“The DOJ Cannot Be Trusted”: Inside the Epstein Files—and the Battle for Accountability

As the Epstein documents drip into public view, Rep. Robert Garcia argues the real story is not what’s been released—but what remains hidden, and what it reveals about power, secrecy, and democratic trust.

In American politics, few things are as corrosive as the suspicion that truth is being rationed. Fewer still cut as deeply as the belief that justice itself is selective. For Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, the slow, partial release of records tied to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has become a defining test of institutional credibility.

“The Department of Justice cannot be trusted,” Garcia told 'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Magazine in a wide-ranging interview that read less like a partisan skirmish than a moral indictment. At stake, he argued, is not only whether survivors receive long-delayed clarity, but whether Americans can still believe that transparency applies to the powerful as rigorously as it does to everyone else.

At the center of the dispute is volume—and absence. More than three million pages have been released from the Epstein investigation, yet Garcia and other Democrats say that number masks a deeper problem: compliance. A congressional subpoena, issued months before Congress passed a transparency law, remains only partially fulfilled. The United States Department of Justice, Garcia contends, is invoking statutory carve-outs to avoid producing materials that the subpoena plainly demands.

“The DOJ says this is over,” Garcia said. “We believe it’s just beginning.”