Epstein Files Transparency Act

Mr. President, I think we can and certainly should all agree that the case of Jeffrey Epstein is deeply disturbing, with horrifying abuse of young women and girls.

From the lenient plea deal he received in Florida in 2008 to the end of his case with the death in prison, survivors of his abuse have been denied a full accounting of his crimes and the justice they deserve.

It is also clear that a lack of transparency and accountability and contradictory statements by the Trump administration and its officials have led to even deeper public distrust of our justice system and especially the handling of this case. After all, Trump administration officials, including Attorney General Bondi, promised transparency in this case but instead gave the American people a binder of largely already-public documents. It was a sham.

Last month, the Department of Justice released a two-page memo informing the American public that the Department had completed its exhaustive review of the Epstein files and concluded that ``no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.'' We shouldn't be taking the word of any official in any administration on face value. The public should see these documents for themselves. People ranging from the victims to the American public believe transparency is warranted, and it is.

Just 3 days after the Department of Justice memo was published, the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously agreed to an amendment I proposed to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations bill that would require two things. It would require the Department to retain, preserve, and compile the Epstein files and submit a report with the files to the respective subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

I understood that earlier today, Senator Barrasso made the point that that Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill was on the floor and that I objected to moving forward on that bill, as I did for totally unrelated reasons.

We also know that appropriations bills take a very long time to wind through the U.S. congressional process. It has to go through the House. It could be months before that provision--if it continues to be in there--sees the light of day. It shouldn't take months. We should do it now, which is why, the day after the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously--Republicans and Democrats together--supported that provision to require the report and preserve the documents, Senator Durbin and I wrote to the Attorney General to say: Why wait?

And that is the question, Mr. President--why wait? The victims, the American people--they deserve to see the files and know the full truth, and they deserve it right now.

Just this morning, there was a new report in Bloomberg. The headline says ``The FBI Redacted Trump's Name in the Epstein Files.'' We have always understood that Donald Trump's name was in the files. What we are learning today, at least according to these reports, is that the FBI redacted Donald Trump's name from those files. The question is, Why? Nobody's name should be redacted from the files with respect to the perpetrators of these crimes. Clearly, in releasing files, we need to protect the names of any victims, but the perpetrators--we should

know their names. They should not be redacted.

What we have seen, of course, from the President is an effort to change the subject entirely, say that it was the Obama Administration that somehow invented this whole dispute and debate. But we know that is not true. We know that is not true because of what President Trump has previously said and, of course, what his Attorney General has said.

It is also deeply concerning that the Deputy Attorney General of the United States of America, who previously was Donald Trump's personal lawyer, skirted all the Department of Justice protocols and went down to secretly interview Ghislaine Maxwell for hours over a couple of days. I think we should have the transcript of that interview as well.

We have also heard President Trump say that he has the power to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Well, it is one thing to have the power; it is another thing to speculate publicly about using that power to pardon somebody who could testify in an incriminating way against all of the perpetrators. That reeks of a hint of the obstruction of justice, to signal to Ghislaine Maxwell that if she says the right things, the President of the United States could pardon her. That would be a corruption of the judicial process--a gross corruption of the judicial process.

So I hope President Trump will immediately announce that he won't pardon this person, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was the associate of Jeffrey Epstein in perpetrating these crimes against young women and girls. The President of the United States should announce today that he will not do that. That is the way the President can put an end to the understandable concern that he is signaling that if she says the right thing regarding him, she will get a ``get out of jail free'' card. That would be a gross corruption of the process and of the justice system.

This is why we should do now what the victims deserve and what the American public demands, which is to support the proposal put forward by the Senator from Oregon Senator Merkley.

As if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2557; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I would.

The President of the United States, when asked if he could pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, said, yes, he has the power to do that pardon, to make that pardon. Her attorneys have made very clear through multiple public remarks that they would welcome that. Of course her attorneys would welcome that. She would love to get out of jail free.

This is why the President, today, should make very clear that he will not pardon Ghislaine Maxwell because she was a close associate in the crimes that she and Jeffrey Epstein committed.

Certainly. If the President of the United States is signaling to Ghislaine Maxwell and her attorneys that he would provide a pardon without any possible reason to do so other than for her to give testimony--in this case, it would be false testimony because we know about the close association between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein--that would clearly be witness tampering.

I did, indeed. This is a report that just came out. The headline is ``The FBI Redacted Trump's Name in the Epstein Files.'' It is a Bloomberg report, and it is just one more example of what appears to be an effort to cover up any role that Donald Trump may have played in these crimes. Again, we don't know, and the best way for us all to know is to support your effort here, to support our mutual efforts, which is to just release the files.

The concern, of course, is that the Trump administration would be tempted to destroy these files for the purposes of getting rid of evidence. As I indicated, reports today indicate that the FBI--and, again, I don't know if they were instructed to do so. I do not know all the circumstances. What we do know are the reports from Bloomberg that Donald Trump's name was stricken from the files.

I think that is a question for all of us to ask the FBI, and we should follow up and ask the FBI.

In the meantime, though, the best way, as you pointed out and all of us have pointed out and even Attorney General Bondi at one point pointed out, is just release the damn files. That is how we would get to the bottom of all of this. And don't redact anything from the files except--except--to protect victims. But perpetrators should not have their names redacted from the files.

Well, that is a very good point, Senator Merkley.

We had a unanimous bipartisan vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee on an amendment to do exactly that--to make sure the records were preserved so nobody tried to destroy evidence--and it required an exhaustive report, detailing many of the questions that we have all raised regarding the Epstein files.

As I said, the appropriations process takes a very long time to wind through the U.S. Congress, and there is no reason to wait on this. Again, if a majority of the Appropriations Committee--not just a majority--but if a unanimous vote in the Appropriations Committee took place, we could actually get this out right away, and, hopefully, the House would pass that, and then we could send it right to the President's desk.

We, certainly, more importantly, the American people, and especially the victims deserve to know that nobody will tamper with the files between now and the moment they are released.

Again, the fastest way to address this issue, to meet the concerns, to meet the terrible, terrible abuse that was visited upon these young women and girls, is simply to release the files and do it now.

Mr. President, nobody in our country should be above the law--not a politician, not a celebrity, not a billionaire--no one. The principle of ``equal justice under the law'' is so powerful that if you walk outside these doors and you look across to the Supreme Court, you will see them carved into the facade above the pillars: ``Equal justice under law.''

No matter how powerful someone is, if they commit a crime, then they need to be prosecuted, and the American people have a right to know if information is being held related to the conduct of the crime.

So in regard to the Epstein files, there is only one right answer: the complete and total disclosure of everything, all the details, while protecting the names of the victims. Whatever a person's political party is shouldn't matter. The level of power shouldn't matter. Their net worth shouldn't matter. ``Equal justice under law'' is the vision of our Nation. If an individual is a pedophile, if an individual has raped a young girl, then they need to be held accountable. Let the chips fall where they may.

Jeffrey Epstein was a monster. He groomed and abused and raped and coordinated the rape by others of underage girls, and he trafficked these girls to rich and powerful men.

As I speak here tonight, the Department of Justice has files detailing a tremendous amount of information about his operation, and in those files, as we have heard from Pam Bondi and as she has informed the President, the President's name is among them.

Well, that doesn't mean that he was somebody who participated in a crime. He could be listed as an associate. He could be listed as a friend. He could be listed as somebody who attended a gathering. We don't know. In fact, we don't know about any of the names that are in those files as to what they did. But that is the point. As to the names of the powerful people who associated with an individual--Jeffrey Epstein--who was running an international sex trafficking ring--all of that information must be disclosed. Full disclosure is the only option.

Every detail should be brought to light, and anyone who committed egregious crimes should be held accountable no matter who they are.

My colleague from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and the Senate Finance Committee have been investigating Mr. Epstein's financial network for years. They have been seeking disclosure.

I have a letter that Senator Wyden wrote. It reveals more than 4,700 suspicious wire transfers adding up to more than $1 billion from just one of Mr. Epstein's bank accounts and hundreds of millions of dollars in other bank accounts. What would that information show us about who they went to? What questions would it lead us to ask, and what questions would that information answer? The American public has every right to know the questions that Senator Wyden and the Finance Committee are asking.

Let me be clear. That work was bipartisan work, Democrats and Republicans together calling for disclosure and accountability.

In this letter, Senator Wyden notes:

Epstein clearly had access to enormous financing to operate

his sex trafficking network, and the details on how he got

the cash to pay for it are sitting in a Treasury Department

filing cabinet.

For years, so many people across America in both parties have been demanding the release of the Epstein files, but we heard a lot from a few folks who are in the administration now.

December 15, 2023, Kash Patel said that Mr. Epstein's ``black book'' was ``under [the] direct control of the FBI.'' Well, Mr. Patel is now the Director of the FBI.

On October 22, 2024, Vice--well, he wasn't Vice President yet, but now he is Vice President--JD Vance said in a podcast:

Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That's an

important thing.

On February 25, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was in office, said Mr. Epstein's client list was ``sitting on my desk right now to review.''

But, suddenly, we are hearing a different tune from people in the administration. We are hearing: There is nothing to see here, they are saying. Go look somewhere else, they are saying. This is not important, they are saying.

But not everyone agrees with that. Let's take the Speaker of the House. July 15, House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN:

We should put everything out there and let the people

decide.

On July 16, Senator Majority Leader John Thune told FOX News:

I'm always a believer in transparency--I think more is . .

. better.

I agree with Speaker Mike Johnson. I agree with Majority Leader John Thune. I agree that the right principle about this information is to put everything out there.

Let us not forget that as the Senate Finance Committee is pursuing those information about the file transfers and what they show, that, ultimately, it is not about money itself but about what money tells us and the case it builds for who did what, because what really matters here is this: the victimization of young girls. That is what this is about, the abuse of young girls, the rape of young girls. That is what this is about. That is what transparency is about.

So whether the information in the Department of Justice files is about flight and travel records, names of people who were involved in various ways, names of businesses or nonprofits, other organizations, about meetings held or communications made, whether it was by email, whether it was by text, whether it was by phone call, any immunity deals, any nonprosecution agreements, any plea bargains, any settlements--whatever it is--the American people demand transparency, just as the Speaker of the House demanded transparency, just as the majority leader of the Senate has demanded transparency.

This bill requires ``no record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of any of the following: embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary,'' regardless of who they are, regardless of where they live.

But what the bill also says is the information released must protect the victims and the underage witnesses, protect those who were victims or who were underage witnesses to crimes. So information can be redacted by those victims and underage witnesses--personally identifiable information, depictions of abuse, or information that would jeopardize a Federal investigation or national security.

Colleagues, the question before us is simple: Will this body follow the lead of the Speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate and call for full transparency?

The administration has said the law doesn't allow us to do it, so I am proposing a law that gives them the power to do what they have said they would like to do--transparency.

Will we, instead, object to this law to protect perpetrators of crimes against girls? That is the question tonight: Will we protect our children, or will the information be withheld? Will we fail to demand it, fail to adopt this law to ensure that it is delivered in order to protect the powerful? That is the choice: Protect the victims, be on their side, pursue justice, or protect the powerful?

So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2557, which is at the desk. I further ask that the bill be considered read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Would my colleague yield for a question?

Mr. President, I ask my colleague to yield for a question. He has chosen not to, and that is his right.

But the question I would ask is this: If the Speaker of the House is demanding transparency, if the majority leader of the Senate is demanding transparency, if the American people are demanding transparency, if my colleagues who have said time and time again just months ago there should be transparency, then why does my colleague come here and object to transparency? What is it that they know that they don't want the American people to know?

To withhold this information is an assault on justice, and it is absolutely wrong. We must continue to demand that the rich and powerful are not shielded from the full force of justice if they have perpetrated crimes against underage children.

Mr. President, we have been looking at this for well over 3 years now, and what I would like to do with my colleague Mr. Merkley, with all of my colleagues, is make an important point. I wanted to just take stock of where things stand.

The Trump administration came in promising radical transparency on Jeffrey Epstein. Now the fact is that the Epstein files are being suppressed, and the administration is obstructing oversight from the Congress.

The President's story about his relationship with Epstein changes by the day, and that is true of his administration as well. His personal lawyer went to talk to Ms. Maxwell, and who knows what was said in that conversation.

What we do know is that Maxwell has been moved--Epstein's partner in crime--to a minimum security prison without giving any good reason as to why a child sex trafficker deserves that additional comfort.

House Republicans seem no longer interested in having Maxwell testify.

Yesterday, it was reported that a member of Donald Trump's inner circle gave a high-paying job to another close Epstein associate, a man named Darren

Indyke. That sounds about as bizarre and wrong as you can get.

My colleagues and I believe it is a big mistake for the Senate to go out of session without making real progress on real transparency on the Epstein issue. There are a number of ways you can do that.

Let me say a little bit about our investigation, which began 3\1/2\ years ago, so it has been looked at by Democrats and Republicans alike. From the outset, it has been built on the fact that you have to follow the money to be at the core of this global sex trafficking operation, which, on the basis of what we have seen, has been funded lavishly.

We began by examining the financial ties between Mr. Epstein and a Wall Street titan named Leon Black. We found that Black paid Epstein $170 million over just a couple of years. He said it was ``for tax and estate planning.''

The central claim, though, is what is noteworthy. The claim was that Mr. Epstein was a financial wizard, some superstar in terms of looking at taxes and estates, and he could perform accounting miracles. It appears this kind of work for Black and others was one of Mr. Epstein's biggest sources of income.

Now, here is the catch: Epstein wasn't an accountant or a tax attorney at all. And Leon Black, who is extraordinarily well off, already employed the best tax advisers in the business. He didn't need Mr. Epstein to handle his money. Black's lawyers even told our investigators--let me just keep it brief--that Epstein's work wasn't very impressive. He made mistakes, and his work needed to be double- checked by people who were actually tax experts. But, Mr. Black was paying Mr. Epstein more than double the income of the average Fortune 500 CEO.

Mr. Black wasn't the only one paying Mr. Epstein top dollar for this so-called financial advice. That is where we have to go to follow the money.

Last year, my investigators went to the Treasury Department and reviewed thousands of bank documents related to Mr. Epstein's financing. I have spoken at length about those documents here on the Senate floor. There is a whole set of Epstein files in the possession of the Treasury Department, above and beyond the files in the possession of the Department of Justice.

So that is a key point. You have to look, if you are going to follow the money, at the Treasury Department, not just at the Department of Justice.

We have been trying to get those documents. The Trump administration has been blocking us.

We have demanded answers from the new head of the IRS about why its criminal investigators didn't look into Epstein's work for Leon Black or whether they did any investigation of Epstein at all.

We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars paid by ultrawealthy individuals to a known sex trafficker for the purpose of dodging billions in taxes. It is unthinkable that those transactions were never audited or investigated.

A deep dive on this, starting with the IRS criminal investigations operation, could have blown the lid off Epstein's cover story about being a financial genius quite some time ago. It could have helped uncover the financing behind these horrific crimes.

One last point in terms of an update. There are all kinds of pundits out there chattering about whether this is the right political issue to focus on. My message is blunt: This is not about politics. This is not about Democrats and Republicans.

I just want to make it clear, this is about whether there is going to be justice for the victims of a notorious sex trafficker who did not abuse these women and girls alone. This is about whether there is going to be accountability for the people who enabled and participated in Epstein's crimes.

The question really is, as I close: Who is the government looking out for, the rich and powerful, even those who do horrible things, or the powerless, the victims of abuse who have been neglected for too long?

Donald Trump wants this to go away without any accountability. And for him, that might be about self-preservation. But it is clear the Trump administration, based on our detailed work, doesn't want to do the right thing here. I am 3\1/2\ years into my investigation of one aspect of the Epstein story because there ought to be accountability and justice for the victims. I am here to bring my colleagues up to date on the investigation. There will be more this summer, particularly about the Treasury Department, which is sitting on thousands and thousands of Epstein documents of its own, and they shouldn't be allowed to skate on this. We are going to keep investigating. We are going to keep putting the pressure on.

This is not about blue. It is not about red. It is about doing the right thing and making sure something like this doesn't happen again.

Senator Merkley and my colleagues are doing the right thing today. I want it understood, as somebody who has led this investigation for more than 3\1/2\ years, I support them strongly.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, nobody in our country should ever be above the law, certainly not powerful people who believe that they can perpetrate crimes on victims and get away with it because they have so much wealth and so many lawyers and so many friends in high places.

If you go outside the doors of the Senate Chamber, to my right, and you continue straight ahead and you go out the second set of doors to the steps of the Capitol, you are looking straight across at the Supreme Court. And while scaffolding is up right now, making it hard to see the words, the words that are engraved above those pillars are those words ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' Powerful words. A powerful vision that all Americans are subject to the law.

There is no special get-out-of-jail-free card under that vision for the powerful, but all too often the combination of reams of well-paid lawyers and a whole lot of friends ready to help you, the powerful commit crimes and get away with it.

We should aspire to the vision that is there above the Supreme Court, that vision of ``Equal Justice Under Law,'' that no politician, no celebrity, no megamillionaire or billionaire can buy their way out of justice when they commit crimes and particularly not crimes that involve life-altering damage, crimes in which people are killed, crimes in which people are mutilated, crimes in which people are raped.

No matter how powerful someone is, they need to be prosecuted when they commit these crimes. And the American people have a right to know what information the government is suppressing to protect these individuals. So this brings us to the conversation of the Epstein files. There is only one right answer, complete and total disclosure. That is the only pathway to justice.

We have a lot of suspicions across this country about what is contained in those files hidden in the Department of Justice, those files that are hidden in the Department of the Treasury.

My colleague Senator Wyden, on the Finance Committee, has been working on this for years. I heard an objection from across the aisle, Why are you interested now? Well, Senator Wyden has been leading the search to understand what went on. There is a billion dollars

of money that was transferred, thousands of transfers that were ignored by key banks that would have painted a portrait of a criminal empire in motion. And yet, somehow, none of those transfers triggered the attention that they merited.

So here is what we know: We know that Epstein ran a massive network of sex trafficking, sex trafficking of young girls to powerful men. Now, we don't know who they are, in terms of those powerful men, and there may be many names in the files--the Epstein files--that involve people who had nothing to do with those crimes. They may simply be friends in a network; they may be business associates in some other legitimate way; but some of them may well be these powerful men who raped young girls.

So those folks who were not part of that shouldn't be objecting to the release of the files because the files would simply show that they had nothing to do with those crimes against young women. But the folks who were the perpetrators, whose names might be in that file, right now, I can guarantee you, they are working the system of every high friend across this country, every megamillionaire and billionaire who participated in these violent acts on the innocent young, and they are trying to make sure this information never comes out. So far, they have succeeded, and that is wrong.

Several of my colleagues are preparing to speak to this, and Senator Durbin--I am looking to see that he is here, yes, he is--is going to speak to it next. My colleague from across the aisle is here to respond to a request to hear and vote on a bill that will tell the Department of Justice, you must release these files; transparency must happen.

Now, why did I write this bill? I wrote this bill because the Attorney General said we don't have legal permission to release the information. So let's give her the legal permission to release this information. In fact, let's pass a law right now, today, here in the Senate, that says you not only have permission to release the Epstein files, but we are passing a law saying you must release the Epstein files, with the names of the victims redacted to protect them.

So as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged and the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of S. 2557; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, my colleague has come to the floor and said that there is a provision in a bill, but will he yield for a question about that provision?

He will not because he has just left the floor because he doesn't want to answer the question. But I invite him to come back because the provision he is talking about does not require the release of the Epstein files--not at all. And so he has come to the floor, and he said Democrats blocked a provision, and he won't tell you what I am telling you right now, that provision does not require the release of the Epstein files. So it is misrepresenting the situation.

And you saw him change the topic. Why change the topic from this topic? Americans have been very clear that they want these files released. This is the bill that will do it.

And I yield to my colleague from Illinois.

Mr. President, the American people have been treated to an extraordinary spectacle. It is the spectacle of a President of the United States trying to stonewall and stall the disclosure of a file from the U.S. Department of Justice that directly implicates him and others in places of power after boasting to the American people that he would reveal everything. He promised again and again and again that he would disclose all the files--not only of this investigation, but the JFK investigation and others--because the American people deserve transparency. They deserve disclosure. They deserve to know what is in the files of the Department of Justice when there are credible allegations that an investigation is incomplete and potential evidence concealed.

And the American people are rightly asking now: What do they have to hide? Why are they concealing this information in the files of the Department of Justice?

We are talking about documents, interviews, testimony that may mention the survivors and innocent people, and their names should be redacted and removed from any public disclosure so they are not victimized again by the public ignominy of having been victims. And if there is any ongoing investigation here that requires confidentiality, it can be held.

I know from my days in the Department of Justice--I was the U.S. attorney for Connecticut--that this kind of disclosure is done not routinely, not commonly but in exactly this kind of instance when the credibility of the Department of Justice may be at stake, and people deserve to know the truth.

And here, let's be very blunt. There are questions about whether this investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell was full and complete. There are names; some of them rich and powerful people. There are stories; some of them believable. There are places and locations. There is testimony that describes a situation that may be much broader than just these two individuals who have been prosecuted.

And at the end of the day, we are talking here not about just legalities and about politics. We are talking about girls, the youngest victim--and some of them survivors. The President referred to them as beautiful women on the younger side, some of them.

Well, some of them were actually not women; they were girls. This crime is about the most heinous kind of exploitation of women, predatory victimization of girls, in effect, trafficking them--which was Maxwell's specialty. And the President has said that they may have stolen some of them from his spa, as if they were chattel to be bought and sold. But that was the attitude that Epstein and Maxwell had toward them, and, sadly, that was the attitude that, perhaps, some of their aiders and abettors or coconspirators or simply enablers had as well.

This action about disclosure is necessary now because the administration continues to stonewall and stall, concealing information and betraying its promise to the American people.

And what is at stake here is not just the President's promises-- although they are absolutely clear when he said:

President Trump says he will declassify the 9/11 Files, JFK

Files, and Epstein Files. That is President Trump.

What is at stake here is the credibility of our justice system. That is why an act of Congress is not only appropriate but necessary. And what is at stake here is also the victims.

This crime involved money laundering. It involved financial illegality. It involved fraud against the government. It involved a range of crimes that may sound abstract, even technical. But at the end of the day, it was not a victimless crime. It was about exploiting girls, young women, girls--girls who were mercilessly and repeatedly subject to abuse and trafficking.

Donald Trump has broken these promises, but he has also remained actively engaged in a coverup. That is why he sent his Deputy Attorney General to interview Maxwell for 2 days. Unprecedented, absolutely mind-boggling to send the Deputy Attorney General, who may then be a witness and potentially implicated in a coverup, to interview a vital witness.

We don't know who was with him, but we have to believe there were notes or recordings. They ought to be disclosed as well. And we should require that the disclosure be immediate, as this legislation would require.

That Deputy Attorney General also happens to be the President's personal lawyer, or he was in all his criminal prosecutions. That is unprecedented as well.

The American people deserve an end to this stonewalling and stalling. And that is why, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged, and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2557; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I yield to my colleague Senator Wyden.