Casey Wasserman, chairman of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics organising committee, is going into the US midterm elections eight days from now with a Democratic Party that has made the Epstein files a central campaign issue and promised fresh congressional probes if it flips the House.

Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told Bloomberg that any investigation would be near the top of the Democratic agenda.

“The Epstein investigation is going to be one of our top priorities,” he said.

Oversight is the panel that would run such hearings, and the Justice Department’s handling of its files sits inside its jurisdiction. Garcia also said the party intended to push for further releases: “The country wants disclosure, they want release of the files and they want justice for the survivors.”

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How Wasserman landed in the files

The Justice Department released Epstein-related documents on 30 January 2026 that included email correspondence between Wasserman and Ghislaine Maxwell from 2003. One message from Wasserman to Maxwell read “I think of you all the time,” NBC News reported.

Wasserman has not been accused of wrongdoing. He has said the exchanges took place long before Maxwell’s crimes came to light and that he had no personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse underage girls.

The LA28 executive committee ordered an external review by law firm O’Melveny & Myers and concluded that his connections had not gone beyond what was already public.

“Mr. Wasserman should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful Games,” the board said in its statement.

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Wasserman refuses to step aside

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass broke publicly with that decision in a 17 February CNN interview, calling the committee’s choice “unfortunate” and arguing the leadership needed a fresh look, as reported by Fox News.

Wasserman faced the question himself at a press conference in downtown Los Angeles in early June. Asked whether he had considered stepping aside and whether he had spoken to Bass since her comments, he answered “No and yes,” according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

On the mayor, he added: “Look, I talk to the mayor weekly, if not more frequently, and our conversations are between us.”

The commercial side of his business has already moved. Clients including Chappell Roan and Abby Wambach left his talent agency after the January release, and Wasserman announced plans to sell the firm.

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$35 million worth of political heat

Epstein has become the most expensive attack theme of the 2026 cycle. More than 160 Epstein-related ads, backed by over $35 million in airtime, have run across the campaign, CNN reported on 9 October. Democrats were behind roughly 90 percent of them, with Senator Jon Ossoff’s re-election fight in Georgia pulling in more than $10 million of the total.

US voters go to the polls on Tuesday, 3 November. A Democratic House takeover would hand the gavel of the Oversight Committee to Garcia.

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