Americans broadly perceive that affluent and influential individuals escape consequences for their actions, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the Justice Department released millions of pages of documents relating to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
The online national survey, conducted over four days and concluding on Monday, asked respondents whether a statement that the Epstein files "show that powerful people in the U.S. are rarely held accountable for their actions" reflected their views. Some 69% of participants said that statement described their views "very well" or "extremely well." Another 17% said it described their views "somewhat well," and 11% said it did not reflect their thinking.
Support for the view was widespread across political lines: more than 80% of both Republican and Democratic respondents said the statement described their views at least somewhat well, the poll found.
Background supplied by the Justice Department indicates that the newly released documents connect Epstein to numerous prominent figures in politics, finance, academia and business, with ties spanning both before and after his 2008 guilty plea to prostitution-related charges, including soliciting an underage girl. The troves were made public under congressional orders.
Epstein, a financier who was arrested in 2019 on charges of sex trafficking of minors, died in a Manhattan jail cell that year. His death was officially ruled a suicide.
The documents have prompted a range of consequences in corporate America and beyond. The disclosures have coincided with the resignations of executives at Goldman Sachs and Hyatt Hotels, while other prominent business leaders implicated by the records have remained in their positions.
The Justice Department records also include communications that show apparent social contacts between Epstein and figures tied to the Trump administration. The documents indicate that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick visited Epstein's private island for lunch in 2012 and later invited him to a 2015 fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. They also show an email from Dr. Mehmet Oz, described in the documents as the administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Trump, inviting Epstein to a Valentine's Day party in 2016. The reporting of these contacts does not allege wrongdoing by Lutnick or Oz.
President Donald Trump has faced political difficulties stemming from the scandal. He socialized with Epstein during the 1990s and 2000s, according to the documents, and has denied knowledge of Epstein's crimes, saying he cut ties in the early 2000s prior to Epstein's 2008 plea agreement. The matter has been described as a lingering political problem for the president, with critics saying the administration has not fully disclosed what the government knew about the case.
Public reaction to how long the Epstein revelations should remain a focus differs by party. When asked whether they agreed with the statement that "it's time for the country to move on from talking about the Epstein files," 67% of Republican respondents said that captured their thinking at least somewhat well. By contrast, only 21% of Democrats said the same.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll collected responses from 1,117 U.S. adults and reports a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.