US lawmakers called on Tuesday for more criminal investigations into the associates of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a scathing report that held prosecutors, financial institutions and influential people responsible for allowing his abuses to continue for years.
The Epstein case haunted President Donald Trump, who had a friendship with the late financier for years, despite his denial of any knowledge of the crimes he committed. The accusations against Trump of covering up a large part of the investigations led to the outbreak of the first fundamental disagreement with his support base since his return to the White House.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee urged the Justice Department to question or re-question key witnesses and pursue allegations against two prominent men who had ties to Epstein.
Both Philip Levin, the former mayor of Miami Beach, and Frederic Fekkai, the famous French hairdresser, deny the sexual assault allegations made by Epstein's longtime assistant, Sarah Killeen, which the commission referred to federal prosecutors in June.
The report also called for another longtime aide to Epstein, Leslie Grove, to be subjected to further questioning about what she may have known about his crimes.
Grove asserted that she never suspected Epstein of sexual assault against women and girls, testimony that Republican investigators described as lacking credibility.
The report concluded that Epstein's crimes committed after 2005 could have been prevented if federal investigators and prosecutors had treated the initial allegations against him more seriously.
Instead, Florida prosecutors in 2007 reached a controversial deal that allowed him to escape federal charges in exchange for him pleading guilty to less serious state crimes.
Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but he only served 13 months, as he received broad privileges to get out of prison for the purpose of working, during which period he continued to abuse women, according to the report.
The investigation also accused financial institutions of ignoring suspicious transactions and warning signs of human trafficking, and singled out American Express.
Lawmakers called on the Treasury Department to check whether some banks are adequately reporting suspicious activity linked to illicit trafficking and money laundering.
The report also criticized the Department of Justice for disclosing survivors' private information while publishing the Epstein files.
Republican investigators said they found no evidence implicating Trump in Epstein's crimes, and accused Democrats of politicizing the investigation.
But Robert Garcia, the most prominent Democratic member of the committee, rejected these findings, describing them as the outcome of an incomplete investigation that did not include any public hearings. He also accused the Justice Department of illegally withholding “more than 2.5 million pages of documents.”
Democrats, who seized control of Congress in last week's midterm elections, pledged to continue investigating Epstein's network when they assume their new powers in January.
The New York Times reported yesterday, Tuesday, citing informed sources, that US Treasury Secretary Scott Besent recently moved from his home to a military base following Iranian threats targeting his life.
A senior intelligence official in the administration of President Donald Trump warned late last month that Iran had intensified efforts to target American employees, and that its deadly plots targeting Americans had reached “advanced stages.”
The newspaper reported that it is not yet clear how serious the threats directed at Besant are.
Iran had previously denied planning to attack officials and individuals on American soil.
The newspaper reported, according to Reuters, that American officials indicated that Iran's ability to carry out large-scale attacks in the United States and other regions abroad is limited.
Picent is the prominent face of the economic pressure campaign launched by Washington on Tehran during the US-Israeli war on Iran that began on February 28.
The US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon during the war resulted in the deaths of thousands and the displacement of millions.
The American and Israeli attacks also resulted in the killing of senior Iranian officials, including Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The size of the majority that the Democrats will obtain in the House of Representatives and the Senate is still undecided, a week after Election Day, as it is still too early to decide more than 12 electoral races until Tuesday.
Democrats are heading to occupy 54 seats in the Senate as of January, but they may take one or two additional seats from Republicans as vote counting continues in Alaska and Mississippi.
In the House of Representatives, after winning 255 seats, the Democrats will obtain their largest electoral majority in the House since 2008, with the possibility of winning several additional seats with the announcement of the results of the remaining races.
The following is a review of the latest developments in some electoral races whose results have not yet been decided:
Mississippi's Senate seat remains undecided
By late Tuesday afternoon, Democratic candidate Scott Cullum was about 2,600 votes ahead of Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in the race for the state Senate seat.
There are two important deadlines in Mississippi's vote counting process this week: mail-in absentee ballots must arrive by Tuesday, and counties must submit certified election results, including provisional ballot votes, to state authorities by Friday.
The exact number of ballots that have not yet been counted remains unclear.
Vote counting continues in the Alaska Senate race
Democrat Mary Peltola led by about 2,500 votes over Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, after about 76 percent of the votes were counted in the Alaska Senate race.
If no candidate obtains a majority, the ranked-choice voting system will be applied on November 18, with the results officially certified on November 25.
More than a dozen House races remain undecided
In most undecided House races, the margin between the two leading candidates is less than one percentage point.
Four races remain undecided in North Carolina, the largest number among states. In California, only one race, in the 23rd District, affects the balance of power in the House of Representatives.
In the second district of South Carolina, the recount of votes continues in the race between Republican Joe Wilson and Democrat Zion Khalia, after Wilson led by about 3,000 votes with 99 percent of the votes counted.
In the first district of Minnesota, the race remained undecided, with a difference of about 300 votes between the leading candidates, after 99 percent of the votes were counted.
In Tennessee's Fourth District, the difference was about 300 votes between the Democrat, Victoria Broderick, and the Republican incumbent, Scott Desjarlais.
Two gubernatorial races remain undecided
Democrat Cindy Hoelscher has a lead of less than one percentage point over Republican Ty Masterson in the Kansas governor's race.
In the Alaska governor's race, Democrat Jonathan S. Chris Tomkins, by about 45,000 votes over Bernadette M. Wilson, by 49.6 percent versus 28.9 percent, after counting about 76 percent of the votes, provided that the ordinal selection system is applied if no candidate obtains more than 50 percent of the votes.
