Chairman James Comer has called Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz to appear before the House Oversight Committee on July 9 for an in-person, videotaped transcribed interview as part of the panel's expanding investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein case. Comer sent the letter Friday, and the committee has pledged to release both the transcript and the video publicly.
The request lands Dershowitz, once one of Epstein's own defense attorneys, squarely in the witness chair of a probe that has already drawn testimony from Bill Gates, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Epstein associate Les Wexner, and former Epstein aide Sarah Kellen. The committee is not playing favorites. It is working through the full web of people who orbited a convicted sex trafficker, and it wants answers on the record.
Comer's letter, first reported by the Daily Caller, told Dershowitz that lawmakers believe he possesses information relevant to the probe. That belief rests on public reporting, Justice Department records, documents the committee has independently obtained, and Dershowitz's prior role as Epstein's attorney.
Comer also noted that Dershowitz had publicly volunteered to cooperate. In the letter, the chairman wrote:
"Indeed, you recently made statements to the press in which you expressed your willingness to appear to testify 'about everything' in a 'videotaped, under oath and open to the public' interview."
The committee took him at his word. Comer requested testimony at 10:00 a.m. Eastern on July 9, 2026, in Washington, D.C., and said the panel would release the transcript and video "as expeditiously as practical" after the session.
One wrinkle: because the committee sent a letter rather than a subpoena, Dershowitz will not be under oath. Whether he formally accepts the date and terms remains unclear.
The House Oversight Committee has described its probe in sweeping terms. It is examining the federal government's handling of the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases, the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death, the operation of sex-trafficking networks, efforts by Epstein and Maxwell to cultivate influential allies, and potential ethics violations involving elected officials.
That last category, ethics violations involving elected officials, is the one that should make Washington most uncomfortable. For years, the question hanging over the Epstein saga has been whether powerful people used their positions to shield themselves or others from accountability. The committee's willingness to subpoena even the attorney general over Epstein file releases signals that Comer's panel is not content with half-measures.
The Justice Department has released more than 3 million files related to the Epstein case. Additional court records were unsealed in 2024. The sheer volume of material gives investigators a documentary foundation that previous inquiries lacked.
Dershowitz is far from the first bold-faced name to sit before the committee. Bill Gates testified in a closed-door deposition on Wednesday regarding his relationship with Epstein. Former Epstein aide Sarah Kellen sat for a closed-door deposition on May 22. Several of Epstein's alleged victims appeared publicly before the panel on May 13.
The committee has also taken its work on the road. Lawmakers traveled to Les Wexner's Ohio residence for a transcribed interview with the former Epstein associate. They traveled to New York to interview both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton at their home.
That list alone, a former president, a former secretary of state, one of the world's richest men, a billionaire retail executive, a key Epstein aide, and now one of America's most prominent legal minds, reflects the extraordinary reach of Epstein's network and the committee's determination to map it. When Congress actually follows the evidence wherever it leads, the results tend to make people in both parties nervous. That is exactly the kind of institutional accountability that has been missing from Washington for too long.
Dershowitz occupies a unique and uncomfortable position in the Epstein story. He was not merely a social acquaintance of the convicted sex trafficker. He served as one of Epstein's attorneys, a professional relationship that gave him direct access to the inner workings of Epstein's legal defense.
His involvement became far more personal in 2014, when Virginia Giuffre publicly accused Dershowitz of having sex with her while she was underage. Dershowitz denied the allegations, and Giuffre filed a defamation lawsuit against him.
The legal battle dragged on until 2022, when both sides agreed to settle without either party paying damages. In a joint court statement, Giuffre said she had "long believed" that Epstein trafficked her to Dershowitz but acknowledged that her memories stemmed from a period when she was "very young" and living in a "very stressful and traumatic environment." She said she now recognized she "may have made a mistake" in identifying Dershowitz as one of her abusers.
Dershowitz has seized on that statement, asserting that he was "completely cleared" and arguing that Giuffre's acknowledgment vindicates his longstanding denials. He said he had pushed for the release of all Epstein-related records from the beginning because he believed the documents would "prove categorically" his innocence. He praised the unsealing of additional court records in 2024.
Giuffre, who had also reached a settlement with Prince Andrew over allegations that he sexually abused her as a teenager, an agreement that included no admission of wrongdoing by Prince Andrew, died by suicide on April 11, 2025, at age 41, according to her family.
Whatever one makes of Dershowitz's personal denials, the committee's interest in him is broader than the Giuffre allegations. As Epstein's former attorney, Dershowitz may hold knowledge about the structure of Epstein's legal defense, the decisions made to protect Epstein from prosecution, and the network of people who helped sustain Epstein's operation for years. The committee's letter made clear that its request rests on multiple foundations, not just the trafficking accusations, but also DOJ records, committee-obtained documents, and Dershowitz's own public statements.
The broader pattern here matters. For decades, the Epstein case was defined by the gap between what insiders knew and what the public was told. Powerful people moved in Epstein's orbit, accepted his hospitality, and benefited from his connections, and when the legal system finally caught up, the consequences fell almost entirely on Epstein himself and, later, on Ghislaine Maxwell. The people who enabled, tolerated, or looked away from the operation largely escaped scrutiny. That dynamic is exactly what congressional oversight exists to challenge.
Comer's committee appears to understand that accountability delayed is accountability denied. The parade of depositions, the travel to witnesses' homes, the public release of transcripts, these are the mechanics of a serious investigation, not a show hearing designed to generate cable-news clips and then fade away.
Whether the investigation ultimately reveals new wrongdoing or simply fills in the historical record, the American public deserves to see it play out in full. The victims who testified on May 13 earned that much. The taxpayers who funded a federal apparatus that failed to stop Epstein for years earned that much.
There are still open questions. What do the committee's independently obtained documents show? What specific Justice Department records informed Comer's decision? Will Dershowitz accept the interview on the committee's terms, or negotiate different conditions? And if the interview happens without a subpoena and without an oath, how much weight should the public assign to whatever Dershowitz says?
These are not academic questions. They go to the heart of whether powerful people can shield themselves from investigators simply by controlling the terms of their cooperation.
July 9 is less than a month away. Dershowitz has said publicly that he is willing to testify about everything. The committee has said it will release the transcript and video. If both sides follow through, the American public will get to judge for itself whether the man who once defended Epstein in court has anything left to explain about the world Epstein built.
The Epstein probe has already reached a former president, a former secretary of state, and one of the richest people on earth. Adding Dershowitz to that list is not a stretch, it is a logical next step in an investigation that is finally doing what the federal government should have done years ago. The committee's willingness to pursue every lead regardless of political convenience is the standard the public should demand from every oversight body in Washington.
When the powerful insist they have nothing to hide, the right response is not to take their word for it. It is to turn on the cameras and let them prove it.
