Democrats Say the Release of the Epstein Files Won’t Be the End of the Story

The Department of Justice is expected to drop the Epstein files by Friday at midnight in order to comply with the legal deadline.

Democratic lawmakers have been fighting for this moment — forcing Congress to pass a law compelling the DOJ to release the files, pushing out documents obtained by the Oversight Committee and keeping the disgraced financier and sex offender in the news.

Democratic lawmakers say they’re waiting with bated breath for the files. And they say what happens next depends on what they read.

“There’s so many different things that could happen,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. In a brief interview with NOTUS Tuesday, he said it was a possibility the Trump administration would continue to conceal information. President Donald Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Despite Trump’s campaign promise to release the Epstein files, his administration withheld their release until Congress passed bipartisan legislation to force it. Democrats say they believe Trump doesn’t want the files to be released because they could reveal new information about his relationship with Epstein, with whom he was associated before they had a falling out in the early 2000s.

A recent release of never-before-seen photos from the Epstein estate from House Democrats on the Oversight Committee last week showed Trump with Epstein, furthering speculation as to why Trump would want to keep the files private.

“Ideally, they release everything. I highly doubt that’s going to happen,” Garcia said. “But post Friday, everything has to be on the table. And so the legal approach absolutely has to be on the table, and then the Senate’s already talking about that. So we would like to see what actually happens. And so I think we’re preparing ourselves. Our team’s ready. We’re ready to review what comes out. Everyone knows, everybody’s going to be working for the weekend, and we’re ready to go.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters on Tuesday the DOJ can’t avoid releasing the files at this point.

“If they don’t release the documents, there’s going to be such an outcry from one end of America to the other that I think they’ll be forced to do it,” he told reporters. “The first step is to get them all released. That will be our first job.”

Many Democrats are operating under the assumption that the administration will not release everything related to Epstein that it can, or that it will redact crucial information to protect certain people. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a House Oversight Democrat, told NOTUS that since the administration has not defined what it believes the Epstein files include, it will be hard to know what may be missing.

“I’m skeptical that they [the administration] will release all of the files,” Subramanyam said in an interview. “They haven’t answered any questions about what they think the Epstein files are. I don’t quite know how they define the Epstein files right now, or whether they’ve tampered with them in any way, or whether they will selectively release files.”

Lawmakers will be relying on their continued work with Epstein’s many victims, who may be able to fill in any gaps.

“The victims have been enormously helpful in helping us work backwards and helping us figure out what to look for.
I think, between the victims and people who are familiar with this whole Epstein criminal enterprise, we should have at least some sense of what we’re missing,” Subramanyam added.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury, another Oversight Democrat, told NOTUS that with the survivors’ assistance and an inventory from the DOJ of what was redacted from the files and why, which the law requires, “we will know if they have omitted any files.”

“We can expect that if the files are fully released, there will be a mountain of evidence of both criminal and civil liability against individuals who were never prosecuted,” Stansbury said. “It’s likely that if that is the case that there will be legal ramifications for individuals that are exposed to have been complicit in crimes, and I think it will also help shed insight as to why the U.S. government did not prosecute the case.”

Stansbury relayed a robust list of other agenda items for after the files are released: Oversight Democrats and the Women’s Caucus plan to further investigate why the crimes weren’t prosecuted; lawmakers will look into “legislative remedies” to “strengthen” victims’ rights; subpoenas from financial institutions like JP Morgan and more witnesses should come back.

And the committee is still going through a fourth tranche of documents from the Epstein estate, including 95,000 photographs — some of which are “disturbing,” Stansbury said.

“We want full transparency, but also, I think you have to take into consideration, does the release of especially pornographic materials, do they add value to public understanding, or is it related to sort of feeding a bigger curiosity about the case?” she said.

Garcia said he wasn’t sure exactly what is in the DOJ’s possession in documents related to Epstein, but that Democrats on the committee will continue to release documents they’ve obtained from the Epstein estate.

“We’re going to be interested to see what we’re getting from the estate, does the DOJ also have? What are they releasing? What are they not releasing? I think that will be interesting for us, but we’re going to be releasing more photos and more documents from the estate that the DOJ may or may not have, so that will, that will continue,” Garcia said.

Regardless of what happens on Friday, Democrats said they’re ready to continue working toward processing the information for the American people — betting that it will reveal new details that the Trump administration might have been trying to hide.

“Once we have the releases, obviously, it’s going to be clear as could be to the American people what has gone on here. But Democrats will be actively involved letting people know how disgraceful this has been,” Schumer said.