Congress

DOJ silent on Epstein files since start of the shutdown

Published

9 months ago

October 16, 2025

The congressional probe into the Jeffrey Epstein case now appears to be caught in the crossfires of the government shutdown.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s monthslong investigation into the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier has been largely put on pause as employees across the federal government are put on furloughs.

Two people granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics say that committee investigators have not heard from DOJ around the subpoena since federal funding lapsed Oct. 1, grinding to a halt what had until that point been a modest stream of information flowing between the agency and Capitol Hill thanks to a congressional subpoena.

Oversight Democrats have reached out for more information from DOJ and received no response, according to one of the two people. And now, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the panel’s top, is openly accusing the department of slow-walking.

“Despite multiple requests from Committee staff for an accounting of materials still within DOJ’s possession or plans to produce additional materials, DOJ has failed to provide any substantive or insightful information as to when the Committee may expect further productions of documents,” Garcia wrote in a letter Thursday to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Garcia’s letter made no mention of what effect the shutdown could be having on DOJ operations. A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The delays are, in any event, the latest chapter in the political quagmire the Epstein case has created on Capitol Hill.

Democrats have for months tried to leverage President Donald Trump’s relationship with Epstein to stoke divisions among the MAGA base and argue the administration is reneging on its promises of transparency in the matter.

Speaker Mike Johnson has also been working to quell an insurgent effort among lawmakers to force a floor vote that would compel the Justice Department to oversee a wholesale release of materials in the Epstein case. Democrats say a desire among GOP leadership to avoid such an outcome is the reason Johnson refuses to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who would be the 218th signer on the discharge petition to bring up the bill.

House GOP leaders have repeatedly brandished the Oversight probe as the appropriate vehicle to obtain information related to the Epstein case, and DOJ has been somewhat responsive since being slapped with the subpoena. But Democrats — along with rank-and-file Republicans — have complained that the department is transmitting information too slowly, and in piecemeal fashion, and that much of the material that has been sent to Hill investigators so far represents information that has previously been made public.

Garcia argued in his letter Thursday that the administration had refused “for nearly two months to provide substantive information regarding progress producing files relating to Jeffrey Epstein,” adding, “the only production of documents by DOJ consisted almost entirely of documents that were either already public or in the Committee’s possession.”

The Justice Department has not handed over any information to the Oversight Committee since Aug. 22. Republican leadership says lawmakers must give the agency time to responsibly release materials without jeopardizing the privacy of Epstein’s victims. But the Justice Department has not provided any insight into when the committee can expect more information, Garcia said.

Garcia also questioned Bondi on why her department had not responded to questions over why Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was given what he called “preferential treatment” by the Bureau of Prisons. Maxwell was relocated from a federal prison in Florida to a minimum security prison camp in Texas shortly after she sat for an interview with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, where she said she had no recollection of Trump’s involvement in inappropriate situations with Epstein.

Congress

Senate Ethics dismisses allegations against Ruben Gallego

Published

4 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Ethics Committee has dismissed allegations of misconduct levied against Sen. Ruben Gallego, who stood accused by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of “campaign finance violations and inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature.”

The charges came following the resignation of the Arizona Democrat’s longtime friend, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who was forced to step down amid accusations of serious sexual misconduct. Luna, a Florida Republican, sought to implicate Gallego by claiming in an interview on CBS that a woman would come forward about an “incident that occurred between the two of them at the same time and the event was sexual in nature allegedly.”

But in a letter to Gallego sent Monday — which he shared in a public news release — the notoriously inactive Ethics Committee cited Gallego’s “prompt contact with the Committee following media reports of the allegations and appreciated your full cooperation with the Committee throughout the investigation.”

Gallego has maintained he was unaware of the allegations against Swalwell and said in a statement he was a victim of “right-wing conspiracies peddled by far-right activists like Anna Paulina Luna, the White House, and their allies.”

He continued, “I look forward to an apology from Rep. Luna for weaponizing the ethics process while refusing to investigate historic corruption that’s making life harder for families.”

Luna, in a post on X, defended her referral to the Senate Ethics Committee.

“The good news about DC is everyone talks, and eventually the reporters come forward with your texts,” Luna wrote on social media. “Do yourself a favor and keep raising for your legal defense fund. Once a creep always a creep, and you’re gonna need it.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s state. She represents Florida.

Congress

Rubio, Witkoff to brief Congress on Iran

Published

7 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Top deputies of President Donald Trump will brief Congress on the Iran peace talks in a Monday conference call — the first time administration officials have addressed a broad group of lawmakers since Trump signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Tehran earlier this month.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, will lead the briefing for all House and Senate members at 4 p.m., according to seven people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

Republicans and Democrats have called for more transparency about the 14-point agreement inked on June 18, which initiated a cease-fire between the two countries. Since then, the U.S. and Iran have continued to engage in hostilities.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Red, white and GOP hard-liner blues

Published

10 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republicans finally cleared a runway this week to finish some of their top legislative priorities before the July 4 recess.

That is, unless a small band of hard-liners trip up those plans at takeoff.

Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to move quickly to pass fiscal 2027 appropriations legislation, the annual defense policy bill and a kids online safety bill that has been years in the making. The movement comes after President Donald Trump instructed GOP hard-liners to stop holding up a procedural vote amid a protest from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and others that the Senate hadn’t passed Trump’s election security bill.

But Luna and other hard-liners are still threatening to tank the procedural vote that could delay the defense policy bill and other measures until they get concessions on the SAVE America Act, amid other demands.

Johnson, for example, had also promised hard-liners a vote before July 4 on a sweeping GOP immigration bill introduced in the prior Congress as H.R. 2, which is highly unlikely to happen.

Johnson for his part has said the House will “pass the SAVE America Act again” by folding parts of it into a third party-line reconciliation bill. But the slimmed-down version he’d need to pursue in order to meet strict Senate rules for the budget process is already being panned by hard-liners as insufficient.

That reconciliation bill is also already delayed. House Republicans aren’t on track to meet their goal of advancing its framework before the July 4 recess as members on the Budget panel balked over how to pay for the legislation in a closed-door meeting last week.

“Time is of the essence, given how many legislative days we have,” House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie, who is sponsoring the kids online safety legislation, said in an interview last week. “If we lose a week, that would be important.”

Meanwhile, Democratic leadership is grappling with their own heated internal divisions this week. Members are split over supporting the adoption of an amendment to a fiscal 2027 spending bill from Rep. Thomas Massie that would end Israel aid and cut the overall foreign military aid program by $3.3 billion.

Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro did not instruct her colleagues on how to vote during a rare Sunday evening caucus call, two sources granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting tell Mia and Riley. Leaders did, however, criticize the amendment as poorly written.

One other item this week that could split members of each party: House lawmakers are also slated to vote on a rewritten war powers resolution from Rep. Rashida Tlaib to reign in Trump administration military actions in Lebanon. Leadership worked with Tlaib to come up with new language last month that is expected to garner more Dem support, but the resolution is still expected to fail without GOP votes.

What else we’re watching:

— SENATE GOP GETS ANTSY ABOUT NOMINATIONS: Some Republican senators are unsettled by Trump’s apparent lack of urgency in filling vacant posts, even as GOP control of the chamber beyond the midterms is increasingly in doubt. There are more than two dozen federal court vacancies. Labor secretary, FDA commissioner and scores of other open positions do not have nominees, and a senior White House official said Trump is in no rush to fill them. “We’re running short on time,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a member of Senate HELP, which oversees health, labor and other issues.

—RICK SCOTT SAYS HE’S JUST TRYING TO HELP: Fresh off his controversial Trump invite to a Senate GOP lunch last week, Sen. Rick Scott told Blue Light News in an interview he’s trying to make a mark — not trying to challenge Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Scott insists that neither his invitation to the president nor a letter he circulated afterward outlining how the Senate GOP should be preparing for the midterms should be seen as a prelude to a leadership challenge. The Florida Republican said he’s perfectly happy running the conference’s conservative Steering Committee and predicted Thune would easily secure another term as leader. What has become eminently clear in recent weeks is that Scott — after a long career in business, two terms as governor and nearly eight years as senator — just isn’t a back-bench kind of guy.

Meredith Lee Hill, Riley Rogerson, Alex Gangitano, Jordain Carney and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.