House Oversight Committee Republicans are circulating a report Monday that may help GOP lawmakers push back on the “anti-Trump narrative” Democrats are pushing regarding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“This memorandum outlines the Democrats’ actions and demonstrates how they appear more focused on advancing an anti-Trump narrative than on pursuing justice for Epstein’s victims,” the 10-page document, obtained by The Post, explained.
The memo was put together by Republican staff on the oversight panel, after Democrats on the committee released three hand-picked emails from the disgraced financier that mentioned President Trump. The GOP plan comes ahead of an expected House vote this week on whether to force the Department of Justice to release all files and communications related to Epstein, after Democrats gained enough support to bring the issue to the floor.
Trump has called Democrats reviving the Epstein case a “hoax” for political purposes and has denied any involvement with his former friend’s criminal activities.
The emails mentioning Trump were picked out from a trove of thousands, and released the same day Democrats were caving to GOP pressure to end the government shutdown.
In response, Republicans released the entire cache of 23,000 documents, obtained from Epstein’s estate via a GOP subpoena.
The document notes that Republicans on the oversight committee, led by Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who has subpoena power, initiated the investigation into the “horrific crimes” committed by Epstein and his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Aside from Epstein estate documents, Comer has issued subpoenas for documents from the Justice Department and testimony from Maxwell, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and several former FBI directors and attorneys general.
Comer was also able to wrangle Alexander Acosta, a Republican former US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and secretary of labor, to provide a deposition before the panel.
“Unfortunately, during this investigation, Oversight Committee Democrats, led by Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), have intentionally mischaracterized witness testimony and selectively released information with targeted redactions in an effort to create another hoax involving President Trump,” the memo states.
“After whipping their Democrat base into a frenzy with absurd promises of finally ‘getting’ President Trump, Committee Democrats have now turned to concocting narratives from out-of-context documents, salacious innuendo, and outright lies regarding testimony and the evidentiary record to distract the American people from their own lack of ideas and leadership,” it continues, arguing that Democrats on the panel “have uncovered nothing new, have released no document not provided at the request of Republicans.”
The memo compares Democrats’ actions amid the Epstein investigation to “Russiagate, the Steele Dossier, and phony prosecutions before it.”
“Committee Democrats have overpromised and underdelivered, and now they paw through every new document production looking for a single term: Trump,” the report states.
The document highlights Ranking Member Garcia’s “lie” that former Attorney General Bill Barr “could not clear President Trump of wrongdoing,” when sat for a closed-door deposition before the panel.
In his testimony, Barr repeatedly asserted that he was never presented evidence by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York implicating Trump in a crime and that he believed the office would’ve prosecuted him had they found evidence.
The “selective leaks and redactions” in last week’s Epstein emails, including the omission of references to Virginia Giuffre, who asserted before her death earlier this year that she witnessed no wrongdoing by Trump during their interactions, are also highlighted in the document.
The Republican side of the committee argues Giuffre’s name was redacted to “create a false narrative” and “slander President Trump.”
“Democrats took away important context in the email that named Virginia Guiffre, who worked at Mar-a-Lago, made allegations against Prince Andrew, and was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell in the parking lot,” the memo states. “This changes the meaning in Epstein’s email where he states, ‘of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.’”
A revealing clip of Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), a member of the oversight panel, fumbling her way through an interview with CNN, after being asked about the Giuffre redaction is also included in the report.
“I don’t know why they would necessarily redact someone’s name who is deceased at this point,” Crockett said in the interview, prompting CNN host Pamela Brown to quickly point out: “The Democrats did that, though.”
Crockett, visibly rattled by the correction, stammered through an attempt to walk back her false assertion and change the subject.
Sara Guerrero, a spokesperson for Democrats on the oversight panel, said last week that “the official stance of Oversight Democrats is that we don’t confirm or deny the names of victims.”
Guerrero claims that redactions, such as Giuffre’s name, are not done as an attempt to muddy the waters but rather “out of respect” for Epstein’s victims.
The memo notes that “Democrats have a pattern of selectively leaking documents obtained by the Committee.”
The September leak of two-pages from the Epstein birthday book “out of approximately 360 pages of documents,” is presented as another example of the tactic.
“Notably, Democrats did not release former President Bill Clinton’s alleged entry in the birthday book,” the GOP staffers wrote.
“In contrast, the Majority has made all documents public,” the memo asserts.
The memo mentions the Washington Post report on Friday that Democratic Del. Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands appears to have been texting back-and-forth with Epstein during a March 2019 House hearing with Michael Cohen – and that Epstein may have been feeding her questions to ask the former Trump associate during his testimony.
The document argues that the “Democrats’ mantra to ‘release the Epstein files’ is only limited to any reference of President Trump so they can mischaracterize it to smear him.”
The Republicans on the committee tout bringing in two high-level former GOP officials – Barr and Acosta – for testimony while “Oversight Committee Democrats have done nothing to help bring the Clintons in for testimony.”
The lack of help from Dems in securing interviews with the Clintons “displays their full partisanship in this investigation,” the GOP side argues.
Garcia (D-Calif.) in his latest statement on “our Oversight investigation” was – as the memo suggests Democrats are – hyper-focused on Trump.
The ranking member argued the probe has the president “panicked and desperate.”
“He is trying to deflect from serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” Garcia wrote. “The President has not explained why he won’t release the files to the American people.”
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