Oversight Democrats demand Comer arrange interviews with Blanche, Patel in Epstein probe
Jeffrey Epstein is seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, December 19, 2025. (U.S. Justice Department)
(WASHINGTON) — Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are demanding that Committee Chairman James Comer bring in acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel to answer questions “immediately” as part of the panel’s probe into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Ranking Member Robert Garcia on Tuesday sent Comer a letter, which was first obtained by ABC News, requesting that Blanche and Patel appear for separate videotaped transcribed interviews before the committee as questions mount over their handling of the Epstein files.
The GOP-controlled committee to date has not video recorded any of its transcribed interviews, only depositions.
“Given the deep involvement of Director Patel and Mr. Blanche, the Committee cannot credibly continue its investigation without their videotaped, transcribed testimony,” Garcia wrote in the letter to Comer.
In a statement to ABC News, Garcia said the panel’s closed-door interview last week of former Attorney General Pam Bondi “made one thing clear: we need to talk to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel.”
“These agency leaders were directly involved in the cover up of the Epstein files and botched roll-out of the documents, which re-victimized survivors and made a mockery of our Justice Department. Oversight Democrats are demanding answers straight from the source,” Garcia said.
Bondi, during her appearance on Friday, told lawmakers that Blanche was delegated responsibility for overseeing the release of the millions of Epstein files.
Garcia wrote in the letter that Bondi referenced Blanche’s name 30 times during Friday’s interview and pointed to him “as the person responsible for DOJ’s actions involving the review, withholding, and botched release of Epstein-related records.”
Democrats also want to question Blanche over his involvement in convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison transfer. Bondi testified, according to a source familiar with her testimony, that she opposed a pardon for Maxwell and was unaware of the transfer until after it happened.
“Rather than provide answers in her testimony, Ms. Bondi repeatedly shifted responsibility to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche,” he said.
The letter comes the same day that Blanche is slated to testify on Capitol Hill before a House appropriations subcommittee.
Blanche’s testimony could spark fireworks after Bondi’s transcribed interview on Friday, where she testified that she delegated compliance with the Epstein Transparency Act to her then-deputy.
Garcia said Democrats want to hear from Patel, who Bondi frequently named during her interview as also overseeing the release of the Epstein files. Democrats said they were alarmed by Bondi referring to Patel repeatedly during the interview.
“By Ms. Bondi’s own account, Director Patel was involved in locating, reviewing, and possibly redacting FBI records relating to Jeffrey Epstein. Ms. Bondi even raised concerns that the FBI had previously withheld material from the DOJ,” Garica wrote.
Comer, in comments made last Friday, said that both parties bear responsibility for the failures surrounding Epstein, the wealthy financier who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of minor girls at his homes in New York and Palm Beach, Florida.
“The government has failed the survivors. There’s no question about that,” Comer said. “And that dates back five presidential administrations. We’re taking this investigation seriously.”
Fire and smoke mark where a UPS cargo plane crashed near Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport on November 04, 2025 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Stephen Cohen/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A slew of new civil lawsuits allege UPS and its partners failed their responsibility to make sure a plane they put in the air was safe to fly — and that negligence led to the fiery, fatal plane crash in Louisville, Kentucky, last year that claimed the lives of 15 people.
The complaints allege the plane was faulty, the risks were known and yet it left the ground on a nonstop trip to Honolulu on Nov. 4, 2025 anyway.
The lawsuits — 15 in total — were filed in Jefferson Circuit Court on behalf of more than 100 survivors and victims of the crash as well as impacted businesses.
The lawsuits, which include several wrongful death claims, name a lengthy list of defendants, including UPS, Boeing, GE, Allianz insurance and the company that performed maintenance and repair on the plane.
Also named as a defendant: the estate of one of the plane’s pilots — Capt. Richard Wartenburg, who perished in the crash — who the lawsuits claim was “directly responsible for determining whether” the plane “was in a condition for safe flight.”
The lawsuits claim the defendants let a “catastrophic failure” occur.
In a statement, UPS said in a statement, “We remain deeply saddened by Flight 2976. Our focus continues to be on supporting those affected and working closely with the National Transportation Safety Board as the investigation continues.”
In a statement, Boeing said: “We extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives in this accident.”
‘Huge ball of fire coming straight for us’ The new allegations come just on the heels of the crash’s six-month anniversary.
The UPS jet — a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 — lost its left engine and pylon shortly after taking off from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport last November, crashing just seconds into the flight, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Exploding in a fireball, it slammed into an area scrapyard, Grade A Recycling.
“I wake up every day and have to kind of relive it and bring myself back to reality,” said Ashley Muse, who was there that day, and is a plaintiff in one of the suits.
“All you could see was a huge ball of fire coming straight for us, and everyone started screaming and running, and within seconds, it hit us, the whole building shook like we were in an earthquake,” Muse told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
Muse said she was saved by a colleague who later died. Her colleague Adam Bowman, who is a plaintiff in one of the suits, also jumped into action — saying he pulled one victim out of the inferno, who later passed away from his injuries.
“I turned my head, all I saw was a massive fireball,” Bowman said. “It started getting really hot, and thinking, I love my job, but I don’t want to die here.”
The lawsuit alleges the defendants, including UPS, the pilot, Boeing and others “negligently allowed” the aircraft “to be dispatched in an unsafe and an unairworthy condition resulting in the departure of the left pylon and engine from the wing causing the crash.”
They “accepted the risk of an MD-11 crash by continuing to utilize the aircraft type without more frequent and rigorous inspections of the pylon assemblies,” the filings said.
“People made decisions, corporations made decisions, to continue to operate these planes,” said attorney Masten Childers III, who is representing the plaintiffs.
Childers said in this case, UPS and the other defendants “took those risks, and those risks came to a head on Nov. 4 … when this plane fell out of the air on top of our clients.”
“More could have and should have been done to ensure that those problems were remedied so things like what happened on the 4th didnt happen,” Childers said.
‘It happened out of the blue’ One of those deaths was 3-year-old Kimberly Asa, who was with her grandfather Louisnes Fedon at Grade A Recycling on the day of the crash.
Left behind — Kimberly’s mother, and Louisnes’ daughter.
“My dad was a really good person. My daughter, she was also a very bubbly person. I expected to watch her grow. I expected to always be able to run to my dad. So, the biggest thing is how it happened out of the blue,” Sherline Fedon said. “It’s not something that you hear about — when I finally saw a plane had hit, I don’t think anybody would have ever thought that it was their family. That’s something that you see on the news, and never think that you would be a part of it, or someone that you love to be a part of that. So I think what sticks with me the most is how random, and unheard of, it feels to me.”
Kimberly “survived the initial impact” and “attempted to flee to safety from the explosion of nearly 220,000 pounds of jet fuel, seeking shelter from the smothering smoke and intense flames under a partially collapsed structure,” the documents alleging their wrongful deaths stated.
Their autopsies indicated that their deaths were not quick, according to the lawsuits.
Kimberly “suffered from excessive smoke inhalation resulting in soot in her airway, charring of all of her body surfaces and heat related fractures to her skull, left ribs and both arms,” according to the filings. Her cause of death was determined to be “smoke inhalation and thermal injuries resulting from the crash, explosion and subsequent fire” of the plane.
Her grandfather Louisnes also “survived the initial impact” and tried to flee with Kimberly, according to the filing. His “autopsy indicates that he suffered baking of his brain and right lung from the exposure to extreme temperature.” His cause of death was determined as “carbon monoxide intoxication, smoke inhalation and thermal injuries” from the crash and fire.
‘Known structural defects’ After the crash, federal investigators focused on metal fatigue cracks around the engine of the UPS plane that crashed on Nov. 4.
The lawsuits now home in on those cracks — alleging that overstress fracture and failure of the pylon assembly “significantly contributed to the crash.”
The lawsuits allege there were “known structural defects” with the MD-11F fleet of aircraft, citing a 2011 “service letter” issued by Boeing.
That letter informed operators of the MD-11 aircraft, including UPS, of the risk of bearing race failures, according to the lawsuits, which allege that despite that Boeing “did not alter the inspection interval for MD-11 spherical bearings and bearing races.”
The lawsuits also allege Boeing “failed to provide adequate warning of the defective condition of the MD-11 and failed to provide a reasonably safer alternative.”
Given what it called the “known risk” of the some of the plane’s alleged defects, UPS and the other defendants “knew or shoud have known that the assembly required more frequent inspection(s),” the lawsuit stated, alleging that the cost of such inspections would have made that plane model “inefficient for operation from a cost perspective.”
Regarding the actions of the pilot, the lawsuits argue Captain Wartenburg also had a duty to make sure his plane was safe to fly. Upon takeoff roll and rotation on the flight, a “repeated bell was sounding in the cockpit” but he “failed to act appropriately when presented with this alarm bell and failed to prevent the crash,” the lawsuits allege.
UPS pilots, including Wartenberg, knew this plane and type “as a problem aircraft with multiple defects but Defendant Wartenberg and the UPS Defendants, jointly and severally, elected to operate N259UP anyway,” the lawsuits claim.
In addition to those killed in the crash, others suffered “physical and psychological injuries,” and businesses suffered financial loss and damage from the crash, according to the lawsuits.
Poul Thorsen was extradited Thursday from Germany with U.S. Air Marshals, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. (Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General)
(NEW YORK) — A former influential scientist who did work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is back in the grasp of U.S. law enforcement, facing financial fraud charges — after more than a decade out of federal authorities’ reach, according to officials.
Poul Thorsen was extradited Thursday from Germany with U.S. Air Marshals, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General. It comes 15 years after he was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Georgia.
His work, and the fraud allegations against him, have long lingered in the lexicon of conspiracy theorists seeking to question the safety of vaccines.
Thorsen helped lead research for the CDC studying infant disabilities, according to prosecutors. Thorsen’s work included co-authoring papers that found no link between autism and childhood vaccination — science which, according to medical experts, still stands today.
Separate from Thorsen’s pursuit of peer-reviewed medicine, prosecutors say he schemed to divert research grant money to his own coffers.
Thorsen was indicted in 2011 after he allegedly “absconded” with over $1 million in CDC grant money for autism research and was charged with 13 counts of wire fraud and 9 counts of money laundering. He was arrested in Germany in June 2025.
Thursday, Thorsen was flown in handcuffs from Germany to Atlanta, also the home of CDC headquarters.
In a statement to ABC News, an HHS-OIG spokesperson lauded the work that brought Thorsen’s extradition to bear.
“Mr. Thorsen is alleged to have stolen more than a million dollars in federal research funds – money intended to advance critical scientific work and improve public health outcomes. His betrayal harms taxpayers, researchers, and the communities who depend on this research,” said HHS-OIG spokesperson Yvonne Gamble.
“HHS-OIG remains committed to protecting the integrity of federal health care programs and ensuring that individuals who misuse public funds are held accountable. We are grateful for our federal and international law enforcement counterparts, whose coordinated efforts made this extradition possible,” Gamble said.
In the 1990s and early aughts, Thorsen worked as a visiting scientist from Denmark at the CDC’s Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities — just as new public health initiatives in the area were flourishing and flush with fresh funding. Thorsen, at the time, vigorously advocated for grants for Danish research on infant disabilities. His push was successful: from 2000 through 2009, the CDC awarded over $11 million to two Danish government agencies for the research, according to prosecutors.
Thorsen quickly assumed responsibility for the research money he had pushed for. In 2002, he moved back to Denmark and “became principal investigator responsible for administering the research money awarded by the CDC,” the indictment said.
Thorsen began funneling the funds elsewhere, prosecutors said. He forged signatures and documents with official CDC letterhead and submitted fake invoices he claimed were for research, according to the indictment. Meanwhile, Thorsen was actually moving the funds into personal accounts within CDC’s credit union, the indictment said. He would then withdraw the money for his own personal use, including the purchase of a Harley Davidson motorcycle, cars and a home in Atlanta.
From February 2004 through June 2008, Thorsen submitted for reimbursement more than a dozen fraudulent invoices purportedly signed by a CDC lab boss. He claimed it was for expenses incurred in connection with the CDC grant. They were not, prosecutors said.
“In truth, the CDC Federal Credit Union accounts were personal accounts held by defendant Thorsen. He used the accounts to steal money under the CDC grant,” the indictment said.
Thorsen’s alleged crimes have, since his indictment, also become attractive fodder for conspiracy theorists, attempting to conflate his financial fraud with his medical research. Among his published works are findings of “strong evidence against the hypothesis” that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine causes autism. Some anti-vaccine groups have used Thorsen to paint a picture of corruption at the highest echelons of medical exploration.
Among those groups: the Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a group that pursues anti-vaccine causes. CHD was also once led by now-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long shared vaccine-skeptic views.
There is a page dedicated to Thorsen’s “criminal conduct” on CHD’s site, linking to a lengthy 2017 paper in which a group chaired by RFK Jr. levied accusations of “questionable ethics and scientific fraud” that “have resulted in untrustworthy vaccine safety science.” The paper called Thorsen a “key figure” in “shaky research” on vaccines and autism.
Decades of research has found no link between autism and vaccines or any vaccine preservative. Thorsen was indicted on wire fraud and money laundering, not for falsifying medical research.
Thorsen is expected to be arraigned Friday in federal court in Atlanta, according to an HHS-OIG official.
This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender Registry)
(NEW YORK) — Members of the House Oversight Committee on Monday are set to interview a former prison guard who was on duty at the Metropolitan Corrections Center in New York when convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019.
The interview of Tova Noel — believed to be the last person to have seen Epstein before his death — comes amid renewed scrutiny of Epstein’s death.
Epstein died by suicide according to an autopsy conducted by the New York medical examiner, though a series of missteps by prison officials have long fueled conspiracy theories about his death.
Noel is alleged to have spent the hours ahead of Epstein’s death scrolling the internet, rather than performing the required headcounts of the prisoners in the unit where the disgraced sex offender was housed. Prosecutors in 2019 charged Noel and another prison guard with falsifying records to make it seem as if they did the required checks, and both ended up reaching a deal with prosecutors to have the charges dropped.
The recent release of the Epstein files by the Department of Justice has brought renewed attention to Noel’s actions, and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said she was called to testify because some lawmakers “aren’t confident 100% that Epstein’s death was by suicide.”
“No one’s accusing her of any wrongdoing, but we have a lot of questions about Epstein,” Comer told Fox News in March.
Lawmakers have highlighted that Noel received a series of cash deposits between April 2018 and July 2019 totaling $12,000 — with most taking place before Epstein was arrested — and that the last deposit was made prior to Epstein’s death. Documents released by the DOJ also show that Noel made a series of internet searches about Epstein the night he died, including “latest on Epstein in jail.”
While those documents have attracted public attention, investigators appear to have already probed those matters. Grand jury transcripts released from the case against Noel released by the DOJ earlier this year showed that the FBI examined her bank records and found no evidence of a bribe.
She also told the DOJ inspector general that she did not remember searching the internet for Epstein, but may have read an article about Epstein.
Surveillance video from the jail also showed a flash of orange appearing near Epstein’s cell the night he died, and a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded the video showed a corrections officer “believed to be Noel” carrying linen to the area near Epstein’s cell.
In a sworn interview in 2021, Noel claimed she “never gave out linen,” and denied providing Epstein with excess linen that may have been used to form a noose.
