Is This the Best Oversight Can Do?

Chairman James Comer reveals the shallowness of the Committee’s Epstein investigation.

Source: Department of Justice (EFTA00003513)

This article is part five of a series called The Epstein Administration, in which we break through the noise of the Epstein files, report the truth, and demand transparency and accountability.

When Chairman James Comer emerged from the House Oversight Committee’s deposition with former Epstein assistant Sarah Kellen last week, he effusively praised her candor, saying she delivered “by far the most substantive and productive interview that we’ve had” and commended her for being a “very good, sincere, helpful witness.”

Some of the most notable takeaways from her deposition, according to Comer, were the “new” names of three men who Kellen alleged assaulted her: Frédéric Fekkai, Philip Levine, and Patrick Demarchelier. “One very positive thing today is she gave us three names of people that were involved in abuse. These were new names for us,” said Comer.

“Had you seen these three names in the unredacted versions?” A journalist asked Comer regarding his review of DOJ’s investigative files.

“I have not,” Comer replied, shaking his head. “I have not. I don’t think…I’m not sure anyone on the staff has. I’ll have to go…I’ve talked to part of the staff, but these were three new names to me and I’ve been following along pretty good.”

Conversely, Home of the Brave’s research indicates that the names of these three men appear hundreds of times in DOJ’s files and in other public statements regarding Epstein’s alleged crimes.

Frédéric Fekkai

In Virginia Giuffre’s 2025 memoir Nobody’s Girl, she wrote that Maxwell instructed her where to get her hair cut: “the celebrity stylist Frédéric Fekkai groomed many of the girls in Epstein’s world, including me” (104). Fekkai’s name, and his association with Epstein, were then at least known and public after the 2025 publication of Giuffre’s book. Maybe Comer did not read the memoir, but presumably someone on his staff would have as part of this investigation. She is, after all, the most high-profile Epstein accuser and her book focuses almost exclusively on Epstein’s enterprise.

But maybe a single description by a victim of a hairstylist who saw a trove of young women at Epstein’s request did not catch the attention of the Committee Chair or his staff. (Even if it would seem to laypersons like us that the hairstylist, based on his ongoing contact with Epstein and interactions with many young women, would warrant an interview.) Even granting that, though, a search of DOJ’s investigative files for “Fekkai” produces dozens of correspondence between Epstein and his staff about salon appointments with Fekkai for both Epstein and for “the girls.” For instance, Lesley Groff, Epstein’s executive assistant, emailed Epstein in May of 2018 to ask: “I want to make sure it is OK with you for the girls to make their own hair appointments at Fekkai…do they have your permission?”

Epstein’s executive assistant regularly sent him a daily schedule. One from 2018 includes “Sarah will come at 11:30 am…[REDACTED] will meet you at Fekkai Salon at 1pm.” We are unable to verify if the email is referring to Sarah Kellen, but the email mentions other high-profile figures who the Committee absolutely should have been tracking and searching DOJ’s documents for, including Leon Black, Kathryn Ruemmler, and Brad Karp.

There are, admittedly, a lot of DOJ’s files and they are not easily navigated. But Fekkai’s name appears in more than just dozens of emails; at least one deposition transcript also references him. In her 2016 deposition, Johanna Sjöberg, a model and victim of Epstein’s abuse, said the following:

Q: Did you ever hear or observe Jeffrey talking on the phone about Frederic Fekkai?

A: Yes.

Q: What did you hear?

A: I heard [Epstein] call someone, and say, Fekkai is in Hawaii. Can we find some girls for him?

Q: And what was your reaction to that?

A: Well, I was massaging and I didn’t have a reaction. I tried to remain reactionless the whole five years.

This exchange is part of a 179 page transcript, but it is also excerpted in its own four page document attached to a court order from January 2024 unsealing a limited set of documents from Virginia Giuffre’s defamation case against Ghislaine Maxwell. (Sjöberg’s name is redacted in the DOJ file, but publicly available on CourtListener.)

Comer may not have read the full transcript or the four pages, but the interaction didn’t go unnoticed. In an article for the Miami Herald on January 22, 2024, days after the court unsealing, Julie K. Brown wrote that “Fekkai couldn’t be reached late Wednesday for comment, but he has denied knowing of Epstein’s conduct in the past.”

Even before the 2024 release of Sjöberg’s 2016 deposition, the Daily Beast reported in October of 2019—a few months after Epstein’s death—that “Epstein Flaunted Girls After His Arrest at Hair Salon for the Stars.”

“Even after his jail stint,” the article read, “Jeffrey Epstein frequented his friend Frédéric Fekkai’s high-profile salons with a bevy of very young women, former stylists say.”

Philip Levine

Like Fekkai, Philip Levine’s name appeared with Epstein’s in tabloids for almost six years, and appears hundreds of times in DOJ’s documents, including emails with Maxwell and former Prince Andrew, two people undoubtedly on the Committee’s radar.

For instance, a 2001 email from Maxwell to Philip Levine: “when we are all back in NY,” she wrote, “the plan is to do a dinner - we’ll have the sluty [sic] Spanish girl which will be nicely counter balanced by the cool poised Swedish type.”

And a 2010 email from Philip Levine to “The Duke” (that “The Duke” then forwarded to Jeffrey Epstein with the commentary, “This just in”) in reaction to a NY Post Page Six headline: “Prince Andrew mingles with glamorous New York ladies.” Levine’s subject line to the email reads simply, “I should have come….”

An email from July of 2010 from Levine to Epstein suggests Levine’s awareness of Epstein’s legal troubles: “Just want you to know that I am happy that everything has come to a positive ending for you during these tough times…You are a great guy and I know all good things will come to you going forward…your friend, Philip.”

Years later, Levine served as Mayor of Miami Beach from 2013 to 2017, and DOJ’s documents indicate Epstein likely contributed to his campaign, responding to a mass email from Levine: “I would like to contribute to the campaign, h=w [sic] do i do it?” The Committee could have – and arguably should have – found this email by running any number of searches looking for politicians or public officials linked to (and supported by) Epstein.

Apart from DOJ’s mass of documents on Levine, a New York Post article from 2019 titled “Ex-Miami mayor says he doesn’t know how Epstein got his number” strains credulity on Comer’s claims that these men’s names were entirely new. If the New York Post knew about Levine, why didn’t Comer, his staff, or his Committee?

Patrick Demarchelier

Kellen’s allegations last week of Demarchelier’s sexual violence are not the first against him. In 2018, the Boston Globe reported on a wide range of conduct by Demarchelier from inappropriate workplace sexual advances to even more serious, arguably criminal sexual assault. Demarchelier denied the allegations at the time, saying that “people lie and they tell stories. It’s ridiculous.”

In an April 2012 exchange, modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, Epstein associate who died in a French prison in 2022 where he was being held while under investigation for sexual abuse connected to Epstein, wrote an email to Epstein: “Forgot to tell you. After London I am going with Patrick Demarchelier and Russian Vogue to St Petersburg.” Epstein replied: “what dates?” How could the Committee have missed this exchange (or ones like it)? They should have been looking for Brunel’s name, even after his death, and certainly for Epstein’s potential international travel.

Next Steps

“I’m more optimistic today than I have been in a long time,” Comer told the press after his deposition with Kellen. His confidence belies his and seemingly his Committee’s tenuous grasp on the materials and even central facts they’re supposed to be investigating. How are we, the American people, supposed to feel optimistic about how the Committee is proceeding or its eventual outcomes?

The names of the three men should not have been new to anyone paying attention to the Epstein story. It’s troubling that the Committee’s chairman does not seem to fall into the “paying attention” category, and his implication that these men’s names are completely buried in the files is patently untrue. We found their names – over and over and over again – in DOJ’s documents (associated with some of Epstein’s most ubiquitous associates) and even more readily (and egregiously) in universally known, public news sources.

Demarchelier can’t be brought in for questioning. But the Committee should subpoena Levine and Fekkai and question each of them not just about Kellen’s allegations but their knowledge of Epstein’s enterprise more broadly.

And after much fanfare and delay, Pam Bondi’s deposition is scheduled for the end of this week. We will be keeping a close eye on it, and we hope that Oversight will ask her directly if Fekkai, Demarchelier, or Levine came up in DOJ’s past investigations of Epstein and Maxwell, or the Department’s more recent review of its Epstein files in preparation for public release.

At the end of Comer’s interaction with the press after Kellen’s deposition, he noted that “as far as the men that were abusers—uh, alleged abusers—the whole world will see that and we’ll be able to move forward.”

We’re not sure what Comer means by “we’ll be able to move forward.” Who does “we” refer to? The Oversight Committee? The survivors? The American people? For the time being, “we” the people have no plans to move on from seeking accountability. And until the Committee’s investigation grasps the urgency and seriously looks at the relevant documents and people, the Epstein matter isn’t going anywhere.

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