On September 10, 2025, the Senate had a chance to force the Justice Department to release everything it has on Jeffrey Epstein.

Chuck Schumer offered an amendment to the defense bill directing the Attorney General to make the Epstein documents public. Republican leadership moved to table it — the procedural way of killing something without voting on it directly.

The motion to table passed 51-49. Two Republicans, Rand Paul and Josh Hawley, broke ranks and voted to let the amendment live.

Dan Sullivan voted to table. So did Lisa Murkowski. You can read the roll call yourself — the vote is right there, one name per line.

Two votes the other way and the files would be public.

Then the checks came

Months later, money showed up in Sullivan's campaign accounts from two men whose names are in the Epstein record.

Henry Kravis — the billionaire co-founder of KKR — gave $8,500 to Sullivan Victory on April 1, 2026. That's not a claim from a press release; it's in the FEC's own database. Kravis appears in Epstein's so-called "little black book" of contacts. No one has ever alleged wrongdoing by Kravis in connection with the Epstein case, and that's worth stating plainly.

Howard Lorber gave $693 to Alaskans for Dan Sullivan on June 28, 2026, according to campaign finance records reviewed by MeidasTouch. Lorber's connection is more direct than a name in a book. He shows up in the released Epstein files by email.

In one of them, Epstein pitched an unidentified assistant on assembling a "war council" of Trump allies to handle the fallout from the Mueller investigation:

"I assume you are still close to Ivanka. If so, there are a few of his heavy-hitter friends that would like to help (me not included, of course). I think a war council. Schwartzman, Wynn, Rudy, Lorber, Lefrak, you, Barrack, should be called in to give suggestions."

In a November 2016 email, Epstein called Lorber a "best bet." An October 2017 email chain with the subject line "Jeffrey Epstein" has an associate saying he'd call Lorber to check whether something was "ok with JEE."

Every one of those exchanges came after Epstein's 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from a girl under 18.

Nobody is saying the vote was bought

Let's be precise, because precision matters here and the loose version of this story is worse than the accurate one.

There is no evidence anyone paid Dan Sullivan to vote a particular way. Kravis gives to a great many Republicans — the same FEC records show April 2026 checks to committees supporting Tom Cotton, Jon Husted, Ashley Moody, and others. This is what a big donor's calendar looks like.

The problem isn't a bribe. The problem is a system that works exactly like this in the open.

A senator votes to keep a set of documents sealed. Some of the people named in those documents are extremely wealthy. Those people fund the party that keeps them sealed. Nobody has to say anything to anybody. The incentives do the talking.

Sullivan's own funding profile shows how thoroughly he lives in that world: 76% of his money comes from outside Alaska, from donors like Goldman Sachs, Apollo Global Management, and General Atomics. Alaska sends him to Washington. New York and Washington pay for the campaign.

He is hard to ask about it

Sullivan is not shy about talking. He is shy about being asked.

In March 2025, Anchorage constituents organized a town hall. It was well attended, aside from the elected officials, who didn't come. That's the pattern: he'll take the meeting when it's a fundraiser, not when it's a room full of Alaskans with questions.

The simple version

Sullivan had a chance to make the files public. He voted to kill it, and the motion to kill it carried by two votes.

Afterward, money came in from two men who appear in the very records he voted to keep sealed. That is not illegal. It is not even unusual.

That's the part Alaskans should sit with. It's not unusual — and Sullivan is asking for a third term anyway.

Source

Troy Matthews, "Dan Sullivan Received Campaign Donations From Epstein Associates After Voting to Block Release of the Files", MeidasTouch News, July 31, 2026. Roll call and donation figures independently checked against Senate.gov and FEC records.