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Democratic lawmakers began to seek records about Epstein after the Miami Herald’s late 2018 investigation into the case.
Before then, political coverage of the Epstein case was typically framed around the financier’s ties to former President Bill Clinton. His wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, lost the presidential election to Trump in 2016, and her role as a Trump rival kept the Epstein topic alive, especially in conservative media outlets.
Starting in 2019, but before Epstein’s arrest that year on federal sex trafficking charges, some Democratic lawmakers including Representative Lois Frankel and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, both of South Florida, launched a years-long quest to release Epstein records.
The Democrats called for former US Attorney Alex Acosta, who served as labour secretary during Trump’s first term, to testify about Epstein’s plea deal. They asked the Justice Department to investigate and release records. Democrats later pursued other strategies, including asking a Palm Beach, Florida judge to release records.
“A full accounting for these heinous crimes is lacking,” Wasserman Schultz told PolitiFact in an August 1 written statement. “Those prospects changed when Republicans momentarily joined the call for full disclosure.”
Summer 2019: Focus on how past investigations were handled
US Representative Elijah Cummings invited Acosta to testify before the House oversight committee, which Cummings chaired. A few days later, on July 12, Acosta announced he had resigned as labour secretary, after Democratic leaders and presidential candidates called for him to do so.
On the day Acosta resigned, Khanna said Acosta should testify before the House oversight committee, and later that month Senator Chuck Schumer was among the Democrats who called on the Justice Department to make public the results of its review of Acosta’s handling of the Epstein case.
Al
