Senate Democrats are still clinging to tainted Jeffrey Epstein cash even while hectoring the Trump administration over releasing files about the notorious pedophile financier.
Epstein shelled out a string of campaign contributions to prominent candidates when he was traveling in powerful social circles that included financial and political elites.
Most were Democrats, and many recipients returned the cash or made equivalent donations to charity after his shocking arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, now headed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), took a different tack – keeping the $59,000 in Epstein contributions it accumulated through a series of donations between 1994 and 2000.
The biggest checks were for $20,000 in 1999 and $25,000 in 2000, Federal Election Commission records reveal. At the time, the group was run by New Jersey Sen. Robert Toricelli (D-N.J.), who would later quit the Senate in 2002 amid corruption allegations.
The Democratic National Committee similarly kept $32,000 in Epstein contributions.
Don Fowler, a former DNC chair, ridiculed the idea of returning money back in 2019, telling CNBC: “Go back and give money that he gave 20 years ago? Are you nuts? That’s my answer to that.”
Six years later, the Epstein saga is still a massive news story – and Democrats are browbeating the Justice Department to release Epstein files.
In September, with President Trump taking heat over the Epstein saga amid internal turmoil, the Senate voted to kill a procedural move by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to release the files.
“There’s been so much lying, obfuscation, cover-ups — the American people need to see everything that’s in the Epstein file,” Schumer said. The DSCC piled on in September, accusing Republican senators who voted to kill the effort of “siding with the rich and powerful.”
House Democrats are also turning up the pressure – as House Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to swear-in newly elected Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) during the government shutdown. The incoming lawmaker says she will sign a petition to force a vote on the Epstein files, giving the effort the needed 218 votes.
Gillibrand’s office and the DSCC didn’t respond to a request for comment.
