The Republican-led House Oversight Committee slammed the Trump administration on Tuesday (November 10, 2026) for botching the public release of millions of pages of records relating to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
In a report scrutinising the government’s handling of criminal investigations of Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, the committee faulted President Donald Trump and the Justice Department for reneging on a promise to open the files, which led Congress to pass a law forcing their release. “However, multiple shortcomings related to releasing documents and failures to adequately communicate about those releases plagued the DOJ’s efforts. Rep.
James Comer of Kentucky, the committee’s chairman, concluded in a statement that the federal government had failed victims of Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, and Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 on counts involving her role in helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls, including sex trafficking.
After Congress stepped in, the administration missed disclosure deadlines and concealed names of alleged co-conspirators while failing to adequately protect victims, “including through deficient redactions that exposed their sensitive information,” the report said. “The Trump administration has repeatedly committed to releasing Epstein-related files,” the report said. “The federal government has failed the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s horrific crimes for decades,” Comer said. “Epstein operated with impunity, shielded and enabled by powerful connections and a justice system that repeatedly failed his victims.”
Echoing the concerns from Epstein’s accusers, the report criticised the administration for failing to obscure the names and other personally identifying information of women sexually abused by Epstein. A lawyers for some victims said there were thousands of missing redactions, exposing the names of nearly 100 women.
“The DOJ — presumably due to the speed with which files were being reviewed — failed to adequately redact names and personally identifiable information of numerous survivors,” the report said. For example, the report said, the Justice Department redacted the name of a recipient of an email from Epstein that referenced a “torture video. The recipient was Emirati businessperson Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the report said, according to members of Congress who reviewed unredacted versions of the document.
