The House Oversight Committee\u2019s Jeffrey Epstein investigation will hit the one-year mark later this month, and the saga isn\u2019t ending anytime soon.<\/p>\n

No matter which party ends up in control in the next Congress, the Oversight panel will remain under pressure to continue to investigate the late convicted sex offender and the web of power players who may have been complicit in his crimes.<\/p>\n

Democrats are making clear that they view the committee\u2019s work under Republican leadership as incomplete and that the Epstein case will be central to their oversight of President Donald Trump\u2019s administration if they win the majority in the midterms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just the beginning,\u201d Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, an Oversight Democrat, said in an interview. \u201cI believe this is the administration’s Watergate. I think that it’s clear that they are complicit in covering crimes and shielding the president from accountability and evading the law, and so I’d like to see all of them in front of the committee under oath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans, meanwhile, say that the public\u2019s appetite for answers in the Epstein case won\u2019t be satiated<\/u><\/a> no matter what new details the panel unearths.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are never satisfied with the congressional investigation throughout history,\u201d said Oversight Chair James Comer of Kentucky, who, due to GOP term limits, will no longer be the panel\u2019s top Republican in the next Congress.<\/p>\n

While he had hoped to wrap up interviews by the August recess, Comer added, \u201cIt’s probably going to be hard because it seems like \u2026 after every deposition we get another name or two that we need to talk to.\u201d<\/p>\n

That means the congressional Epstein probe could continue for the foreseeable future, not only out of hopes of finding a smoking gun but also because the political incentives to keep investigating \u2014 for Democrats as well as Republicans \u2014 are impossible to resist.<\/p>\n

The panel has interviewed more than a dozen people, and none so far have shared any new information culminating in criminal charges. But the panel has made history by making a host of powerful people answer for their willful association with a convicted sex offender \u2014 among them Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick<\/a>, the billionaire investor Leon Black<\/u><\/a> and tech mogul and philanthropist Bill Gates<\/u><\/a>. Black and Gates both admitted to knowing about Epstein\u2019s criminal history, at least in part, while continuing to associate with him.<\/p>\n

There have been some other revelations, too. Sarah Kellen,<\/u><\/a> a former Epstein assistant, gave lawmakers the names of two men<\/u><\/a> potentially implicated in Epstein\u2019s misdeeds: Hair stylist Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Fekkai and former Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine, who both have denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Black, in the middle of his transcribed interview, was slapped with subpoenas<\/u><\/a> that will force him to reappear and hand over nondisclosure agreements that could be tied to Epstein.<\/p>\n

And ousted former Attorney General Pam Bondi underscored the extent<\/u><\/a> to which her then-deputy, Todd Blanche, led the Justice Department\u2019s haphazard release of the Epstein files after Congress forced the department\u2019s hand last fall. Blanche \u2014 now the acting attorney general vying to lead the DOJ permanently \u2014 is expected to be heavily questioned about the matter at his Senate confirmation hearing next week, and House Oversight could separately call him<\/u><\/a> in to speak with the panel in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, who is poised to become Oversight chair next year if Democrats sweep the fall elections, noted the ongoing investigation has also set a new precedent<\/u><\/a>: The panel\u2019s decision earlier this year to compel the sworn testimony of former President Bill Clinton, he said, could pave the way for subpoenaing other commanders-in-chief.<\/p>\n

That includes Trump, who has drawn scrutiny for his own relationship with Epstein. Democrats have argued the administration has concealed the extent of that relationship, but Trump has maintained that he and Epstein had a falling-out long before Epstein\u2019s death by suicide behind bars in 2019. The president has not been charged with wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

There are, however, clear limits to what Congress can do to bring people to account. Already, committee Republicans have recommended that the Justice Department investigate allegations against Fekkai and Levine. <\/p>\n

In a statement, a DOJ official confirmed the department had received the recommendation from the committee, and the FBI was looking into it.<\/p>\n