Congress

Congress’ Epstein probe raises a thorny question: Who counts as a victim?

Published

1 month ago

May 11, 2026

Nearly a year after the launch of the House Oversight Committee’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation, lawmakers are now wading into a thorny debate over whether certain women in Epstein’s orbit should be considered co-conspirators or victims.

The Republican-led panel, eager to haul in witnesses who can shed new light on the convicted sex offender’s crimes, appears to have taken a side in recently asking Sarah Kellen — a top assistant to the late, disgraced financier — to sit for a transcribed interview on May 21.

Kellen was one of four women named as possible co-conspirators in the now-controversial 2007 agreement with Florida federal prosecutors that granted all of them immunity, while also allowing Epstein to spend minimal time in a county jail rather than face federal sex-trafficking charges.

“There is a list of four alleged victims that took plea deals that I think are co-conspirators and got let off the hook,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a member of the Oversight Committee, said recently. “And I’d like to bring them in.”

“If you’re an adult female and you’re recruiting underage girls, you’re not a victim. You’re a prostitute, a child predator, and a sex trafficker,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), another committee member, in an interview. “Certainly the adult women that were recruiting underage girls should go to jail.”

But few of Epstein’s former associates have proven as fraught a subject for federal prosecutors as Kellen. In the immediate aftermath of Epstein’s suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019, federal officials grappled with the question of whether to prosecute Kellen, according to two people familiar with the matter as well as documents released in the Epstein files.

The files show that Manhattan prosecutors discussed a possible witness tampering charge for Kellen and that they submitted a prosecution memo concerning her to then-U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. But Kellen argued that she was a victim, according to the files and people familiar with the deliberations, who like others were granted anonymity to share private conversations. Prosecutors opted not to bring a case against her.

A lawyer for Kellen did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said in an interview that several GOP women on his committee were eager to have Kellen testify and he has deferred to them in deciding which women should be invited to give statements in the Epstein probe. But while some members of Congress support the decision to bring in Kellen, others are also signaling they, too, recognize the complicated dynamics of questioning a woman who claims to have been sexually abused.

“For folks who are not trauma-informed, and folks who don’t understand this world, I think it can be an easy ‘yes, we should charge this woman,’” said Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.), who sits on the panel and previously worked in the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. “It’s a conversation that should be taken seriously.”

Simon added that she has been providing committee staff with “resources [on] how we look at how we treat and support survivors while they’re coming here, how to look at women who historically have been in these situations.”

At the same time, the committee is under increasing pressure to surface new information after the Justice Department’s haphazard release of the Epstein files — and as law enforcement in the United Kingdom has seized opportunities to arrest Epstein associates in contrast to the U.S.’ continued finger-wagging.

In the interview last month, Comer blamed the committee’s lack of progress, in part, on disagreements about who is and isn’t an Epstein victim.

“That is honestly one of the reasons why there’s been issues getting documents — [DOJ] released documents, and some of the victims say, ‘oh my gosh, you didn’t redact the names’ … Well, they were victimizers too,” Comer said. “Like they recruited other girls to come in. But they, I do believe, were victimized. This is a tough issue.”

Kellen had been accused in numerous civil lawsuits of scheduling young girls to give Epstein massages, with one lawsuit dubbing her “the lieutenant.” In Palm Beach, where police investigated Epstein, girls told detectives that Kellen would prepare rooms for the massages, laying out tables and lotions intended for their use.

But when prosecutors were mulling charges, Kellen’s attorneys argued that their client was abused, writing that “given the fact that we see her basically as a cog in Epstein’s wheel, acting entirely at his direction and doing what she did at a time that she herself was a very vulnerable victim, a [non-prosecution agreement] would be the appropriate disposition.”

In an interview with The Sun published around the period in 2020 in which her lawyers were attempting to fend off potential charges, Kellen also described herself as a “victim,” saying that she was “raped and abused weekly.”

During the sentencing in 2022 of Epstein’s only convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan described Kellen as “a knowing participant in the criminal conspiracy.”

Lauren Hersh, a former sex-trafficking prosecutor in Brooklyn who is now the CEO of World Without Exploitation — a coalition combating human trafficking and sexual exploitation — said situations like Kellen’s are “really common.” The Oversight panel, she suggested, would be better served by focusing on those who could not conceivably be considered a victim of Epstein instead of trickier cases like Kellen’s.

“There are a lot of people where it’s absolutely clear-cut they should be brought in,” Hersh said of Epstein’s associates. “So let’s start there.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the GOP’s most vocal proponents of Congress using all available tools to bring Epstein’s co-conspirators to account, had a similar perspective.

Asked how one could determine whether someone like Kellen is a victim or a perpetrator, Massie said, “I don’t think you’re gonna figure that out in the forum that the Oversight Committee has. I think you need to have an investigation with discovery and presentation, adversarial presentation of facts in a courtroom to decide that — matters of guilt or innocence.”

Some members of the Oversight Committee who worked as, or with, prosecutors prior to serving in Congress also cautioned it was important to tread carefully.

“I’ve prosecuted cases where someone has been a victim and has also been charged with a crime, and that’s something that in the due course of justice — a court or jury can determine. Those types of factors can be considered,” said Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.), a former St. Louis County prosecuting attorney.

But, he added, “given the circumstances at this point in time, anyone connected with the investigation should be called in.”

Other lawmakers defended the panel’s decision to call in Kellen. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), a member of the Oversight Committee, said that since the committee’s ultimate goal was to support future trials of co-conspirators and build an evidentiary basis, it made sense to interview Kellen.

“Folks like Sarah Kellen were complicit in crimes,” Stansbury said. “Were they also victimized by Jeffrey Epstein? It’s very likely that was his pattern of abuse. But does that absolve them from culpability in this case? I think it depends on the specifics and the individual, and that’s why DOJ’s investigation and investigation and prosecution of these individuals is really important.”

Congress

Chuck Schumer is ready for redemption

Published

3 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Chuck Schumer has served as a punching bag for angry Democrats for more than a year — taking flak on everything from his 2026 recruiting to his handling of government funding talks.

But with about five months until the midterm elections, the Senate minority leader is gently starting to punch back — pointing out how some of his bets are paying off as his party moves within striking distance of taking back the majority in November.

“There’s no victory lap to take in June,” he said in an interview in his Capitol office suite.

But he ticked through moves he oversaw in the past year — from leading opposition to GOP safety-net cuts to picking shutdown fights over health care and immigration enforcement funding and orchestrating national intervention in several Senate primaries — that he argued have strengthened Democrats’ hand for the midterms and beyond.

“We made a lot of strategic decisions that got us to this place — it didn’t happen by accident,” Schumer said. “I knew from the beginning that if we recruited strong candidates, found paths to victory, focused on the issues the American people cared about, and forced … the Republicans, to carry Trump’s water, we’d be in much better shape, and that has happened.”

Schumer’s confidence comes after an at times rocky year for the minority leader: His decision to help advance a GOP government funding bill in March 2025 fueled a wave of calls from progressive groups and House Democrats for him to step down as Senate Democratic leader. Criticism crested again after eight members of his caucus broke from Schumer to help reopen most of the government after a record shutdown in November.

Polling has shown eroding favorability and approval ratings for Schumer — even in his home state of New York, where he has been elected to the Senate five times. He’s maintained support among the Senate Democrats who elected him leader, though some have dodged the subject of his future.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), asked by Blue Light News at a recent event in Illinois if he expects Schumer to be leader next year, said that Schumer has a “really hard job” and that Democrats are focused on “making sure that we have a majority, and then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Murphy is part of a self-described “fight club” of Senate Democrats that has pushed for a more aggressive approach from Schumer and the party organs he controls. Some have broken with Schumer’s favored candidates in key Senate primaries.

But the picture has improved somewhat in recent weeks. In the recent Iowa primary, Schumer got his preferred candidate in state Rep. Josh Turek, even as some progressives backed a more liberal candidate. Polling shows a highly competitive race between Turek and the GOP nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson.

Schumer had already helped recruit blue-chip Democrats in several key races, including Ohio, Alaska and North Carolina, where he got former Sen. Sherrod Brown, former Rep. Mary Peltola and Gov. Roy Cooper, respectively, to jump in. Texas has come up on the map for Democrats, with state Rep. James Talarico matched up with scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

And then there’s Maine — where Schumer’s backing of Gov. Janet Mills over populist insurgent Graham Platner further fueled grassroots disdain of the leader’s strategy. Mills ran a by-all-accounts lackluster campaign, which she suspended weeks before the primary.

But Schumer’s intervention has been cast in a new light by a series of revelations about Platner’s background, ranging from provocative online posts to a recent allegation that he was physically abusive to a former girlfriend — suggesting that party leaders may have had good reason to go with a known quantity in their latest bid to knock off veteran GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

In the interview Thursday, Schumer deflected questions about Platner, instead saying that Democrats are “going to beat Susan Collins, and we’re going to win Maine and we’re going to take back the Senate.”

He was glad to comment more broadly, however, on the change in Democrats’ political fortunes since early 2025, when Trump had just been sworn in to his second term and voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic leadership in Washington began to crescendo.

“The bottom line is, that’s my job — to help strategize the best way to go, and then unify the caucus, and I think that’s what’s happened,” he said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said in an interview that he believed conversations over Schumer’s leadership have changed since that moment after the March 2025 funding fold.

“Chuck by just virtually any objective measure – super successful majority leader in terms of legislation passed. And I think it took us all a while, including him, to [be] like, ‘We’re in the minority now,’” Kaine said. “You have different tools. … But I think he made the mental switch and has really narrowed down and focused on what kind of our case is to the American public.”

While Democrats have momentum, winning back the majority isn’t a sure bet and will require their candidates to run the table in several Trump-won states. Republicans entered the cycle with a structural advantage, having to defend relatively few competitive seats, and GOP senators believe they will still be in power come January.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters recently that he was “very confident” that Republicans “will hang on to and maybe even expand the majority in the United States Senate, which is counter, I know, to sort of the narrative these days.”

But Democrats are feeling increasingly optimistic. Kaine said at the start of 2025, he would have pegged the odds of a Democratic takeover of the Senate at 20 percent. He said he is at “45 percent now, with the arc going in the right direction.”

Democrats have long viewed their path back to the majority in 2026 as running through four states: Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska. Schumer said he believes Democrats now have “other paths,” pointing to Iowa and Texas.

But they also need to hold onto seats in Georgia, where incumbent Jon Ossoff is running a strong campaign, and in Michigan, where the picture is more unsettled and illustrative of the challenges Schumer continues to face.

National party operatives fear an unabashedly progressive candidate, Abdul el-Sayed, could emerge from a messy three-way primary and complicate Democrats’ chances at keeping retiring Sen. Gary Peters’ seat in November.

In what many interpreted as an attempt to winnow the field and box out el-Sayed, Schumer voiced this week what had been a not-very-well-kept secret — he’d prefer Rep. Haley Stevens, telling Punchbowl News “she has the best chance to win.”

But the third leading candidate, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow saw an opportunity Thursday — attacking Schumer.

“Michiganders are sick and tired of the party putting their fingers on the scales,” she said in a social media video attacking Stevens and her national backers. “Schumer doesn’t decide — you do.”

Asked if he thought Democrats would keep Michigan no matter who emerged from the primary, Schumer instead said “we’re going to have a strong nominee who is a good fit.” And he defended his approach to recruitment and support in key races.

“We found great candidates,” Schumer said, lobbing a veiled retort at critics of his strategy. “I don’t look for candidates that fit the national Democratic Party profile.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

Congress

Rick Scott lifts holds on Coast Guard promotions

Published

9 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rick Scott said Thursday he had lifted his hold on Coast Guard promotions as he works to resolve a dispute between the service branch and a shipbuilder in his state.

The Florida Republican said in a statement that he cares “deeply about these Coast Guard promotions” and that “though we’re still not done, I’m lifting these holds as all parties have been working together in good faith and are moving towards an amenable agreement that gets ships built and is fair to US taxpayers.”

Scott added that “the process still needs to be better” and that he would “fight to ensure there is more oversight and accountability of the Coast Guard and that we fix the Coast Guard procurement process going forward.”

Scott initially placed the hold in April on the elevation of officers within the service, preventing the Senate from approving promotions via unanimous consent.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in 2025 scrapped plans for two advanced cutters being manufactured at Panama City-based Eastern Shipbuilding Group. The shipyard announced in November it would stop work on the two remaining boats “due to significant financial strain caused by the program’s structure and conditions.”

Scott had been a longtime booster of the partnership between Eastern and the Coast Guard and said in April he had been working with the administration to resolve the dispute but was struggling to get traction.

While the Senate could have held roll-call votes to sidestep Scott’s blockage, service officer promotions are usually noncontroversial and leaders rarely choose to expend valuable and finite floor time to advance them if there is not unanimous consent.

Congress

Senate panel approves Department of War name change

Published

10 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted this week to formally change the Pentagon’s name to the Department of War, moving a significant step closer to solidifying President Donald Trump’s rebrand of the Defense Department as permanent.

The move came during the committee’s closed-door deliberations over its defense policy bill, according to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who announced the name change in explaining his vote against the legislation.

“It’s a juvenile move that sadly describes the reality of a president who has abandoned meaningful diplomacy in favor of starting doubtful wars in multiple locations and threatening even more,” he said in a statement.

Trump authorized the War Department moniker last year as part of a broader effort to present a more aggressive military to the world. The Pentagon has used it since, as have many Republicans on Capitol Hill.

But Congress must sign off for the name change to stick — and votes on both sides of the Capitol make it closer than ever to becoming a reality.

Details of the Armed Services vote, including who pushed for the change, were not immediately public. The committee voted 18-9 to advance the bill Wednesday evening and released initial details of the legislation Thursday.

The House Armed Services Committee approved the rebranding last week in its draft of the annual authorization legislation. The measure was adopted there in a narrow, party-line vote.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth quickly praised the decision. “The Department of War will officially be restored soon,” he wrote in a social media post after the House panel’s vote.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a full renaming of the department could cost as much as $125 million. But supporters have argued changing the name would more accurately reflect the focus and strength of the department, sending a message to potential adversaries.

The name change’s inclusion in both the House and Senate panel’s drafts of the authorization bill — which has passed Congress annually for the last six decades — signals that the rebrand has a strong chance of becoming law.