A new congressional report alleges that Donald Trump was “an active participant” in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young women in the 1990s and accuses his Justice Department of covering it up. The report, released Monday by House Judiciary Committee Democrats, details evidence involving eleven women, five of whom directly accuse Trump of rape or sexual assault in Epstein’s close company or presence.
In a new account included in the report, former pageant contestant Beatrice Keul told committee staff that Trump raped her in 1993 after she met Epstein. The report is a minority staff document written by Democratic staff alone, not a bipartisan committee finding, and its allegations are not criminal charges. The White House denies them, saying none of the allegations are true.
The report also turns on the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files. It argues that Attorney General Todd Blanche’s 2025 meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell, billed as an interview about who else was involved in Epstein’s crimes, “potentially constituted witness tampering.” It calls for an independent special counsel to investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and the department’s handling of the files. In June, a federal judge found that Blanche had effectively conceded the Justice Department was violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act by withholding documents.
Trump promised he would release the Epstein files if reelected, then called them a “Democrat hoax” once in office. Republicans control the committees that could demand answers, yet it fell to Democratic staff alone to write the report.
The report lands against a longer record. About two dozen women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, and a jury found him liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll. The pattern the report’s authors describe extends beyond the White House. Survivors like Cornell’s Jane Doe, who says she was drugged and gang-raped, once could turn to the federal government for help, but Trump gutted the Education Department office that held schools accountable for sexual assault allegations. In Ohio, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy is spending millions on an ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother, calling her a liar, though Acton was removed from her home at 12 after her stepfather was indicted on a charge of raping her.
From the Epstein files to college campuses to the campaign trail, the throughline is the same: when powerful men are accused, survivors get smeared, stonewalled, or ignored. Next Tuesday, voters can elect leaders who will put survivors first.
