WESTFIELD, N.J. (AP) — When New Jersey voters gathered this week to talk with a state lawmaker about affordable housing and new data centers, there was something else on their mind, too. Where is their congressman, Republican Tom Kean Jr.?
"What’s the word?” Steve McCabe, an 80-year-old retired lawyer, asked Jon Bramnick, a GOP state senator.
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FILE - Candidate and State Senator Jon Bramnick discusses the issues during the New Jersey Republican gubernatorial primary debate, at NJ PBS Studios, May 7, 2025, in Newark, N.J. (Steve Hockstein/NJ Advance Media via AP, Pool, File)
FILE - Rep. Tom Kean, R-N.J., listens during a Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs about Belarus on Capitol Hill, Dec. 5, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, file)
State Sen. Jon Bramnick, R-N.J., takes questions from voters during a town hall in Westfield, N.J., Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Mike Catalini)
FILE - Tom Kean Jr., GOP candidate for New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, arrives at his election night party in Basking Ridge N.J., Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah, File)
Bramnick had no answer for Kean's unexplained medical absence that has stretched over nearly three months. But he told the audience how Kean hated to miss votes when they served together in the Legislature, even if that meant driving through a snowstorm.
“I said, ‘Tom, we should really turn around,’” he recalled.
Now Kean has missed more than 100 votes in Congress, and he has not been spotted in Washington or in his district. It is a political mystery with potentially national consequences: Kean represents a district that is among Democrats' top targets as they try to retake control of Congress.
Kean's office insists he is still running for reelection. He is not facing any challengers in Tuesday's primary while several Democrats are running for their party's nomination.
Harrison Neely, Kean’s campaign consultant, said the congressman was dealing with a medical emergency. He promised that Kean would be transparent about the issue and would return to a full schedule “very soon.”
“This was an emergency, you don’t get to plan these,” Neely said. “There’s no good timing for this.”
To Bramnick, it seems like it must be something serious.
“For him not to be there, that’s a big deal," he said.
Kean represents the 7th Congressional District, a mix of suburbs and small towns. It includes President Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf course.
Despite being redrawn after the most recent census in 2021 to become more favorable to Republicans, the district has seesawed between the parties in each of the last two midterm elections. Republican Leonard Lance lost to Democrat Tom Malinowski in 2018. Malinowski lost to Kean in 2022.
Kean's last vote in the House was March 5. Since then his absence has drawn escalating attention.
“We’re expecting him back here soon," said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., recently. “He’s going to be fully transparent."
Kean comes from a storied political family. His father served as governor. An ancestor was New Jersey’s first leader after the United States declared independence.
The New Jersey Globe, a local political website, said it received a call from Kean this month. He did not explain his condition, only that “my doctors are confident that I’m on the road to a full recovery.”
McCabe, the voter who asked Bramnick about Kean, said he wanted an update after reading the news about the congressman's absence.
“I hope he’s not sick,” he said.
Bruce Paterson, a 75-year-old retired engineer from Garwood, described himself as a “regular Democrat, not like the crazy Democrats they have today.” He attended the town hall with Bramnick and plans to support Kean in the general election.
“I hope he comes back,” he said. “I mean, will I vote for him? Probably only because we need a nice balance" in a state otherwise dominated by Democrats.
Another voter asked Bramnick if Kean steps down after Tuesday’s primary whether he would accept the Republican nomination for the 7th District. If that were to happen, party leaders in the district's counties would hold a convention to choose a replacement.
Bramnick repeatedly noted Kean is running for reelection and questioned whether his own candidacy would be a good fit in today's Republican Party. While Bramnick has criticized Trump, including during Bramnick's failed campaign for governor last year, Kean has embraced the president and features his endorsement prominently on social media accounts.
“I’m not considered the biggest fan of Donald Trump,” Bramnick said. “I don’t think that the Republican Party is interested in sending someone to Washington that may vote yes or no depending on how I feel about the issue.”
Some Democrats running in the primary have criticized Kean over the failure to tell constituents about what is going on.
“Tom Kean disappeared from the job,” said Michael Roth, a former Small Business Administration official.
Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy pilot also in the race, wished Kean a speedy recovery but criticized his record in Congress, including the battle over money for a new railway tunnel connecting New Jersey with New York City.
“He was nowhere to be found when funding got cut for the Gateway Tunnel, which is a critical infrastructure project in our district,” she said.
Candidates Tina Shah, an intensive care unit doctor, and Brian Varela, a marketing agency founder, have also been critical of Kean during debates.
Kean, who has a cash advantage at this point over his potential Democratic opponents, still has time before the November election to connect with voters, said Benjamin Dworkin, director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship.
“The issue is not going to be that he was out for a hundred plus votes in the spring,” he said. “The question is really, how effective is he going to get once he returns?”
FILE - Candidate and State Senator Jon Bramnick discusses the issues during the New Jersey Republican gubernatorial primary debate, at NJ PBS Studios, May 7, 2025, in Newark, N.J. (Steve Hockstein/NJ Advance Media via AP, Pool, File)
FILE - Rep. Tom Kean, R-N.J., listens during a Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs about Belarus on Capitol Hill, Dec. 5, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, file)
State Sen. Jon Bramnick, R-N.J., takes questions from voters during a town hall in Westfield, N.J., Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Mike Catalini)
FILE - Tom Kean Jr., GOP candidate for New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, arrives at his election night party in Basking Ridge N.J., Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — For nearly a year, public demand and increasingly outspoken calls from the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse have driven Congress to mostly set aside party politics and search for accountability.
Yet even after interviews with some of the highest-ranked officials to ever appear before a congressional investigation, including a former president, lawmakers have little to show in terms of criminal culpability for Epstein’s crimes or a definitive acknowledgment of government failure.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who sponsored legislation to force the release of case files on Epstein, told The Associated Press he is still asking, “Why there has not been a single investigation of people who have allegedly abused or committed financial crimes?”
Lawmakers hoped to get some answers to those questions during a transcribed interview Friday with Pam Bondi, President Donald Trump's former attorney general who oversaw the release of the files.
But the interview left Democrats fuming at Bondi's decision to defend the Trump administration's handling of that material, as well as her refusal to answer questions about the Republican president's involvement. Democratic lawmakers also singled out Republican Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, saying he has allowed administration officials to dodge tough questions from Congress.
For survivors of Epstein's abuse, including several who traveled to Washington to confront Bondi, it was a frustrating development at a time when many are weary of pleading their case before government officials. They say the Department of Justice's chaotic release of the files, which included nude photos and personal information of potential victims, has only added to a wider failure by the criminal justice system to believe or protect them.
“The government’s refusal to acknowledge the failures that were there have led to so much harm,” said Annie Farmer. “And I think whenever you’re thinking about things from a perspective of justice or healing, without acknowledgment, it’s really hard to move forward.”
The committee's investigation has been remarkably bipartisan at many moments, with Democrats and Republicans joining to issue subpoenas and force witness testimony. Besides Bondi, lawmakers have interviewed former Democratic President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.
That effort shows lawmakers are willing to cross political lines when there is overwhelming public pressure to act. Dozens of women have accused Epstein, a wealthy and well-connected financier, of sexual abuse and rape, including in the years after he reached a deal with federal prosecutors in 2008 to dispose of a federal investigation in exchange for pleading guilty to state level sex offense charges in Florida.
Epstein, who was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges, was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them.
His case has captured the public imagination as an example of how the rich and powerful escape accountability for wrongdoing. Lawmakers took up the cause last year after the administration failed to meet promises to provide transparency on the case.
Despite the investigation originating in the United States, the reckoning over Epstein has been relatively mild in the country compared with Europe. There, senior figures in governments including the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway and Slovakia have all been forced to step down over their ties to Epstein.
In its investigation, the House committee spoke to some of Epstein’s closest associates, including his former financial client Les Wexner, his lawyer Darren Indyke and his accountant Richard Kahn. The Clintons, Lutnick and others were also called to testify.
All have said more or less the same thing: They knew nothing about Epstein abusing underage girls.
Still, the release of Epstein files has had consequences. At least eight American academic and business figures have been forced from positions of power, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers from teaching at Harvard University and Kathy Ruemmler from her post as the chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs.
Bank of America and Epstein’s estate have reached multimillion-dollar settlements with women who have accused the institutions of facilitating Epstein’s sex-trafficking operations.
Comer, R-Ky., said last week that the names of three people allegedly involved in abuse had come up in an interview with Epstein’s former personal assistant, Sarah Kellen. The congresswoman plans to interview six more people with connections to Epstein in the coming weeks, including billionaire Bill Gates, private equity investor Leon Black, the former CEO of Barclays Bank Jes Staley and Ruemmler.
“The government has failed the survivors. There’s no doubt about that," Comer said, adding, "What we’re trying to do is connect all the dots and see if there is a way to hold people accountable.”
But it has stung lawmakers to see a reckoning over Epstein for figures such as Britain’s former Prince Andrew at time when the administration has tried repeatedly to move past the issue.
“A prince has been taken down and here in the United States, our Department of Justice, which is sitting on millions of files, is refusing to act,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., pointing to unreleased case files that the Justice Department is withholding on the grounds that they are duplicative or illegal to make public.
“That is not a failure, that is a choice,” Stansbury said.
Survivors and Democratic lawmakers have also taken issue with the administration's decision to move Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant and former girlfriend, to a minimum-security prison camp. She is serving a 20-year sentence for luring teenage girls for Epstein to abuse.
Scattered across the country and busy with lives of their own, survivors of Epstein's abuse have made repeated trips to Washington to push for government action. After years of fighting in court and sharing traumatic stories privately, they have become increasingly outspoken in their quest for accountability.
“It is very taxing to be continually focused on this case,” Farmer said. She added that even if the government's response has not met her hopes, she has seen a wider cultural movement to address sexual predation.
To Marina Lacerda, another survivor, “Accountability is kind of hard right now. But we are looking for saving the next generation."
But they also want the administration to listen to their stories. Pressing for the president's ear, several victims spoke this month at a hearing just miles away from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that was organized by Democrats on the House committee.
For some of the survivors, the return to South Florida was also an opportunity to finally be heard. Jena-Lisa Jones told the panel that she was 14 years old when she was abused by Epstein in Palm Beach.
She implored the lawmakers: “Find a way to bring closure to the story of Jeffrey Epstein to allow survivors and this country to finally begin to move forward so that one day, and I pray soon, Jeffrey Epstein’s name is no longer something we are forced to hear every single day.”
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi, center, arrives for her deposition at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, Friday, May 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Victims of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, from left, Liz Stein, Dani Bensky, Sharlene Rochard, Marina Lacerda and Andrea Sterling, are seen before former Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives for her deposition at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, Friday, May 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Ceneta)
