A public pressure campaign is targeting U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Ballwin), urging her to support an effort to force the Justice Department to release documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.
A bipartisan discharge petition, sponsored by Representatives Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Ro Khanna (D-California), is just one signature short of the 218 required to bring the matter to a full House vote. If successful, that vote would compel the DOJ to release its full investigative files on the disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker who mingled with powerful figures from both parties, including former president Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump.
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Wagner, a six-term Republican from Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District, has not signed onto the effort. Democrats have made clear their plans to challenge her next year, and Epstein-related attacks on her may be the first volleys of the 2026 race. That makes her a natural focus for activists.
“Ann Wagner built her career claiming to fight for survivors of human trafficking and sexual assault, yet she refused to sign the petition to release the Epstein files. That’s not advocacy—that’s protecting high-profile men and leaders in her party accused of abuse and other heinous crimes,” says Abbey Schoenrade, the communications director for Progress MO, a progressive advocacy organization. “Missourians deserve better.”
Wagner has long made fighting sex trafficking a pillar of her political life, saying that prior to being elected to Congress, when she was the U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg, she saw firsthand “the horrors of human trafficking on an international level.” In Congress, she authored the Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation (SAVE) Act, which criminalized the advertising of sexual services from minors or victims of human trafficking. The SAVE Act as well as her Justice for Victims of Human Trafficking Act were signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015. And her Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) became law under President Donald Trump in 2018. That legislation allows trafficking victims to “hold online platforms accountable for facilitating sex trafficking.”
This summer, Wagner called Epstein “evil,” adding: “I hope he rots in hell for what he did to so many innocent children. If the courts can unseal relevant documents while protecting the victims of his heinous crimes, I fully support that transparency.”
Asked by SLM why, despite her advocacy for trafficking victims, she has not backed the Massie-Khanna petition, Wagner repeated her characterization of Epstein as “evil” and said: “I have called for total transparency, to the extent the courts will allow, and ensuring victims are always protected. I was proud to vote to direct the House Oversight Committee to investigate this matter, and the Committee has issued multiple subpoenas to the Department of Justice resulting in tens of thousands of documents being made publicly available. Any criminal activity must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The New York Times has reported that a full House vote could be “politically toxic for the G.O.P.” Trump, who once called for transparency on Epstein, has more recently dismissed the push for document release as a “hoax.” The issue is one of the rare topics that appears to divide the former president from some of his base.
U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell (D-St. Louis), meanwhile, has made calls for more transparency around Epstein, including the release of more documents, a staple of Bell’s social media presence, yoking the issues of the files not being released to the broader issue of distrust in government. He’s said that the scale of the crimes and coverups are “of Biblical proportions.”
About Wagner’s declining thus far to sign the discharge petition, Bell tells SLM, “I believe the Epstein files should be made public because the victims deserve nothing less than the full truth. This petition is moving forward with or without Rep. Wagner’s support, but I hope she chooses to be on the right side of history and stand for transparency.”
Bell’s “with or without” phrasing is a reference to an upcoming special election for the congressional seat in the Tucson area, which is expected to be won by the Democrat who in all likelihood would sign onto the discharge petition.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated with information about the SAVE Act being signed into law in 2015.
