Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) speaks at a press conference about a new policy requiring recipients of foreign military aid to comply with international humanitarian law at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., February 9, 2024.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
An independent watchdog in Congress will launch an investigation into the Justice Department’s handling of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.
Merkley announced the investigation Tuesday, more than a month after he and Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Ben Ray Lujan (D.M.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked the Comptroller’s Office to investigate.
“In its unlawful disregard of the law, the Trump administration is brutally denying ‘equal justice under the law’ to all of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. This independent investigation is an important step in holding accountable a regime that has sided with the rich and powerful to cover up its abuses of the most vulnerable,” Merkley said in a statement.
Merkley is the senator who introduced the Senate version of the bill, which passed last year and would have forced the release of the Epstein files.
In a letter to GAO in March, Merkley and other lawmakers argued that the Justice Department failed to follow legal instructions to protect victims in releasing the Epstein files. Instead, the Justice Department heavily redacted the names of powerful companies and elected officials appearing in the files, the lawmakers alleged.
The public and many members of Congress have harshly criticized the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein file. The Epstein File Transparency Act, signed by President Donald Trump in November after months of opposition, requires full disclosure of documents by December 19, 2025. Critics have complained that references to President Trump may have been omitted from publication, and that the documents released may have disclosed the full names and other personal information of the alleged victims.
Epstein died by suicide in a federal prison in New York City in August 2019, weeks after he was arrested on child sex trafficking charges. Trump, a former friend of Epstein’s, appears repeatedly in the files, but he denies any wrongdoing in connection with the New York financier.
On April 2, President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had been criticized for her handling of the Epstein scandal.
Last week, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog announced it was launching its own investigation into the department’s compliance with the Epstein File Transparency Act.
The audit was conducted in response to a separate request sent to the Justice Department’s inspector general in December, led by Messrs. Merkley and Murkowski and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. — To investigate whether the department followed the law in releasing the files.
