House Oversight subcommittee — which Higgins chairs — votes to subpoena DOJ for Epstein files

Published 2:54 am Thursday, July 24, 2025

U.S. Congressman Clay Higgins, R-La. (Special to the American Press)

A House subcommittee on Wednesday voted to subpoena the Department of Justice for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein after Democrats successfully goaded GOP lawmakers to defy President Donald Trump and Republican leadership to support the action.

The vote showed the intensifying push for disclosures in the Epstein investigation even as House Speaker Mike Johnson — caught between demands from Trump and clamoring from his own members for the House to act — was sending lawmakers home a day early for its August recess. The House Committee on Oversight also issued a subpoena Wednesday for Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex offender and girlfriend of the late Epstein, to testify before committee officials in August.

Meanwhile, Democrats on a subcommittee of the powerful House Oversight Committee made a motion for the subpoena Wednesday afternoon. Three Republicans on the panel voted with Democrats for the subpoena, sending it through on an 8-2 vote tally.

The Republican subcommittee chairman, Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, said that work was beginning to draft the subpoena but did not give a timeline for when it would be issued.

“I’ve never handled a subpoena like this. This is some fascinating stuff,” said Higgins, who voted against the motion.

Democrats cheered the action as proof that their push for disclosures in the Epstein investigation was growing stronger. The committee agreed to redact information on victims, yet Democrats successfully blocked a push by Republicans to only subpoena information that was deemed to be “credible” — language that Trump has also used when discussing what he would support releasing.

Email newsletter signup

“Democrats are focused on transparency and are pushing back against the corruption against Donald Trump. What is Donald Trump hiding that he won’t release the Epstein files?” said Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the oversight committee.

Earlier Wednesday, Johnson had said there was no need to vote on a separate piece of bipartisan legislation calling for the release of the Epstein files this week because the Trump administration is “already doing everything within their power to release them.”

Yet Democrats have delighted in pressing Republicans to support the release of the files. Their efforts halted the GOP’s legislative agenda for the week and turned attention to an issue that Trump has unsuccessfully implored his supporters to forget about.

“They’re fleeing our work, our job and sending us back home because they don’t want to vote to release these files. This is something that they ran on. This is something that they talked about: the importance of transparency, holding pedophiles accountable,” said Rep. Summer Lee, the Pennsylvania Democrat who pushed for the subpoena.