Comer

WASHINGTON — Rep. Robert Garcia and his team faced a monumental task on Nov. 5: Sift through more than 20,000 documents obtained from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein in search for something that would shed more light into President Trump’s relationship with the now-deceased convicted sex offender.

After six tedious days combing through the records, Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and four staff members identified three emails that would go on to ignite a political firestorm.

In the emails, Epstein wrote that Trump had “spent hours” at the late financier’s house with one of his victims and that he “knew about the girls,” suggesting the president knew more about Epstein’s abuse than he had previously acknowledged. The estate released the emails to the committee after receiving a subpoena.

“We thought [the emails] really raised questions about the relationship between the president and Jeffrey Epstein,” Garcia said in an interview last week. “We knew we had to get those out as soon as possible.”

Garcia’s plan to release the emails quickly thrust the second-term Democrat into the national spotlight, elevating his profile as a chief antagonist of Trump on a issue that has dogged the president since his first term. It also increased the pressure on the White House to release its investigative Epstein files.

The assertions in Epstein’s emails about Trump’s involvement or awareness of Epstein’s illicit acts have not been corroborated and the White House has denied the veracity of those accounts.

The White House accused Democrats of “selectively” leaking emails to create a “fake narrative to smear President Trump,” adding that Democrats redacted the name of one of the victims, Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April and had previously said she had not witnessed Trump participating in abuse at Epstein’s house.

The email disclosures on Nov. 12 prompted Republicans on the committee to publish the full cache of records just hours later. At the same time, Democrats — joined by a handful of Republicans — were on the verge of forcing a House vote to compel the Justice Department to release its Epstein files. Days later, Trump urged GOP lawmakers to back the bill he had long resisted, and he ultimately signed it into law.

“If we hadn’t released the initial emails, Republicans would likely have released nothing,” Garcia said. “They never release anything until we push them and we bring pressure from the public.”

Garcia said Democrats were prepared to publish the full set themselves — but incrementally over the course of the week, arguing that such a release needed to be done carefully to protect victims’ privacy.

Republicans on the committee have criticized the minority party’s approach, arguing that it focuses on sensationalizing select pieces of information to damage Trump and politicizing the Epstein investigation.

“The most dangerous place in D.C. is between Robert Garcia and a cable news camera,” Republican strategist Matthew Gorman said. “This is simply a ploy for him to draw more attention to himself, and he’s using this issue to do it.”

‘Sometimes you gotta punch back harder’

Garcia’s allies view the 47-year-old’s rise as both foreseeable and reflective of his past.

Born in Peru, Garcia immigrated to the United States as a young child and became a citizen in his early 20s. He later became Long Beach’s first Latino and first openly gay mayor before arriving in Washington — where he is now one of the youngest to ever serve as the ranking member of the main investigative panel in the House.

Five months into the role, Garcia says he remains in disbelief that he is in the position that has been held by people like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), whom he considers one of his “heroes.”

“To be in a place where I’m doing the job that he was in when I got to Congress a couple of years ago is not something that I expected,” Garcia said. “I want to contribute back as best I can, and take on this corruption, take on what is happening with the Jeffrey Epstein case and holding the administration accountable.”

The oversight committee is one of the House’s most high-profile panels and its chair, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, has broad subpoena power. Comer, a staunch Trump ally, has been leading a review of the government’s investigation into Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Comer has subpoenaed both the Epstein estate and the Justice Department.

Comer declined to be interviewed for this article, as did other House Republicans. But Comer told Politico last week that he was “done with Garcia” and that the Democrat had “burned his bridges with this.”

“He just needs to do TikTok videos or something. … He’s not a serious investigator. He’s like a TikTok video kind of guy,” Comer said.

Garcia responded to Comer’s comments with a reference to the movie “Mean Girls.”

“Why’s he so obsessed with me?” he said Wednesday in an Instagram post — an example of how Garcia often uses pop culture to communicate to a more general audience.

Garcia says his tactics are motivated by an allergy to bullies.

“I grew up as an immigrant kid. … I know what it is like to be on the other side of the bully,” he said. “If the bully is going to punch or cause harm to you or others that you care about, you have to punch back. Sometimes you gotta punch back harder.”

Democrats credit Garcia for pushing Comer to act. In July, a Republican-led subcommittee passed a Democrat-led motion to subpoena the Justice Department’s Epstein documents — a move that ultimately prompted Comer to issue his subpoenas.

Rep. Robert Garcia speaks at a ceremonial swearing-in event in Long Beach in August to commemorate his new role as ranking member of the House oversight committee.

(Jonathan Alcorn / For The Times)

Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, said the vote “began knocking over the dominoes” that eventually led to the public seeing a copy of Epstein’s “50th birthday book,” which includes Trump’s name, as well as the three emails linking Trump to Epstein.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), a member of the oversight committee, praised Garcia for securing bipartisan support to secure documents and pushing records out to the public. Khanna, who led the push to force a vote on the House floor to demand the Justice Department release the Epstein files, also co-wrote a letter with Garcia to Epstein’s estate requesting an unredacted copy of the birthday book.

Attorneys for the estate said that they would cooperate, but that they required a subpoena to release materials due to privacy concerns. Khanna said he believes the letter set in motion the push that ultimately led Comer to subpoena the estate.

“I think the way he has worked with Comer to make sure a lot of the investigation has been bipartisan, has been effective,” Khanna said in an interview.

A ‘dynamic’ approach to oversight

Garcia — who is known to use social media and pop culture to amplify his message — has folded those communication tactics into his role on the oversight committee.

The day the emails were released, Garcia promoted them in social media posts and videos and gave multiple interviews. The congressman — a self-described Bravo fan — is scheduled to appear this week on the cable channel’s “What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) told The Times that Garcia’s “dynamic” leadership approach is creating new ways to communicate to a younger generation about the work Congress is doing.

“He seems to thrive on it, and that’s a joy to behold,” the former speaker said. “He is young, but has brought members along and the public along as to what the challenge is.”

Rep. Robert Garcia speaks with Mayor Karen Bass at a congressional field hearing at the Metropolitan Water District on Monday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Republicans on the committee have accused Garcia and Democrats of intentionally using the Epstein investigation to generate a false narrative against Trump — criticism that Democrats see as Garcia being willing to “fight fire with fire.”

Sen. Adam Schiff, who served on the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Garcia’s push to seek records “outside of traditional channels,” including the Epstein estate, helped drive a “public narrative that broke through.”

“Under such a lawless and corrupt administration, we need talented and creative leaders to do oversight work, expose the malfeasance to the public and break through in a fractured media environment, and Congressman Garcia has proven adept at all three,” Schiff said.

Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump administration appointee, said Garcia’s strategy could backfire if or when all the information on the Epstein investigation comes out.

“I believe that they’ve sprung Pandora’s box with a whole bunch of conspiracy theories, fake memes and news that the left is fully embracing and that may not actually be real,” he said.

As more records from Epstein’s estate are expected to come to light in the coming weeks, Garcia says he is committed to exposing wrongdoing from anyone, regardless of party. The documents have already shown Epstein’s links to prominent Democrats.

The records have also shown links to major banks, a thread Garcia says he believes could be central in understanding Epstein’s plea deal negotiated by a prosecutor who served in Trump’s Cabinet during his first term.

“I am not interested in protecting anybody,” he said. “I’m interested in justice for the survivors.”

Serious financial woes have plagued the Palm Springs Art Museum for at least six years, according to internal documents obtained by The Times. Recent developments have opened a Pandora’s box.

On Jan. 15, the accounting firm conducting the annual audit of the museum’s 2024 books attached to its report a “letter of material weakness,” a standard accounting practice for alerting a client to the reasonable possibility that its internal financial statements are significantly out of whack.

Less than three months after the audit letter, in early April, the museum’s director suddenly resigned, and trustee defections began. A cascade of at least eight resignations from the museum’s board of trustees — nearly one-third of its membership — has occurred since spring. One resignation came on the advice of the trustee’s attorney. With 19 trustees remaining, according to a listing on the museum’s website, the total number has fallen below the minimum of 20 required in the museum’s by-laws.

Palm Springs Art Museum board chair Craig Hartzman did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Accountants at Eide Bailly, citing a “deficiency in internal control” at the museum, highlighted six areas of concern, including problems with reporting of endowment spending, improper recording of the market value of donated and deaccessioned art, and faulty recording of admissions revenues.

Former museum director Adam Lerner had reportedly been negotiating a three-year contract renewal when he stepped down. Without elaborating on his unexpected decision to depart, he was cited in a museum press release as leaving for personal reasons. Lerner returned to Colorado, where he previously headed the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver.

Reached by text, Lerner declined a request for interview, referring questions to the museum.

Financial problems at PSAM are not new. According to six pages of notes obtained by The Times, compiled by a trustee who led a task force charged with examining museum finances, the ending statement on the 2019 endowment balance was $3 million higher than the beginning balance on the 2020 statement. Audits and tax returns posted on the museum website confirm the puzzling discrepancy.

The notes say it is “highly unlikely” the funds were stolen. Instead, they question internal museum accounting practices, which can create a misleading appearance of fiscal health. By the 2021 audit, the outside accounting firm that had been preparing them annually prior to Eide Bailly had quit.

“This is always a red flag,” wrote museum trustee Kevin Comer, an art collector who retired after 30 years as a managing director at Deutsche Bank in New York, and who is a former professor of accounting and fiduciary management techniques at the Ohio State University. A trustee for less than two years, Comer resigned Nov. 6.

Reached by telephone, Comer declined to discuss the accounting firm’s letter or the task force notes.

Palm Springs Art Museum

(Guillaume Goureau/Palm Springs Art Museum)

Since late July, a lengthy anonymous email has also been circulating from a self-described “whistleblower with a direct relationship” to the Palm Springs Art Museum. Fourteen itemized complaints, most concerning fiscal matters, are presented with sobriety, plus a slow burn of understandable anger. Whether or not the unidentified whistle blower has an ax to grind is unknown to me, but plainly the email is not a list of wild accusations hurled by an unreliable gadfly.

The coherent level of informed specificity certainly suggests authorship by a knowledgeable insider. Some stated grievances may have benign explanations, while others are troubling.

Comer pulled few punches in his own letter of resignation to fellow trustees, also obtained by The Times. The fiduciary expert, a former member of the board’s finance committee, said he was resigning on the advice of his attorney.

The board, Comer alleged, is sidestepping the fundamental fiduciary obligation to protect “the integrity of the museum, despite our best intentions.” The letter urges hiring both a law firm and a forensic accounting firm to review museum finances, partly to untangle apparently inappropriate methods in the past for the benefit of the current board, and partly to address potential liability.

An earlier task force suggestion to that effect was discussed by the board but went unheeded, he charges.

Especially concerning is a 2019 reclassification of some restricted funds. Task force notes suggest the $3-million discrepancy between 2019 and 2020 may have originated as a change in restricted funds to unrestricted status. Assets specifically donated for a particular function could then appear to be available for general operating purposes.

The museum consistently operated at a loss, the notes say, with some operating shortfalls covered by the 2019 reclassification. A deficit is not unusual for an art museum, but whether the reclassifications of some restricted funds were appropriate appears to be in doubt. Presumably, funds reclassified as unrestricted at the end of one year to make the financial filing look good may have had their restricted status restored at the start of the next year.

Restricted funds can include money raised through the deaccession and sale of art donated to a museum’s collection. Common museum ethical standards require income from deaccessioned art to be sequestered, used only for other art purchases, as well as for direct care of the collection. For accounting purposes, the monetary value of a nonprofit museum’s art collection is not considered a material asset to be carried on the books. Reclassification of sequestered art funds could support an appearance of general financial vigor.

During the lengthy 2020 pandemic closure, the cash-strapped museum made the controversial decision to deaccession and then sell a prized 1974 Helen Frankenthaler painting, which brought $4.7 million at auction. The 2024 audit puts total donor restricted funds for art purchases and collection maintenance at $7.8 million.

To pay the bills the museum has also been drawing down the endowment. According to the 2024 audit, the most recent financial statement currently available, the endowment is slightly more than $17 million — extremely small for a museum that last year had an operating budget of approximately $10.5 million.

“Endowment draws over the past decade totaled roughly $8 million, and contributions to the endowment totaled roughly $500,000,” the notes report. “Most years the museum operated at a loss, including for the last three years when the board believed we were profitable,” it states.

Such a disproportion between fundraising and expenditure, between money coming in and money going out, is frankly unsustainable for this — or any — art museum, especially when inflation is factored in.

The endowment is a nonprofit’s “seed corn,” eaten for short-term gain only at its long-term peril. Most disturbing: The notes suggest that while the five-person executive committee may have been aware of some of the situation’s more difficult details, the rest of the board appears not to have been fully informed of the museum’s financial position
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“Bottom line,” Comer’s resignation letter astutely observes, “this is a leadership group that doesn’t know what it doesn’t know, and that is the most dangerous place in which an institution can be placed.”

The Palm Springs Art Museum has apparently wedged itself firmly between a rock and a hard place. Now, it is unclear how the museum can move forward without a full cohort of 20 trustees authorized to vote on making essential decisions — including accepting new members to the board.