Washington — Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, are holding a news conference Wednesday alongside survivors of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's abuse amid calls for greater transparency on the files.
Some of the women, who will be joined by their attorneys, are set to speak publicly for the first time about the abuse, after renewed attention on the files in recent months.
Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking and died in federal custody in 2019 in what numerous investigations deemed a suicide. And after the Justice Department issued the findings of an internal review in July that found no "client list" or evidence that Epstein had blackmailed prominent figures, interest in the files swelled, spurring calls for greater transparency from the Trump administration and dividing the president's base.
Wednesday's news conference comes as Democrats and some Republicans have pushed for the release of the files, and Massie filed a discharge petition on Tuesday to attempt to force a House vote on his and Khanna's legislation compelling their release.
Meanwhile, members of the House Oversight Committee met privately with the survivors on Tuesday. And the committee made public a portion of the documents late Tuesday, releasing more than 33,000 pages of files that included court documents and flight records, along with video and audio recordings. Democrats on the committee claimed that 97% of the documents released Tuesday had already been made public.
