Plaskett avoids censure over Epstein texts

Justin Papp, CQ-Roll Call on Nov 19, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Del. Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands narrowly avoided being censured and stripped of her position on the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday over her correspondence with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The censure attempt, introduced by Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., came after documents from Epstein’s estate released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee showed that Plaskett was apparently texting with Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing.

The House voted 209-214, rejecting the resolution. Three Republicans joined Democrats to vote down the censure: Don Bacon of Nebraska, Lance Gooden of Texas and David Joyce of Ohio. Three Republicans also voted “present.”

“What we learned from the documents released by Jeffrey Epstein’s estate is nothing short of alarming,” Norman said from the House floor on Tuesday. “Those documents show that Del. Stacey Plaskett, a sitting member of Congress, coordinated her questioning during an official oversight hearing with a man who is a convicted sex offender. A man whose crimes against minors shocked this entire nation.”

Plaskett, speaking on the floor Tuesday, said Epstein was her constituent and that it was not public knowledge that he was under federal investigation at the time. She denied that she needed advice from Epstein on how to question the witness at the hearing, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen.

“They’ve taken a text exchange … and weaponized it for political theater,” Plaskett, a Democrat, said.

The censure effort coincided with the congressional approval of a bill seeking to compel the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.

For most of this year, Trump, a onetime friend of Epstein’s, and his allies fought to keep documents held by the Justice Department under wraps despite a push among the House rank-and-file to circumvent leadership and force a vote on the issue, but the president changed course and threw his weight behind the proposal this week.

While Democrats have hammered Trump for his past association with Epstein, Republicans have countered by focusing on the Democratic names that have also turned up among the late financier’s contacts.

Plaskett, for one, came under fire after his 2019 arrest for initially refusing to return contributions he made to her campaign. She ultimately donated the funds to charity, Plaskett said. Epstein owned a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands that victims have alleged was a base for his trafficking of underage girls.

Democrats argued Tuesday’s censure attempt was a distraction.

“We’re here today on the floor to support the complete disclosure of information related to Jeffrey Epstein and his billion-dollar international child sex trafficking ring,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. “This resolution has nothing to do with that. This seems to me to be one more pathetic effort to distract and divert attention from the fact that the president’s name appeared more than 1,000 times already in the small fraction of material released on Epstein.”

Censure was once rare in the House and in many cases amounts to a public shaming. But recently Democrats and Republicans have traded more frequent attempts in a partisan tit for tat.

On Tuesday evening, Rep. Yvette D. Clarke, D-N.Y., continued that pattern by renewing a censure effort aimed at Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., which did not come to a vote. Clarke’s censure resolution cites a litany of recent ethics questions and allegations that have dogged Mills, who has been accused of threatening to circulate sexual images of an ex, among other things. Mills has denied those claims.

And the House also saw an intraparty battle earlier in the day over a disapproval resolution introduced by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, D-Wash., that targeted fellow Democratic Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, D-Ill., over how he announced his retirement. Ultimately, 23 Democrats joined Republicans in disapproving of his conduct.

Some members have also been stripped of their committee assignments in recent years. The House voted along party lines in 2023 to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for allegedly making antisemitic comments. And in 2021, 11 Republicans joined Democrats to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., of her committee assignments over past inflammatory statements.

Earlier on Tuesday the House rejected a Democratic motion to refer the Plaskett censure to the House Ethics Committee on a 213-214 vote.