Which members of the House of Representatives were reported to have ties to Jeffrey Epstein circa 2016?
Executive summary
Documents released by the House Oversight Committee and reporting around late 2025 show multiple members of the U.S. House had some form of contact with Jeffrey Epstein or were involved in congressional actions tied to the Epstein records; the most directly named member with a reported 2016 connection is Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who received campaign contributions from Epstein in 2016 and is recorded texting with him during a 2019 hearing [1] [2]. Broad batches of emails and records released by Oversight named or implicated numerous political figures and show House members on both sides pressing for or against release of Epstein files [3] [4] [5].
1. Who in the House was directly reported to have ties to Epstein circa 2016 — the concrete case
Reporting and public records identify U.S. Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett as having a documented 2016 tie: OpenSecrets and other outlets say Epstein donated to Plaskett’s campaign in 2016, and later document releases include text-message exchanges showing Epstein messaging Plaskett during a 2019 Oversight hearing [1] [2]. Those are the clearest contemporaneous, itemized examples found in the available reporting.
2. Campaign solicitations and email threads: Hakeem Jeffries’s campaign and the Oversight framing
House Oversight Republican leadership released materials and floor statements asserting that an email in the released trove showed then–House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s campaign solicited funds from Epstein about five years after his 2008 conviction; Jeffries denied Comer’s characterization and called the claim false [6]. The Oversight committee’s public materials and Republican floor remarks referenced communications between Epstein and “two sitting Democrat Members of Congress,” while public reporting highlights the contested nature of the GOP claim [6] [3].
3. Large-scale document releases widened the net but didn’t produce a neat membership list
The Oversight Committee released tens of thousands of pages — multiple batches totaling more than 33,000 pages from DOJ and another 20,000 from Epstein’s estate — that contain emails and correspondence with dozens of public figures, including politicians, academics and business leaders [3] [4] [7]. News outlets (Politico, NPR, Washington Post, PBS) emphasize the breadth of Epstein’s network and name many high-profile individuals, but they do not present a single, authoritative list limited to sitting House members circa 2016; instead they show a mix of communications spanning years [7] [5] [8] [9].
4. Congressional activity around the files blurred politics and oversight
Rather than producing a tidy roster of implicated House members from 2016, much of the reporting documents partisan fights over release of the files. Democrats pushed for transparency and subpoenas; Republicans highlighted certain communications to score political points. For example, Jamie Raskin and 15 other House members demanded DOJ records, while Comer’s Republican Oversight releases spotlighted alleged Democratic contacts [10] [6]. Coverage from NPR and PBS shows both parties have been named in different contexts, but the primary public artifacts are emails and campaign donation records rather than criminal charges against sitting members [5] [9].
5. What the sources do and do not establish
Available sources explicitly cite Stacey Plaskett’s 2016 donation link and later text exchanges as concrete ties [1] [2]. They document that Oversight releases contained email threads involving many prominent people and that Republicans on the committee claimed additional Democratic contacts [3] [6] [7]. Available sources do not mention a comprehensive list of all House members “tied” to Epstein in 2016; nor do they show sitting members being criminally implicated by the 2016 materials in the documents made public to date [3] [4].
6. Competing narratives and hidden agendas to weigh
Republican Oversight releases and floor speeches framed discoveries as evidence of Democratic closeness to Epstein and used the trove for political attack [6]. Democrats and many media outlets emphasized the documents’ breadth and the need for transparency about Epstein’s network, while also warning against selective leaks that could create misleading narratives [7] [5]. Readers should note the political incentives on both sides: committee releases are instruments of oversight but also of partisan messaging; press coverage reflects both investigative synthesis and caution about over-interpreting raw troves [6] [3] [5].
7. Bottom line for your original question
The clearest, documented House tie around 2016 in the records and reporting available here is Delegate Stacey Plaskett (campaign contribution and later messaging) [1] [2]. Other claims about additional sitting House members communicating with Epstein were made publicly by Oversight Republicans and covered by outlets, but the released documents and reporting do not produce a definitive, universally agreed list of House members “tied” to Epstein specifically in 2016 [6] [3] [7].