The Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Tuesday, November 10, released a majority staff report accusing the federal government of mishandling the criminal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell for decades, and urging the Department of Justice to interview or re-interview key witnesses, investigate allegations against Epstein associates, and give survivors unredacted access to their own records.

Source: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, press release, Nov. 10, 2026

The report, titled “A Review of the Federal Government’s Mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell Criminal Investigations,” runs to 137 pages and closes a 15-month committee investigation built on 19 transcribed interviews and depositions, documents obtained from the Department of Justice and the Epstein estate, and an extensive review of financial records, according to the committee.

Source: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, press release, Nov. 10, 2026

The central finding: crimes after 2005 could have been prevented

The committee finds that the crimes Epstein committed after 2005 could have been prevented — and justice served — if not for failures by federal investigators and prosecutors in South Florida and Washington, D.C. Rather than pursue a federal indictment and fully investigate allegations in other states, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida entered into a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in 2007, allowing him to evade federal prosecution in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser state charges, the report says.

Source: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, press release, Nov. 10, 2026

Under that deal, Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in jail, received extensive work-release privileges during which, the committee says, he continued to abuse women, and was released early. Federal prosecutors also failed to inform survivors of the agreement, undermining their ability to pursue civil claims or publicly expose Epstein’s crimes, according to the report. The committee says some failures reflected poor judgment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, while others appeared to stem from Epstein’s pervasive influence and far-reaching connections, potentially including two attorneys employed by the office.

Source: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, press release, Nov. 10, 2026

Death in custody and the fight over the files

After Epstein was arrested again in 2019, he died in custody at a Bureau of Prisons facility in New York. The report says understaffing and systemic dysfunction contributed to correctional officers on both shifts missing at least 12 rounds and three inmate counts on the night of his death, leaving nearly eight hours without adequate supervision of Epstein and other inmates.

Source: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, press release, Nov. 10, 2026

The fight over documents continues. Following enactment of the Epstein Files Transparency Act in 2025, the report says, the Justice Department failed to adequately communicate about document releases and failed to sufficiently protect survivors, with deficient redactions exposing survivors’ sensitive personal information. Secondary reporting on the report adds that, even after millions of pages were disclosed, the committee accuses the department of exposing victim names in places where they should have been shielded while obscuring the identities of some of Epstein’s allies.

Source: ENM News, GOP Epstein Probe Blasts DOJ, Demands Fresh Interviews, Nov. 10, 2026

What the committee wants the Justice Department to do now

The report recommends that investigators further question Epstein’s assistant Lesley Groff about her potential knowledge of, and role in, facilitating Epstein’s criminal activity. It also says the department must further investigate sexual assault allegations that Sarah Kellen, a longtime Epstein assistant and herself a survivor, made against two men — Philip Levine, the former mayor of Miami Beach from 2013 to 2017, and Frédéric Fekkai, a French celebrity hairstylist — during her transcribed interview with the committee. Those are allegations recorded by the committee, not findings of guilt, and neither man has been charged in connection with them in the report’s account.

Source: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, press release, Nov. 10, 2026

On money, the report says financial institutions possessed substantial information about Epstein’s criminal history and repeatedly identified transactions presenting heightened compliance risks, yet failed to adequately address those risks — in some cases reporting them only years later, after Epstein’s 2019 arrest. It says American Express agents allowed Epstein to use fraudulent decoy flights and refundable or dummy itineraries to transport foreign women across borders directly to his residences, and it asks the Treasury Department and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to review whether institutions are meeting their reporting obligations on money laundering and human trafficking.

Source: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, press release, Nov. 10, 2026

Justice Department and Democrats push back

The Justice Department pushed back quickly. A department spokesperson said the committee’s recommendations had already been addressed and pointed to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s repeated statement that the Epstein case remains open and that there is no statute of limitations on human trafficking. The department said it will continue to follow additional investigative leads and urged victims with evidence to contact the FBI, according to reporting on the release.

Source: ENM News, GOP Epstein Probe Blasts DOJ, Demands Fresh Interviews, Nov. 10, 2026

Committee Democrats sharply rejected the Republican report. Ranking Democrat Robert Garcia of California said Republicans held no public hearings on Epstein and accused the Justice Department of withholding more than 2.5 million pages of documents; he said Democrats will continue their investigation once they take the majority in January and intend to hold public hearings centred on survivors. The Republican report, for its part, says the evidence gathered does not suggest President Donald Trump is implicated in Epstein’s crimes, and that witnesses examined told the committee Trump was not, to their knowledge, involved; Democrats last month issued their own report calling for an independent special counsel, which the White House has dismissed as politically driven, and Trump has denied knowing about or participating in Epstein’s crimes.

Source: ENM News, GOP Epstein Probe Blasts DOJ, Demands Fresh Interviews, Nov. 10, 2026

Maxwell remains the only other person charged in the case. She was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking and conspiracy and is serving a 20-year sentence, according to reporting on the report. Chairman Comer, in the committee’s statement, said: “The federal government has failed the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s horrific crimes for decades,” and concluded: “The failures of the past must not be repeated.”

Source: U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, press release, Nov. 10, 2026

What happens next sits in three places at once: the Justice Department, which must decide whether to act on the interview and investigation recommendations; Congress, where the Survivor’s Voice Protection Act now carries the report’s backing; and the committee itself, where Democrats say their own hearings and investigation will continue when the majority changes in January. For survivors, the immediate test named in the report is narrower and concrete: whether they gain unredacted access to their own records, and whether the witnesses the committee names are questioned again.