A Network Unravelling
Disclosures, Defiance, and the Ongoing Fight for Epstein Transparency
“Seven years ago today, Jeffrey Edward Epstein was charged by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York with operating a vast sex trafficking network to sexually exploit and abuse underage girls and young women between 2002 and 2005 at his mansions in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida” opened Julie K. Brown, the intrepid reporter from the Miami Herald who has covered the Epstein saga for the previous decade, in a 8 July 2026 Substack post. That same day, the National Post wrote “Epstein inquiry has found few answers Lawmakers and survivors are still looking for justice from Congressional probe” covering the one-year anniversary of the United States House of Representatives investigation into convicted late sex offender Epstein.
Since the House investigation began, a lot has changed. In November 2025, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act which ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release all of its files into the investigation of Epstein. However, as a CBS investigation notes, all of the files have not been released, and many of the released files are redacting names and information that go beyond survivors. In fact, the DOJ was ordered in July 2026 by a judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to release all of the remaining files, but refused.
The files that have been released show Epstein as a well-connected figure to people in finance, governments, intelligence, big tech, academia, and news media. As the one-year anniversary of the initial release of Department of Justice files approaches, numerous recent developments in investigative reporting, congressional inquiries, and government disclosures have shed further light and raised new questions regarding Jeffrey Epstein. (As a reminder, all previous coverage of Epstein and the Epstein files is available in chronological order here.)
Investigative Breaks
In addition to CBS’s reporting on the missing files, there has been other solid coverage on the Epstein saga. For example, in Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan document how during the summer of 2025, the Trump administration met in the Situation Room without the President to decide how to address the release of the files. One of their key concerns was how allegations of sexual abuse of minors involving Trump in the documents would play out publicly, as Trump wanted those allegations and others kept out of the public discourse.
The student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian published a story titled “Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s attempts to recruit women from Penn,” documenting how Epstein pressured a woman who had just enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania to recruit women for him. This is especially concerning given that Epstein and his associates have been tied to numerous academic institutions, and the documents show him using his influence to get women accepted into colleges and universities.
The reporting about Epstein’s death continues to raise more questions than answers. Previously, both CBS and MSNOW did some strong reporting regarding inconsistencies in Epstein’s alleged suicide. However, in June 2026, The New York Timespublished reporting that included never-before-seen evidence and concluded that it was indeed a suicide. Despite citing a mishandled scene, inconsistent autopsy evidence, and reliance on incomplete records, there has been little pushback on The New York Times report. Nonetheless, adding to the intrigue, it was revealed that right before his 2019 arrest, Epstein moved millions of dollars through U.S. Virgin Islands banks and offered to provide dirt on Trump, presumably to stay out of jail. How these actions align with his death remain a mystery.
Federal, State & Foreign Probes
Numerous individuals have been called to testify before the House of Representatives committee investigating Epstein. Much of the testimony seemed to be an attempt to dodge complicity. For example, Goldman Sachs’s former top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, who allegedly helped Epstein recruit National Security Agency (NSA) codebreakers, claimed to have known nothing about Epstein’s crimes when they met. She called Epstein a “Masterful Liar.” Similarly, Epstein’s alleged co-conspirator, Lesley Groff, also testified and argued that she never met any of the women Epstein abused and did not know their ages, something survivors claim is a lie.
Others seemingly saw their testimony as an opportunity to protect their associates. For example, longtime Bill Clinton aide Doug Band walked back a claim he previously made that Clinton visited Epstein’s island.
When Bill Gates of Microsoft fame testified, he failed to quell the scrutiny surrounding his relationship with Epstein. He called his friendship with Epstein a “grave error in judgment,” but said it was because he wanted to raise money for philanthropic ventures. Gates admitted he knew about Epstein’s crimes when he engaged in communication with him, and he also confirmed what the files revealed: that Epstein contemplated blackmailing Gates by exposing his extramarital affairs. Apparently, Gates’s testimony failed to convince Warren Buffett, as the billionaire decided to skip his annual donations to the Gates Foundation.
Similar to Gates, billionaire Leon Black testified in front of the House probe. Black stepped down as CEO of Apollo Global Management in 2021 due to intense scrutiny over his professional and financial relationship with Epstein, which included paying Epstein approximately $158 million for tax and estate planning services. Black denied that the two were close, even though in a birthday message to Epstein he wrote that they were “best friends.” Black, who is accused of sexually assaulting multiple womenand is currently in a legal battle with the firm that represents some of his accusers, walked out of the hearing after Congress demanded he answer questions and hand over any non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) he had with the women.
Pam Bondi was fired from her position as Attorney General (AG) in Spring of 2026, just before she had to testify about the DOJ’s handling of Epstein. It is presumed that she was removed close to her testimony to avoid testifying in an open setting. Regardless, during her testimony, she refused to discuss Trump’s involvement in the release of the Epstein files by her DOJ.
Bondi’s replacement, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, had a difficult time during his confirmation hearings to become Attorney General in July 2026 due to the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files. Blanche was responsible for ignoring the court order in July 2026 to release the files. A month earlier, a judge ruled that by failing to release the files or present a legal defense for why they could not be released, Blanche was effectively admitting that the DOJ was defying the law. This followed the DOJ’s “embarrassing” attempt to claim that they could not release the files because they needed to be translated from another language, a claim rejected by the courts. Influential U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) stated he would refuse to confirm Blanche’s appointment unless he met with Epstein survivors, a key demand after then AG Bondi refused to even look at them. Blanche agreed, but survivors claimed they were disrespected by the acting AG when they met.
Despite the administration’s lack of transparency in releasing the files, Congress is still moving forward. In July 2026, U.S. Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, which would give survivors and state attorneys general the power to sue the DOJ to force the release of the files. This places additional pressure on the administration. At the same time, pressure is mounting on powerful individuals as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has sent a letter seeking information from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon about whether he took advice from Epstein.
In July 2026, House Democrats launched an investigation into whether Jeffrey Epstein acted as a foreign agent. This has long been rumored and is supported, at least tangentially, by claims in some of the files. In those documents, a Confidential Human Source (CHS) reported that Epstein was trained by the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, under former Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and that lawyer Alan Dershowitz acted as the intermediary between Mossad and Epstein. Dershowitz recently refused to testify regarding the Epstein files. The foreign intelligence connection is particularly intriguing, as a CHS also claimed Trump is “compromised by Israel.” As part of Congress’s effort, Representative Jamie Raskindemanded that the federal government release all files regarding Epstein’s contact with foreign officials in a letter that alleged the late sex offender was a conduit between Saudi Arabia and members of the Trump administration, consulted with Russian officials on engaging with the president, and advised Barak.
One of the most promising locations for Epstein investigations in the U.S. is New Mexico. That is where Epstein’s Zorro Ranch is located, which is rumored to have been a place where people were killed, sexual assaults occurred, and Epstein’s work on gene editing may have been performed. Among these efforts is the Truth Commission, a bipartisan legislative committee established by the New Mexico House of Representatives that is tasked with investigating the systemic failures that allowed Epstein’s alleged abuse at Zorro Ranch to go unaddressed. Additionally, there is an investigation by the Attorney General of New Mexico. New Mexico has issued a high volume of subpoenas to obtain information from the federal government, but the state claims federal officials are stonewalling their efforts. At the same time, one of the reporters working on the New Mexico investigation has fled the U.S., alleging that she was the target of “direct energy weapons.”
Public Pressure & Reckonings
Some are not waiting for the reporting and investigations to take place and instead are demanding transparency. For example, in Great Britain there were protests at Buckingham Palace arguing that the royal family needs to explain what they knew and when regarding former Prince Andrew’s relationship and alleged crimes with Epstein. Similarly, in the U.S., an accuser has recently come forward testifying that while Epstein enjoyed a so-called “sweetheart deal,” a slap on the wrist for his original conviction which included being allowed to leave jail, he began sexually abusing her. A model and former friend of Melania Trump has now claimed that Epstein introduced Melania to Trump, fueling long-held rumors that Melania was trafficked to Trump.
Recent allegations also appear to have shed more light on Epstein’s associates. A beauty queen alleged that Trump’s beauty pageants, where he famously said he was allowed to “grab em [women] by the pussies,” were used to recruit women for Epstein. If so, this fits with other allegations that beauty pageants and modeling agencies owned by Epstein associates Jean-Luc Brunel and Les Wexner were used to attract women for trafficking by Epstein. Speaking of Wexner, 80 alums of The Wexner Heritage Program, which aimed to empower and expand the vision of Jewish leaders, have signed a petition demanding that the foundation take “meaningful action to support survivors of sexual violence and trafficking.” The Jerusalem Post posits that this may be “the largest organized accountability effort to emerge so far in the Jewish community’s reckoning with Wexner’s ties to Epstein.”
Electoral Fallout
Whether it be a talking point, a topic to avoid, or a source of funding, Epstein and his associates continue to play a major role in electoral politics. It is no secret that Vice President J.D. Vance is aiming for a presidential run in 2028. He has made the Epstein saga part of that effort, becoming the first U.S. official to claim Epstein was linked to the Israeli “deep state“ in an interview with Joe Rogan, where he also admitted that the Trump White House botched the Epstein files rollout. It is also believed that he is the one who leaked the Situation Room meeting about Epstein to Haberman and Swan to make himself look good by reporting that he wanted to release all of the files.
Meanwhile, other candidates are not so lucky, such as U.S. Senate candidate John E. Sununu, who is dodging questions about why his claim that he was not at an event with Epstein is contradicted by his campaign and the Epstein files. Meanwhile, Truthout found that the Epstein class has given $1.6 billion to candidates, 80% of which went to Republicans and conservatives, since the Citizens United ruling expanded the ability to donate money.
Conclusion: Censored Truths
“I actually heard Trump may come tonight but he couldn’t make it,…He got caught in sex traffic.” Exclaimed comedian Whitney Cummings at the July 2026 Kennedy Center presentation of the Mark Twain award to Bill Maher. The joke drew headlines but was cut from the final broadcast. It is a microcosm of the entire Epstein saga: a subject of public intrigue, political leverage, and open speculation that remains heavily censored, deliberately obscured, and endlessly shielded from full accountability.
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