Full Breakdown
Sarah Kellen Testifies Before House Oversight Committee on Epstein Role
5/22/2026, 1:19:39 AM
Core Event: Testimony and Victim Claim
On May 21 2026, Sarah Kellen, Epstein’s personal assistant from 2001-2013, gave a closed-door, transcribed interview to the House Oversight Committee. She said Epstein sexually and psychologically abused her for over a decade and that the 2007 non-prosecution agreement wrongly branded her a “potential co-conspirator.”
Background & Key Data
The September 2007 deal, signed after Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution crimes, limited his jail time to under 13 months, required victim compensation, and protected four women—Kellen, Lesley Groff, Adriana Ross, Nadia Marcin-ko—from prosecution. Over 3 million DOJ pages released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act reference the agreement; Kellen faced a federal witness-tampering probe but was never charged.
Key Figures
Sarah Kellen; Jeffrey Epstein; Ghislaine Maxwell; former prosecutors Ann Marie Villafaña and Alex Acosta; Committee Chair James Comer; Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC); Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL); Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL); Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA).
Why It Matters
The hearing tests whether women who facilitated Epstein’s operations can be treated as victims, scrutinizes the secrecy of the 2007 immunity provision, and shapes congressional oversight of prosecutorial discretion in high-profile sex-trafficking cases.
Official Responses & Opposition
Committee Chair James Comer called the session “the toughest one yet” and said he is there to listen. Rep. Nancy Mace argued adult women who recruit underage girls are traffickers, not victims. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna publicly labeled the women co-conspirators and denied them victim status. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi displayed redacted files and urged the DOJ to release the identities of men linked to Epstein.
Conflicting Reports
Federal memos say Kellen thought the women she booked were peers in their early twenties, while some survivors claim she knowingly recruited minors. Prosecutors never interviewed her before labeling her a co-conspirator, and the DOJ’s professional-responsibility report does not explain why she was excluded from the 2007 negotiations.
Verbatim Quotes
- “He groomed me, sexually and psychologically abused me, controlled me, manipulated me, dominated me, and gaslit me, until I could no longer tell which thoughts were mine, and which were his,” — Sarah Kellen, prepared statement
- “If you’re an adult female and you’re recruiting underage girls, you’re not a victim. You’re a prostitute, a child predator, and a sex trafficker.” — Rep. Nancy Mace, R-SC
- “I don't know. I am here to listen and learn.” — Rep. James Comer, R-KY
- “All of these women engaged in the trafficking of minors as adults. They were working and complicit in Jeffrey Epstein’s operation. And in my opinion, they are not to be given victim status because they did partake in harming young girls.” — Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-FL
