Action demanded after new Epstein files point to 'crimes against humanity'

Rep. Ro Khanna on Wednesday demanded action from both the Trump administration and US Congress after the United Nations Human Rights Council said it found evidence of a potential “global criminal enterprise” in the US government’s files related to the investigation of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a video posted on social media, Khanna (D-Calif.) issued a series of demands in the wake of the UN council’s Tuesday declaration that the actions of Epstein and his associates “may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity.”

First, Khanna said that the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) must assemble a special prosecution committee to build criminal cases against Epstein associates who are alleged to have participated in the trafficking of underage girls.

He then demanded that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) set up a congressional select committee to have hearings where “every person who went” to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean where he trafficked girls is forced to testify.

Finally, Khanna said that the DOJ must release the remaining Epstein files that are still under wraps, without any redactions for names of the “predators” within.

Experts on the UN Human Rights Council said that the evidence contained in the Epstein files is “suggestive of the existence of a global criminal enterprise” that has “shocked the conscience of humanity and raised terrifying implications of the level of impunity for such crimes.”

The experts added that “so grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls, that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity.”

Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) last year authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandated that the DOJ publish all materials related to the FBI’s investigation into Epstein and his associates, with redactions made only to protect the identities of the victims.

Despite this law, the DOJ proceeded to release files that revealed victims’ identities, while also blacking out names of alleged abusers.