WASHINGTON (NBC) - Congressional Republicans are pressing for renewed investigations into sex crimes cases involving disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, accusing authorities of mishandling the case for decades.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Tuesday released a new 137-page report marking the most comprehensive investigation yet by lawmakers into the federal government’s handling of the Epstein saga.
The findings condemned federal investigators and prosecutors in South Florida and Washington for alleged negligence, which the committee said allowed the late sex offender’s abuse to go unchecked as far back as 2005, when Epstein’s crimes first came to light in Palm Beach, Florida.
“What we found was both heartbreaking and infuriating,” Republican Representative James Comer of Kentucky, who chairs the committee, said in a video address.
“These women endured unimaginable abuse, and the federal government failed them at nearly every turn,” he added. “Had the government done its job, much of this abuse could have been prevented.”
The committee, which currently holds a Republican majority, is the House’s main investigative panel and has the power to subpoena witnesses and documents.
Democrats will take control of the chamber in January after a historic victory in the November 3 midterm elections, and California Representative Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat, formally announced his bid to chair it in a letter to colleagues on Thursday.
The latest findings cap a 15-month Republican-led congressional inquiry that involved 19 transcribed interviews and depositions, subpoenas to federal agencies, financial institutions and Epstein’s estate, and an extensive review of financial records.
Its conclusions asserted that a combination of bureaucratic indifference, missed warnings and compromised plea deals consistently shielded Epstein and his associates while denying justice to their victims.
In one such instance, GOP lawmakers sharply rebuked a controversial 2007 non-prosecution agreement in South Florida that effectively shelved Epstein’s federal case after he pleaded guilty to lesser state offences.
Florida prosecutors, working alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), at the time granted him a lenient 18-month sentence alongside extensive work-release privileges, a period during which he continued to abuse women, according to the report.
The panel ascribed the outcomes to “poor judgment” and Epstein’s influence, while flagging potential conflicts of interest involving two former prosecutors, Matthew Menchel and Bruce Reinhart, then employed in the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Southern District of Florida.