s being described, then I think you should be exposed to the American public,” Garcia said. “And I think we got to get the truth out there.”
Perhaps the most high-profile effort from Oversight Democrats — and some Republicans — is subpoenaing Epstein associate and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. Originally scheduled for August, Maxwell’s testimony before Oversight has been postponed until at least October, as the Supreme Court reviews her appeal. She has also demanded immunity in exchange for speaking to the panel.
Garcia was bullish that a lot of Maxwell’s requests were “nonstarters,” but he said that the committee is “going to negotiate” with her and her team.
“We’re obviously having conversations with her team, and so we’re happy — as anyone that comes to be deposed and go through that process — that there’s going to be some conversations about what that looks like,” he said.
“She’s not going to dictate the terms of her subpoena,” Garcia added. “And she’s not going to dictate the terms of her deposition to Congress. I intend to be at the deposition when that happens. We’re obviously negotiating what that looks like. But this is not a good person.”
As Garcia serves as the top spokesperson for the Democratic effort to unearth the truth on Epstein, he’s also been responsible for fielding perhaps the party’s toughest question on the topic: Why didn’t Democrats release Epstein documents when they had a trifecta under President Joe Biden?
When NOTUS asked if Democrats should have released the documents, Garcia said that under the Biden administration, he expected the Department of Justice was quietly pursuing the Epstein case, which is why Congress didn’t intervene. Now, he and many other Democrats aren’t so sure.
“It was a campaign promise he made. And then when he did the reversal, I think that is when I think a lot of us kind of, honestly, rethought our interest level,” Garcia said. “Because it kind of heightened everyone’s interest level in actually getting a hold of these documents.”
“Before, we expected they would come out, and we expected there’d be some kind of process,” he continued. “But now, I think that’s been accelerated.”
Epstein isn’t the only issue coming at Garcia fast. As the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Garcia will play a front and center role in response to the GOP on a variety of issues. He’s been vocal, for example, about turning the heat up on Republicans ahead of the Sept. 30 government funding deadline, arguing Democrats should extract concessions if they are going to deliver the votes to avert a shutdown.
Garcia was incredibly critical of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer after he folded with a handful of other Democrats to fund the government in March without any guarantees for Democrats on spending.
“I think that was a huge mistake,” Garcia recalled of that moment earlier this year.
“We shouldn’t take anything off the table, he said “We should not allow House Republicans to dictate and somehow try to get out of the fact that they control all the levels of government.”
Whether the issue be Epstein or government funding, Garcia and his fellow House Democrats in the minority will need at least some Republican buy-in to get anything done. As Garcia mounts his aggressive opposition to the GOP, that’s something he’ll have to keep in mind.
“Obviously, we disagree with both approach and policy vociferously, but our teams are talking,” Garcia said of Comer. “We are communicating.”
“I think that he understands that we have a job to do and that we’re going to oppose his efforts pretty aggressively,” he added. “But there’s also a lot of coordination that has to happen behind this, behind the scenes, and that’s going to continue.”
(Comer’s office declined to comment for this story.)
Still, if anyone thinks Garcia is going to pull a punch against the GOP, he insists they’ve got it wrong.
“This kind of era of, like, respectability politics, it has to end,” Garcia said. “We cannot just be the party of always doing things the way they’ve been done, because Republicans will steamroll over us.”