Among the documents made public are the convicted sex offender’s last will and testament, as well as his 2007 non-prosecution deal with legal authorities.
Hundreds of pages of documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate have been released by the House Oversight Committee, encompassing the convicted sex offender’s infamous “birthday book.” Republican committee chairman James Comer alleged that Democrats deliberately “cherry-picked” certain documents to discredit US President Donald Trump.
This release, occurring Monday evening, came after a subpoena was issued to the Epstein estate in late August. In addition to the 238-page “birthday book,” the committee also made public Epstein’s will, his non-prosecution agreement with Florida’s federal prosecutors from 2007, and excerpts from the disgraced financier’s address book.
The professionally bound volume, put together in 2003 by Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, showcases submissions from numerous acquaintances, including former President Bill Clinton and lawyer Alan Dershowitz. While some pages feature humorous tributes, others contain explicit jokes, posed pictures, and anonymized names of women.
Republicans asserted that the release aimed to foster transparency, arguing that Democrats had earlier in the day disclosed only the alleged note from Trump, thereby influencing news headlines about the president and overshadowing the more extensive collection of documents.
The contested page displayed typewritten content within the silhouette of a nude female figure, seemingly bearing the signature “Donald” beneath the sketch’s waistline. Trump has denounced the note as a forgery and is pursuing a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated on Monday that the president “neither drew nor signed this illustration.”
Democrats serving on the Oversight Committee drew attention to the alleged message from Trump and called for additional Epstein-related documents to be made public, asserting that the president was withholding detrimental information.
Comer expressed disapproval of Democrats for “selectively choosing documents and politicizing data obtained from the Epstein Estate,” simultaneously maintaining that “President Trump faces no accusations of misconduct.”
Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 on state solicitation charges, was subsequently apprehended in 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges. He passed away in a Manhattan detention facility that same year, in an incident officially classified as a suicide. Maxwell received a conviction in 2021 and is currently serving a two-decade prison term. Epstein’s enduring connections to influential individuals across politics, business, and academia persist in prompting bipartisan demands for openness, despite the Department of Justice stating that no “client list” connected to his trafficking offenses exists.