House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has called for the full public release of all files related to Jeffrey Epstein and made it clear that if the Trump administration won’t do it voluntarily, Congress should step in.
Speaking to reporters from the Capitol, Jeffries questioned why the Department of Justice under Trump is still holding back documents tied to Epstein’s criminal activities and alleged connections with high-profile figures.
“What, if anything, is the Trump administration and the Department of Justice hiding?” Jeffries asked. “The American people deserve to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as it relates to this whole sordid Jeffrey Epstein matter.”
The call for transparency comes amid growing distrust and confusion among the public, including Trump’s own supporters, over the handling of Epstein’s case.
Epstein, the disgraced financier who was arrested in 2019 on charges of sex trafficking minors, died in a Manhattan prison cell in what the DOJ ruled a suicide. But speculation has only intensified since his death, with many pointing to his ties to global power players, including Trump himself, as a reason for the secrecy surrounding his files.
🚨BREAKING: Hakeem Jeffries just publicly demanded that Donald Trump release the Epstein files.
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) July 14, 2025
If Trump’s hands are clean, why’s he hiding behind sealed documents?
Democrats aren’t playing defense anymore and this time, the spotlight isn’t moving. pic.twitter.com/bROZ8EdaJj
For years, right-wing voices, especially within the MAGA movement, have pushed conspiracy theories alleging that Epstein maintained a “client list” of powerful men who engaged in criminal behavior; a list they say has been covered up.
Some of those same voices are now sitting in powerful roles within Trump’s second administration, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.
In February, Bondi stoked the flames when she declared she had Epstein’s client list “on her desk” and was prepared to release it. But that promise went unfulfilled. Instead, the DOJ released a vague, unsigned memo last week claiming it found no evidence of such a list or of Epstein attempting to blackmail prominent figures.
“We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” the memo read, effectively closing the door on any further investigation, for now.
That memo, paired with the DOJ’s continued assertion that Epstein died by suicide, has sparked backlash, not from Democrats this time, but from within Trump’s own base. The MAGA movement is now divided and frustrated.
Jeffries seized on that tension, framing the issue as a moment of reckoning for both Trump and his administration.
Jeffries was quick to distance Democrats from fueling Epstein-related conspiracies, reminding the press that it wasn’t his party that put the topic into the national spotlight.
“Democrats didn’t put the Jeffrey Epstein thing into the public domain,” he shared. “This was a conspiracy that Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, and these MAGA extremists have been fanning the flames of for the last years. And now the chickens are coming home to roost.”
