House Judiciary Committee Democrats released an explosive new report Monday accusing Donald Trump of having a far more troubling connection to Jeffrey Epstein than the president has acknowledged — and calling for an independent special counsel to investigate allegations involving sexual abuse, trafficking and the Justice Department’s handling of evidence.
The 53-page report, released by Representative Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top Democrat, draws on accounts involving 11 women, FBI records, interviews conducted by congressional staff and previously released Epstein-related documents.
Five women, according to the report, have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault in Epstein’s company or presence. Other accounts describe alleged encounters in which Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell appeared to direct women toward Trump.
These are serious allegations, not findings of criminal guilt. Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing connected to Epstein, and the White House rejected the new report.
But one account in particular stands out.
Beatrice Keul, a former beauty pageant contestant, told Democratic committee staff that Trump raped her in a suite at New York’s Plaza Hotel during a November 1993 pageant.
According to the report, Keul said Trump had promised assistance with a visa and admission to New York University. She also described Epstein approaching her, identifying himself as Trump’s close friend and offering to arrange travel and accommodations for an event at Mar-a-Lago.
Keul alleged that Trump assaulted her later that day, pressured her to remain silent and subsequently contacted her in Switzerland.
Keul had previously spoken publicly about unwanted sexual advances by Trump. The congressional report presents a more serious allegation from her subsequent interviews, along with what its authors describe as corroborating information about the pageant.
Her allegation has not been established in court.
The report also revisits allegations from other women, including former model Stacey Williams, who has said Trump groped her while Epstein was present, and Maria Farmer, who described a disturbing encounter involving Trump at Epstein’s New York office.
The Democratic staff report argues that these accounts deserve to be examined together rather than dismissed as unrelated incidents.
Its authors describe the modeling agencies, beauty pageants and private gatherings that brought Trump and Epstein into overlapping social circles during the 1990s.
They also raise questions about Paolo Zampolli, a modeling agent and longtime Trump associate who later served in the administration.
The report concludes that Trump and Zampolli may have participated in Epstein’s trafficking and abuse network.
That conclusion is an allegation by the report’s authors, not a determination by prosecutors or a court.
The report goes further, accusing Trump’s Justice Department of withholding evidence and failing to pursue potentially relevant leads.
One particularly serious accusation concerns Attorney General Todd Blanche’s interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted associate.
Democratic investigators allege that Blanche instructed Maxwell not to discuss a particular survivor whose account implicated Trump.
The report also questions whether relevant FBI records have been withheld from Congress and the public, and whether investigations into potential Epstein accomplices were prematurely closed.
Raskin argued that the Justice Department cannot be trusted to independently investigate allegations involving the president who appointed its leadership.
“Trump’s Justice Department appears to be covering up these crimes to protect the President,” Raskin said.
He called for an independent special counsel, full access to the relevant Epstein records and cooperation with state and foreign prosecutors.
“The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard,” Raskin said, arguing that Congress must obtain the complete files and that an independent investigation is necessary to determine whether additional crimes occurred.
The White House forcefully rejected the accusations.
“None of these allegations are true,” spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement reported by Spectrum News.
She characterized the report as a politically motivated attempt to damage Trump and reiterated the administration’s position that he had expelled Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has long maintained that he did not participate in Epstein’s crimes and was unaware of his abuse of underage girls.
The new report challenges parts of Trump’s public account of his relationship with Epstein, citing historical statements, flight records and witness accounts.
But the existence of a past friendship, photographs or travel records does not, by itself, establish involvement in criminal activity.
Nor does the release of a congressional staff report resolve the credibility of every allegation it contains.
What the report does establish is that Democratic congressional investigators are formally pressing for an independent examination of evidence they say has not received adequate scrutiny.
That demand arrives amid continuing questions about the release of Epstein-related files, the Justice Department’s handling of records and whether authorities have fully investigated the people who may have helped Epstein exploit vulnerable women and girls.
For Raskin and his Democratic colleagues, the issue is no longer simply whether Trump knew Epstein.
It is whether the available evidence warrants a new investigation into allegations that remain unresolved — and whether that investigation can be conducted independently of Trump’s administration.
The women whose accounts appear in the report deserve to have their allegations examined fairly and thoroughly.
And the American public deserves a process that distinguishes documented facts from accusations, tests the evidence and follows it wherever it leads.
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