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Senate Democrats try to force release of Epstein files using arcane law

By CNN

Published July 30, 2025 8:03 pm

CNN

By Lauren Fox, Katelyn Polantz, Sarah Ferris, CNN

(CNN) — Senate Democrats are using an arcane procedural tool to try to force the Department of Justice to release additional files from the Jeffrey Epstein case – the latest gambit to keep the issue front-and-center as lawmakers prepare for their month-long August recess.

In a new letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats who sit on the Senate Homeland Security Committee requested DOJ release all of the files related to Epstein, including audio, video and any other relevant documents.

“After missteps and failed promises by your Department regarding these files, it is essential that the Trump Administration provide full transparency,” the group wrote in a later dated Tuesday.

The letter goes on to request the documents be turned over no later than August 15 and that appropriate accommodations be made to protect victims’ identities. The Democrats are also requesting a briefing no later than August 29.

Democrats are basing their request on a nearly 100-year-old law that allows five or more members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to request information from the administration even when they are in the minority and lack subpoena power. The law, however, has not been regularly used, nor is it clear whether it would yield the documents Democrats are seeking.

More likely is that the Democrats’ demand will trigger an extended fight in court. The Justice Department is not expected to comply, according to a source familiar with its thinking. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday that the matter was still under review and predicted Schumer’s move would trigger a “protracted legal fight.”

“It’s a, obviously, very dated law. I don’t know, we don’t know a lot about it, but we’re looking into it. I mean, so we’ll see what the what the lawyers come up with,” Thune said.

Democrats have sought in recent weeks to keep the fight over the Epstein files at the political forefront, viewing the controversy as a key test for President Donald Trump as he tries to satisfy his normally loyal base’s demands for more information. In the House, an Oversight subcommittee moved in a bipartisan vote to subpoena the Epstein files after Democrats pushed the issue there, and the party has made similar pushes in other committees on both sides of the Capitol.

Schumer’s effort was first reported on by The New York Times. He told reporters Wednesday Democrats were ready to go to court to argue for the files to be released.

“It’s not a stunt, it’s not symbolic, it’s a formal exercise of congressional power under federal law, and we expect an answer from DOJ by August the 15th,” Schumer said.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for the administration to release more Epstein files, after the Justice Department said earlier this month it had no plans to do so. The department has since sent its No. 2 official, Todd Blanche, to interview convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, while asking courts to unseal grand jury materials from the case. Trump has said he is open to releasing “credible” materials.

The Democrats’ likelihood of success will hinge in part on the willingness of the Trump administration to put the information out, as a court fight would be unlikely to force the documents over to Congress, particularly in the short-term.

That’s because Congress has struggled for years, especially during Trump’s presidencies, to obtain documents and information from the executive branch. Several times, committees and members have sued, with mixed results that often end years later in negotiation rather than a final court ruling.

In 2017, a small group of House members sued for documents from the General Services Administration related to its contract with the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

The House Oversight Committee got some traction at the time from the federal appellate court in DC, which in a split three-judge decision determined members of Congress had the ability to go to court seeking executive branch information if they requested it under the law allowing five senators or seven individual House members to sue.

Five years later, however, the Biden administration was still arguing in court for the same policy the first Trump administration had backed: that individual members of Congress, even ranking minority committee members, didn’t have that level of legal authority.

The Biden administration, in a petition to the Supreme Court in 2022, wrote that members of Congress could always use politics rather than the courts to pressure an administration. The Supreme Court never heard the case, after the Biden administration provided the Democrats in Congress many of the documents they sought.

“This letter has the force of law,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who sits on the Homeland Security panel and was a signee, referring to Democrats’ request for the Epstein files.

“This letter invokes a statute that has been little used because it has been unnecessary in the past to enforce transparency. It’s necessary now because this administration is stonewalling and stalling and concealing, and the American people are rightly asking, ‘What do they have to hide?’”

House Republican effort simmers

The Democrats’ push runs alongside a number of Republican efforts to force the administration to release additional material related to the case. And some of Trump’s top allies on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have sought to quell the furor inside the GOP in recent weeks related to it.

On Wednesday, Johnson – speaking with CNN from his home state of Louisiana amid his chamber’s recess – dismissed a rogue effort from within his conference to force the House to vote on releasing the government’s Epstein files, describing it as “haphazard.”

Johnson, who is a lawyer by training, warned that the effort from those GOP members, led by Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, wasn’t drafted by lawyers and not properly vetted with Congress’ own counsel. “There’s some problems there,” Johnson told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead,” pointing to one error in particular.

“For example, they say they want to protect child sex abuse victims but they cite the wrong federal code article. So it makes it unworkable.”

The speaker has faced a weekslong headache over Epstein among his GOP members, many of whom have demanded a chance to vote for transparency measures. And when lawmakers return from their recess in four weeks, the House will have its chance to vote on one — under House rules, the Massie resolution must be brought to the floor if it has support from a majority of the body. (Democrats back the measure so it is expected to easily reach that threshold.)

Johnson stressed that he and Trump both want to see “transparency” on the issue though he did not outline what specific steps the House might take for that to happen.

He has thrown his support behind a different GOP resolution — which his leadership team helped craft — that would encourage the release of Epstein files, though it would not be binding. Separately, House Oversight chairman James Comer is overseeing subpoenas for more information, though that would not require the full House to vote.

“I want everything to come out about the Epstein evils that is possible to be released because the people that were involved in those unspeakable evil acts should be punished,” the speaker said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Paula Reid and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.