Les Wexner, a billionaire businessman and former client of Jeffrey Epstein, said in a statement shared Wednesday with members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he had no contact with Epstein after the sex offender’s first conviction — nor did he have any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

“I completely and irrevocably cut ties with Epstein nearly twenty years ago when I learned that he was an abuser, a crook, and a liar,” Wexner, the Ohio-based founder of L Brands, said in the statement obtained by Blue Light News. “And, let me be crystal clear: I never witnessed nor had any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity.”

Wexner, in compliance with a congressional subpoena, testified behind closed doors in New Albany, Ohio, as part of the Oversight panel’s investigation into Epstein and the Justice Department’s handling of the case.

A longtime Republican donor, Wexner has become a central figure in the fallout over the so-called Epstein files after he was listed in DOJ materials as a potential secondary co-conspirator — though the memo also said there was “limited evidence regarding his involvement,” and he has not been charged in the case.

House Democrats, speaking during the deposition, sought to portray Wexner as a key enabler of Epstein’s crimes.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, said Epstein’s victims had expressed concern about the “enormous amount of money” Wexner transferred to Epstein — potentially over a billion dollars, Garcia claimed.

“There is no single person that was more involved in providing Jeffrey Epstein with the financial support to commit his crimes than Les Wexner,” Garcia told reporters in Ohio. “Mr. Epstein would not be the wealthy man he was without the support of Les Wexner.”

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said that throughout the deposition, Wexner claimed to know less and less about his relationship with Epstein.

“There was a deep trust between these two men,” he said. “There was a deep friendship there.”

No Republican lawmakers were present for the deposition, with Committee Chair James Comer unable to attend due to previously scheduled oral surgery, according to a spokesperson.

According to the statement provided to the House panel, Wexner said his formal relationship with Epstein began after Epstein offered to provide financial advice as a personal favor — a gesture Wexner said he has come to believe was a move to gain his trust. Wexner later hired Epstein in an official capacity to oversee his personal finances and gave him power of attorney.

“Over the course of many years, [Epstein] carefully used his acquaintance with important individuals to curate an aura of legitimacy that he then used to expand his network of acquaintances, and apparent credibility, even farther,” said Wexner’s written statement.

As the case against Epstein in the 2000’s ballooned and it became clear that Epstein had been stealing from Wexner’s family, the two men severed ties entirely, Wexner said. Epstein transferred some money back to Wexner’s family but never admitted to wrongdoing, Wexner added.

Wexner also maintained he had never been unfaithful to his wife over more than three decades together.

A slate of Democrats plan to skip President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address to Congress next week and instead will attend a counterprogramming event on the National Mall that same evening.

The rally, dubbed the “People’s State of the Union,” will include lawmakers who skipped Trump’s first and second inaugurations, underscoring a small but consistent block of Democrats who continue to opt out of the president’s most high-profile events.

Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) are expected to join the rally, organizers said Wednesday.

“These aren’t normal times and showing up for this speech puts a veneer of legitimacy on the corruption and lawlessness that has defined his second term,” Murphy said in a statement.

Ansari, who walked out of Trump’s address to Congress last year, said the rally continues her earlier protest.

“Americans deserve an honest account of the state of our union,” she said.

She said she plans to bring in a guest who was targeted by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The liberal group MoveOn is hosting the rally alongside other organizations, including the popular Democratic-aligned podcasting and media network MeidasTouch.

The White House dismissed the boycott, saying Democrats have routinely worked to thwart the administration’s policy goals.

“It’s not a surprise that they refuse to celebrate and honor the Americans who have benefited from the commonsense policies Republicans have governed with,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson.

Democrats have boycotted a series of Trump’s biggest moments throughout both of his terms. Of the dozens of House Democrats who skipped Trump’s first inauguration, 31 were still in Congress and seven chose to attend his second one, signaling a faded resistance from the first Trump era.

Trump is set to deliver his address Tuesday night, even as a partial government shutdown continues, prompting concerns from some senior Hill Republicans and White House officials about the optics.

But Republicans also see the address as an opportunity to shift the focus away from mounting negative headlines — including fatal shootings by federal immigration agents in Minnesota and scrutiny over the release of the Epstein files — and instead bolster its economic messaging ahead of the midterms.

President Donald Trump is pushing Congress to end mail voting as Americans have come to know it. So far, Republican lawmakers aren’t heeding his calls.

Trump has long railed against the expansion of vote-by-mail, arguing despite scant evidence that it is rife with fraud and suggesting it was responsible in part for his 2020 election loss. Since retaking office, he has repeatedly called for action — most recently Monday night to reporters on Air Force One.

“Why would you want mail-in ballots if you know it’s corrupt?” Trump said. “It’s a corrupt system.”

But other Republicans don’t see it that way — many of their own voters have voted by mail consistently for decades. So far, the type of blanket ban on mail voting Trump wants has not gained traction on Capitol Hill as GOP lawmakers counsel for a more targeted approach.

“I support the use of mail-in voting,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican facing a tight reelection contest. “The idea that some states just mail out ballots without any requests is absurd, but the use of mail-in balloting, I do not have an objection.”

A sweeping elections bill the House passed last week, the SAVE America Act, included strict proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration and new photo-ID rules for casting ballots.

But it did not address voting by mail — even though Trump publicly called for a crackdown in a Truth Social post just three days before the vote: “NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!)”

Behind the scenes, the White House pushed to include language in the bill that would prohibit mail-in voting, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the issue. But that risked losing support from some Republicans and endangering the bill’s ability to pass the narrowly divided House, and it was ultimately left out.

A White House website touting the bill still lists “No Mail-in Ballots” as one of its features.

Asked about the discrepancy, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that Trump “has repeatedly urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting to ensure the safety and security of our elections.”

Several House Republicans said in interviews over the past week they sympathized with Trump’s push to crack down on mailed ballots, but many couched their words carefully. A number hail from states like Florida that have a long history of expansive mail voting and little evidence that the practice has been abused.

Even as the president pushed to curtail mailed ballots, the RNC and state Republican parties worked to take advantage of the practice during the 2024 campaign to increase voter turnout — and they are planning to do much the same in 2026.

Instead, many congressional Republicans insist that Trump is really targeting states like California, Oregon and Utah that conduct their elections almost entirely by mail. Others emphasize the need for exceptions, as Trump has acknowledged, for cases of illness, military service and other reasons they view as legitimate, as well as the other election changes Trump is backing.

“We have to be very cautious about mail-in-ballot voting,” Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) said in an interview. “But I think that if we get the registration process correct, then that’ll fix a lot of this.”

GOP Rep. Byron Donalds, who is running for governor in Florida, said his state’s laws should serve as a model for the country. Florida voters have to request a mail-in ballot and include identification. But there is no limitation on who can request a mail ballot along the lines of what Trump is proposing.

“In Florida, we treat ballots like they’re evidence in a trial,” Donalds said. “Other states need to follow that. … I think that’s what the White House is referencing. You just can’t have ballots out there in the ether.”

Another elections bill moving through the House, the Make Elections Great Again Act, does include provisions dealing with mail voting — including language aimed at preventing “ballot harvesting” where third parties collect ballots on voters’ behalf. It would also ban “universal” vote-by-mail where ballots are sent to all registered voters — but would not narrow who could request a mailed ballot.

That policy appears to be more in keeping with what most GOP lawmakers envision for an elections overhaul — and they insist that is what Trump in fact supports.

“If you’re sick and you can’t get to the polling [place], he wants you to have a ballot. If you’re a military member, he wants you to have a ballot,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said of the president. “Who he doesn’t want to have a ballot is the illegal alien that registered or even a lawful alien who got a driver’s license to be registered to vote and get a mail-in ballot.”

The MEGA Act is sponsored by House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and was the subject of a recent hearing. But it has not yet moved through the panel or been scheduled for the House floor.

The SAVE America Act also appears likely to stall in the Senate, despite a conservative effort to utilize a so-called talking filibuster to skirt Democratic opposition there.

Trump appears to be recognizing the obstacles to his elections agenda on Capitol Hill.

In a Friday Truth Social post, he suggested he would take executive action to implement “Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not,” while also mentioning “No Mail-In Ballots, with exceptions for Military, Disability, Illness, or Travel.”

But to Republicans like Lawler, who voted for the SAVE America Act and is facing a tough reelection fight this year, the GOP’s efforts going forward would be best spent making sure “people get out and vote.”

“If they vote by mail, if they vote early, if they vote on Election Day, the objective is to get them out and vote,” he said.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.