Idaho’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Mike Crapo, is uniquely positioned to help decide what documents are unearthed and released concerning Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious wealthy financier federally indicted on charges of sex trafficking dozens of girls.

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Crapo maintains congressional oversight of the Treasury Department, which holds thousands of records that reveal more than $1 billion in transactions for one of Epstein’s bank accounts, according to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Crapo’s Democratic peer on the same committee.

Hundreds of millions more were transferred in and out of other accounts connected to Epstein, Wyden said.

Epstein, 66, died by suicide while jailed in New York City in August 2019 awaiting trial on his sex trafficking charges, the Justice Department and FBI confirmed earlier this year. But Epstein remains the source of controversy and heated political debate over public disclosure of documents about his alleged crimes against girls as young as 14 years old, as well as his personal ties to influential elites, including President Donald Trump.

Wyden, serving as Senate Finance Committee chairman when Democratic President Joe Biden was in office, spearheaded a financial investigation into Epstein for more than three years. Now with Trump’s Republican administration in power, Crapo assumed the committee’s chairmanship and sets its agenda.

Last year, Trump committed during his presidential campaign to release more of the documents related to his former friend Epstein, if he was elected. However, the Trump administration has since backtracked. Trump last month from the Oval Office called bipartisan efforts to release the so-called Epstein files a “Democrat hoax that never ends” and “totally irrelevant.”

A recent national survey from NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll found that 77% of adults who participated — including 67% of those who identified as Republicans — want all of the Epstein files released. Of the survey group, 61% disapproved of how the Trump administration has handled the issue. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.1% points.

“The president had run with a promise to expose the Epstein files,” Wyden said on the Senate floor. “Now he and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, say, ‘Nope, nothing to investigate. When it comes to Epstein and sex trafficking, all these claims are just ludicrous.’ I want the American people to know that that’s wrong.”

Wyden’s bipartisan request denied

As part of Wyden’s investigation, his Finance Committee staffers were joined in February 2024 by Crapo’s counterparts at the Treasury Department and reviewed Epstein’s bank records, including confidential suspicious activity reports, or SRAs, Wyden aide Ryan Carey told the Idaho Statesman. But to dig any deeper, the committee needed to subpoena the source documents directly from the bank.

Crapo, the committee’s top Republican — then from the minority party — declined the chairman’s official request in September 2024, Carey said. A duplicate Wyden request was made to committee colleague Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, who also has been vocal about releasing “complete, unredacted” Epstein files, but she deferred to her senior Republican on the committee and said no, Carey said.

“Following that review, Sen. Wyden hoped to subpoena certain Epstein-related records held by Bank of America to investigate them in greater detail, but Finance Committee subpoenas are traditionally authorized by agreement of the majority and minority parties,” he said in an emailed statement. “Sen. Wyden has renewed his request this year for Chairman Crapo to support his Epstein investigation.”

In a statement to the Statesman, Crapo declined to acknowledge Wyden’s official request of him to support issuing subpoenas to the bank, which came by way of a formal letter, Carey said. Crapo argued that the Finance Committee is not the right venue for further investigation of Epstein, namely while a Republican-led committee in the House is actively handling such a probe.

“Jeffrey Epstein was a notorious sex trafficker who committed appalling crimes,” Crapo said. “The House Oversight Committee is now leading an ‘investigation of the investigators’ and is the appropriate committee to uncover why Epstein was not properly investigated and prosecuted earlier.”

The House Oversight Committee launched the beginnings of its Epstein investigation in February 2025, according to its Republican chairman. Crapo ignored a question from the Statesman about why he did not agree to Wyden’s request to expand his own investigation five months earlier, when it would have remained unclear whether separate congressional investigations of Epstein might commence.

The House Oversight Committee continues to publish Epstein-related documents in batches, Crapo said. A tranche of Epstein records that the committee released last month, which included more than 33,000 pages, largely contained information already publicly known, The Associated Press reported.

Blackburn’s office did not return a request for comment from the Statesman.

Epstein Files Transparency Act

Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, is among the GOP members of Congress who have been outspoken about wanting to see the federal government provide its trove of Epstein files to the public.

“The Epstein files must be released, and those who abused vulnerable young people must be held accountable,” Fulcher said in a statement last month. “We have an obligation to the victims, and a responsibility to expose the truth and create accountability.”

Fulcher did not return a request for comment from the Statesman, but he told Idaho Public Television that he supports the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein investigation with an “objective of transparency.”

A separate push in the House co-sponsored by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, named the Epstein Files Transparency Act, proposes a faster release of the records, and includes a Senate companion. Both bills were introduced in July, but so far neither has received a vote — and won’t until at least after the ongoing federal government shutdown concludes.

“In the case that the Oversight Committee’s approach does not achieve this, I would support Rep. Massie’s petition,” Fulcher said. “Let me be clear — every single file should be released.”

Last month, Crapo and fellow Idaho Sen. Jim Risch each voted with the majority in the GOP-controlled Senate to stop a Democrat-led amendment to the national defense spending bill that would have required the Justice Department to release all of its records on Epstein within 15 days. Two Republicans joined Democrats in the losing vote, 51-49.

Risch is seeking reelection in 2026 for a fourth term in the Senate and holds Trump’s endorsement. Neither Risch’s Senate office nor his campaign returned requests for comment from the Statesman.

Melanie Baucom Lawhorn, Crapo’s spokesperson, called efforts with the failed Epstein amendment an “attempt by the minority to control the Senate floor” and “delay gimmicks and tactics against our nation’s defense.”

“Sen. Crapo has said the public has a right to transparency regarding the truth about Jeffrey Epstein’s abhorrent crimes,” she said by email. “He trusts the work of the House Oversight Committee to produce a thorough report of its findings and present it to the American people.”

Clash over bank suspicious activity reports

Crapo told the Statesman he appreciates that individual members of Congress also seek release of the Epstein files, but House Oversight Committee subpoenas have netted tens of thousands of pages of records from the Justice Department and Epstein’s estate. Those documents have since been publicly released, he said.

The Idaho Republican dismissed the idea that the committee he leads even has the ability to obtain the bank records at the source of Wyden’s inquiry. Republicans control the presidency, the House and the Senate, but Crapo blamed Democrats for the federal shutdown and said that it’s likely contributed to delays in producing some Epstein records for the public.

“The Finance Committee does not have jurisdiction over bank suspicious activity reports,” Crapo told the Statesman. “Suspicious activity reports from multiple banks were subpoenaed from the Department of Treasury for review by House investigators.”

It is unclear whether the House investigation has subpoenaed the specific records Wyden wants from Bank of America. In August, the House committee asked the Treasury Department only for “certain SARs” in its possession, and also issued a subpoena for a variety of documents, including “cash ledgers” from Epstein’s estate.

Wyden’s aide rejected outright the concept that the Finance Committee lacks proper jurisdiction.

“Going back many years and across many investigations, Finance Committee staff from both parties have routinely reviewed suspicious activity reports in the course of their work,” Carey told the Statesman. “The committee has clear legal authority to access these reports, and they are an essential tool in its efforts to strengthen our laws against tax evasion, money laundering and other financial crimes.”

In fact, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, as Finance Committee chairman during Trump’s first term, leaned on bank suspicious activity reports as he spurred a 2020 investigation of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his suspected financial ties to a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma Holdings.

“SARs often contain evidence of potential criminal activities,” Hannah Akey, a Grassley committee spokesperson, told the Statesman by email. “The SARs were very useful to Grassley’s investigation.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee co-authored the report on Hunter Biden and Burisma. That committee has a permanent subcommittee on investigations and, like the House Oversight Committee, often takes the lead on broad investigations, Mandi Critchfield, Crapo’s Finance Committee spokesperson, told the Statesman in an email.

“He, like many, is awaiting the findings of the very well-equipped Oversight Committee,” she said.

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©2025 The Idaho Statesman. Visit idahostatesman.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.