Democrats to call on Vance to testify to House committee over Epstein files

JD Vance in Maryland in May. Photograph: Matt Rourke/Reuters View image in fullscreen JD Vance in Maryland in May. Photograph: Matt Rourke/Reuters Democrats to call on Vance to testify to House committee over Epstein files Plan comes after major New York Times report alleges files became source of crisis within Trump administration Democrats on the House oversight committee, led by Representative Robert Garcia, plan to call on JD Vance to testify on the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files following a major report Wednesday from the New York Times, which described how the Epstein files became the source of an internal crisis within Trump’s administration. Garcia will call on the committee chair, James Comer, to summon the vice-president to speak, according to a post from Max Cohen, a reporter with Punchbowl News. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether Vance would agree to appear. According to the New York Times report , the Epstein files became the source of an internal crisis within Trump’s administration. Vance warned fellow officials the controversy represented a “huge problem” while senior aides held a series of Situation Room meetings – frequently without Trump present – to address the growing issue. According to the Times, the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, felt that Vance was exaggerating the significance of the matter and believed he had “bought into the conspiracy theories”. That reporting appears to have prompted Garcia’s request. “Why are we having meetings in the Situation Room about the Epstein strategy?” he said to Punchbowl. The story follows months of controversy surrounding the government’s treatment of records connected to Jeffrey Epstein , the financier and convicted sex offender who died in a New York City jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. The dispute intensified after a 2025 justice department memo concluded there was no evidence of a “client list”, drawing criticism from many Trump supporters. The subsequent release of millions of pages of documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act continued to fuel attention on the issue. According to the Times report, those participating in the meetings alongside Vance and Wiles included then attorney general Pam Bondi, now acting attorney general Todd Blanche, FBI director Kash Patel, White House communications director Steve Cheung, former deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Multiple attendees, including Cheung, reportedly viewed the Epstein situation as a “PR disaster”. The report says officials explored various possible responses, including transparency measures that some privately believed would reveal little additional information. They also discussed less conventional approaches, including the possibility of using Ghislaine Maxwell to publicly defend Trump in an interview with Tucker Carlson. Vance argued for releasing all of t