The investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, a notorious sex offender who died by suicide in a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019, continues to draw scrutiny. Epstein’s death followed weeks after his arrest on child sex trafficking charges, raising questions about various aspects of the case, including possible connections to high-profile individuals, such as former President Donald Trump.
Now Senator Richard Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is sounding the alarm. He expresses incredulity at how Epstein’s criminal case has been handled. Durbin sent letters to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of the FBI Kash Patel and Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino. He asked for answers as to why the investigative files concerning Epstein weren’t destroyed. As such, the Senate Judiciary Committee should exercise its oversight responsibility over the Justice Department and FBI.
According to reports, as recently as this year, FBI agents were put on the task of sifting through records tied to Epstein’s case. Supposedly, they were told to “red flag” any files that referenced then-President Trump. This last directive has sent up red flags even among our own legislators, worried about the strength of the ongoing federal investigation.
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned,” said Durbin in a statement expressing concern over what he described as “apparent discrepancies regarding the handling of the Epstein files and findings.”
To complicate things even more, a letter signed by Trump was sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. The Wall Street Journal scooped the news on this letter Thursday evening. Since then, Trump has rejected any role in the document’s inflammatory content. He has threatened to sue as the publication broke the news on the whole affair.
Yet the FBI faced tremendous pressure, according to Durbin, to deploy nearly 1,000 staff from the Bureau’s Information Management Division, forcing them to work 24/7. Their mission? To comb through 100,000 documents connected to Epstein. This combined effort was intended to generate more compliance documents ahead of an “arbitrarily short deadline.”
Attorney General Bondi came under fire. To that end, she failed to release damning evidence about Epstein’s years as a predatory sex trafficker from the public, even after promising delivery of this information in advance.
The continuing investigation enraptures the public with every new piece of information released. Epstein’s deep connections to powerful, wealthy people still have everyone—including us—looking for answers. With questions still swirling, lawmakers are looking on warily. They are specifically interested in what form the Justice Department and FBI’s response to calls for transparency and accountability will take.