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Crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein after 2005 could have been prevented if not for failures by federal investigators and prosecutors, a congressional investigation has concluded, according to the BBC.
The Republican-led US House Oversight Committee released its final report on Tuesday on what it called the decades-long mishandling of criminal investigations into Epstein and his long-term associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The findings draw on 15 months of interviews and witness depositions, government files and financial records.
Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The report says some failures involved poor judgment by the US Attorney’s Office, while others appeared to stem from Epstein’s pervasive influence.
Rather than fully investigating allegations in other states, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida reached an agreement with Epstein in 2007 that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution, the report says.
Investigators attributed Epstein’s death in a New York prison to a series of institutional failures at the facility, including staff shortages, overworked employees, poor recordkeeping and lax security. Testimony sought by the committee did not definitively dispel some theories about his death, the report says, including questions about a gap in surveillance footage.
The report also says the Justice Department failed to communicate about document releases and that inadequate redactions exposed survivors’ sensitive personal information. Earlier this year, the department removed thousands of Epstein-related documents from its website after victims said their identities had been compromised.
Financial institutions such as “American Express” enabled human trafficking and immigration fraud, the report alleges, by allowing Epstein to use decoy flights and dummy itineraries to transport foreign workers across borders. The BBC said it had contacted “American Express” for comment.
The committee’s investigative panel recommended that Congress pass legislation to prevent the weaponisation of non-disclosure agreements, which it said Epstein used to silence survivors.
“Epstein operated with impunity, shielded and enabled by powerful connections and a justice system that repeatedly failed his victims,” committee chairman James Comer said.
Comer called on the Justice Department to interview or re-interview key witnesses, investigate Epstein associates accused of criminal activity and ensure survivors could access their records.
The report accuses Democrats of being “obsessed” with trying to implicate US President Donald Trump, and says an “unfounded witch hunt continued without regard for the interests of survivors”.
Trump has previously said he was friends with Epstein before they fell out in 2004. His name appears thousands of times in the Epstein files, but the report notes that appearing in the documents does not imply wrongdoing. The committee’s review found no documents that would implicate Trump.
In a statement, Representative Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat, said Republicans had “released a report based on an incomplete investigation and zero public hearings on Jeffrey Epstein”. Garcia accused the Justice Department of withholding “over 2.5 million pages of documents”.
“We will not allow the President and his allies to dismiss this investigation,” Garcia said. He is expected to lead the committee when Democrats take control of Congress in January, following the recent midterm elections.
