House Oversight Report Says Government Failures Let Epstein Abuse Continue for Years

WASHINGTON: The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a majority staff report on Tuesday that says the federal government failed the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell for decades. The report, titled "A Review of the Federal Government's Mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell Criminal Investigations," closes a 15 month investigation built on 19 transcribed interviews and depositions, documents from the Department of Justice and the Epstein estate, and financial records.

"The federal government has failed the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's horrific crimes for decades," Chairman James Comer said in the committee statement that accompanied the report. The committee said Epstein operated with impunity, helped by powerful connections and a justice system that repeatedly failed his victims. The report is a majority staff product, so its findings are the Republican-led committee's conclusions.

The 2007 deal at the center of the report

The committee found that crimes Epstein committed after 2005 could have been prevented if federal investigators and prosecutors in South Florida and Washington had done their jobs. Instead of seeking a federal indictment, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida signed a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in 2007. He pleaded guilty to lesser state charges, received an 18 month jail sentence, and got extensive work release privileges. The committee said he continued to abuse women during that work release and was released early. Federal prosecutors also failed to tell survivors about the agreement.

Failures after his arrest and death

Epstein was arrested again in 2019 and died in custody at a federal jail in New York. The report says understaffing and dysfunction at the Bureau of Prisons facility led officers on both shifts to miss at least 12 rounds and three inmate counts on the night of his death, leaving Epstein and other inmates without adequate supervision for nearly eight hours. The committee also faulted the Justice Department's handling of records released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025, saying the department communicated poorly and used redactions so weak that survivors' sensitive personal information was exposed.

Banks, travel and warning signs

The report says financial institutions held detailed information about Epstein's criminal history and flagged transactions as high risk, yet acted late, in some cases reporting problems only years later, after his 2019 arrest. It says company agents at American Express allowed Epstein to use fraudulent decoy flights and dummy itineraries to move foreign women across borders to his homes, and it asks the Treasury Department and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to review whether banks met their reporting duties.

What the committee wants next

The committee recommends that the Justice Department interview or re-interview key witnesses, including Epstein assistant Lesley Groff, about what she knew and whether she helped his crimes. It also says the department should investigate allegations that Sarah Kellen, a longtime Epstein assistant and survivor, made against former Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine and hairstylist Frederic Fekkai. Those are allegations reported to the committee, not findings against either man. The report urges a clear process for survivors to see their own files without redactions, tighter scrutiny of non-prosecution agreements, and passage of the Survivor's Voice Protection Act, H.R. 10389, which would stop nondisclosure agreements from silencing survivors. The committee said its review found no documents that implicate President Donald Trump in Epstein's crimes.