A Republican US lawmaker pressed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Tuesday to open its files on the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, saying the American public deserves to know whether it had ties to him.
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina called on the CIA to release "any and all records, documents, photos, videos, passports and other materials" related to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
"Congress needs to know what, if any, relationship the CIA had with Jeffrey Epstein," Mace said on the US social media company X's platform.
In a letter to CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Mace cited previously released Justice Department files showing that Epstein's lawyers filed a Freedom of Information request in 2011 seeking records of his CIA affiliation. The agency's response neither confirmed nor denied the existence of classified records.
The letter also pointed to Epstein's ties to figures connected to the CIA's Iran-Contra scandal, his contact with former CIA Director William Burns and references in his emails to CIA-related matters.
"The American people -- and the survivors of Epstein's heinous crimes -- deserve complete transparency on whether the CIA had any affiliation with prolific sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein or had any knowledge of his nefarious activities," Mace wrote.
The Justice Department recently released more than 3 million pages of documents, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last November.
The materials include grand jury transcripts and investigative records, though many pages remain heavily redacted. Epstein survivors and victims' relatives say the release falls short of what the law requires and omits much vital information.
Epstein was found dead by suicide in a New York City jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls.
