Washington — Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is seeking documents from the Justice Department on its move earlier this year to end the investigation into alleged co-conspirators of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I write to demand an explanation for why DOJ has abandoned the women and girls abused by Mr. Epstein, Ms. Maxwell, and their co-conspirators, fired or cut off career prosecutors from the case, and ceased its investigation into one of the largest sex trafficking rings in history,” Raskin wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, which was first obtained by CBS News.
The demand comes amid relentless bipartisan interest in the investigation, which has dogged the Justice Department’s top officials as they’ve sought to put the matter to rest. Some in the Trump administration, including Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, promised major revelations into the Epstein matter before taking office, only to indicate later that the case was closed.
CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment on Raskin’s letter and will update this story with any response.
In the letter, Raskin said almost 50 survivors provided information to prosecutors and FBI agents as part of the investigation that ultimately led to the indictments of Epstein in 2019 and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2020. Raskin said the information the survivors provided was “precise and detailed.”
“They described how Mr. Epstein, Ms. Maxwell, and their co-conspirators orchestrated a sophisticated and clandestine sex trafficking conspiracy that trafficked them to at least 20 men,” Raskin said. “These survivors shared with DOJ and FBI the specific identities of many of these co-conspirators, how this operation was structured and financed, and which individuals facilitated these crimes.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York was running an active investigation into Epstein and Maxwell’s co-conspirators until January 2025, when prosecutors were directed to transfer the Epstein case files to the Justice Department’s headquarters, in what Raskin said was “a sudden and dramatic shift in the posture of the investigation.” Since then, “the investigation into co-conspirators has inexplicably ceased,” he said, citing information provided to the Judiciary Committee by attorneys who represent Epstein survivors.
Then in July, the Justice Department issued the findings of an internal review, which it said found no “client list” among the evidence collected by investigators. It also “did not uncover evidence that could predicate any investigation against uncharged third parties.” Bondi suggested during a Fox News interview in February that a “client list” was sitting on her desk awaiting her review.
“DOJ and FBI’s failure to investigate this conduct is a betrayal of the more than 1,000 survivors of this multi-billion-dollar international sex trafficking ring,” Raskin wrote. “As these survivors made clear to DOJ and FBI, Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell did not act alone.”
Raskin said many of the women spoke with prosecutors and agents, and the interviews were summarized in 302 forms, a document used by the FBI to memorialize information that may later come up in courtroom testimony. Along with the women, Raskin said federal law enforcement agents who worked on the case understood that the investigation was continuing up until January. In Supreme Court filings, Raskin pointed out, the government said the pursuit of Epstein’s co-conspirators was ongoing during the Biden administration.
Raskin said the committee is considering reforms that would clarify prosecutors’ responsibility to communicate with crime survivors before investigations are closed. And he accused Patel of having “repeatedly impugned the credibility of the Epstein survivors” at a House Judiciary Committee hearing in September by suggesting that the information provided by the survivors was not credible.
During the hearing, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has led an effort to force a vote in the House on releasing the Epstein files, pointed to 20 alleged co-conspirators.
“According to victims who cooperated with the FBI in that investigation, these documents in FBI possession, your possession, detail at least 20 men, including Mr. Jes Staley, CEO of Barclays Bank,” Massie said, referring to a banker who left Barclays in 2021 amid scrutiny over his ties to Epstein. Staley, who worked with Epstein for years as a top official at J.P. Morgan, has said they had a “close professional relationship.” Staley has denied wrongdoing and said he regrets befriending Epstein.
Massie said other high-profile figures were among those named by Epstein’s victims.
“That list also includes at least 19 other individuals — one Hollywood producer worth a few hundred million dollars, one royal prince, one high-profile individual in the music industry, one very prominent banker, one high-profile government official, one high-profile former politician, one owner of a car company in Italy, one rockstar, one magician, at least six billionaires, including a billionaire from Canada,” Massie said.
Massie asked Patel if the FBI had launched any investigations into the individuals and whether he’d seen the 302 documents. Patel responded that he has asked FBI agents to “review the entirety of the Epstein files and bring forth any credible information.” He said “any investigations that arise from any credible investigation will be brought,” but he added that there have been “no new materials brought to me launching a new indictment.”
Asked whether he was asserting that the victims’ statements weren’t credible, Patel said, “It’s not my assertion, sir, it’s the assertion of two different United States attorneys’ offices from three separate administrations who investigated those same materials in live time.”
Raskin said Patel’s explanation, along with a later exchange with Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, was not good enough. He wrote in his letter that he is seeking “an accounting” of the steps the Justice Department has taken to review the case this year, relevant summaries or reports generated as part of that review and documents related to staffing for Epstein investigative matters.
“The Trump Administration has inexplicably killed this investigation,” Raskin said.
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