--- alias: - Benjamin Sasse - Benjamin Eric Sasse - Senator Ben Sasse born: 1972-02-22 category: Political Figure created: 2026-09-25 location: Nebraska relations: - fn: 3 role: chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts type: member_of with: '[[Senate Judiciary Committee]]' - fn: 4 role: trustee type: director_of with: '[[In-Q-Tel]]' summary: Nebraska Republican senator from 2015 to 2023 whose 2018 letters prompted the Justice Department's internal review of the Epstein non-prosecution agreement, later a paid trustee of the CIA-founded In-Q-Tel. tags: - Person - BenSasse - UnitedStatesSenate - SenateJudiciaryCommittee - JeffreyEpstein - OfficeOfProfessionalResponsibility - InQTel updated: 2026-09-25 --- Benjamin Eric Sasse (born February 22, 1972) is a former Republican senator from Nebraska who served in the United States Senate from January 6, 2015 until his resignation on January 8, 2023. As a member of the [Senate Judiciary Committee](/organizations/senate-judiciary-committee/) he wrote on December 3, 2018 to the [Department of Justice](/organizations/department-of-justice/) asking its [Office of Professional Responsibility](/organizations/office-of-professional-responsibility/) to investigate the prosecutors who negotiated [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/)'s 2007 [non-prosecution agreement](/events/epstein-non-prosecution-agreement/), and the office opened that investigation on February 6, 2019. Two days after Epstein's death in August 2019 his subcommittee sent the Attorney General a letter on the circumstances. [In-Q-Tel](/organizations/in-q-tel/), the venture capital corporation founded by the [Central Intelligence Agency](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/), lists him as a paid trustee on its Form 990 for the fiscal year ending March 2025.[^1][^2][^3][^4] ### The 2018 Letters and the OPR Investigation The [Miami Herald](/organizations/miami-herald/) began publishing [Julie K. Brown](/people/julie-k-brown/)'s series on the Epstein case on November 28, 2018. On December 3 Sasse wrote to the Office of Professional Responsibility asking it to "open an investigation into the instances identified in this reporting of possible misconduct by Department of Justice attorneys." On February 6, 2019 the department's Office of Legislative Affairs told his office that the investigation had been opened. His press release that day, headed "DOJ Responds to Sasse, Opens Epstein Investigation," identified him as "a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee" and quoted him: "Jeffrey Epstein is a child rapist and there's not a single mom or dad in America who shouldn't be horrified by the fact that he received a pathetically soft sentence. The victims of Epstein's child sex trafficking ring deserve this investigation, and so do the American people and the members of law enforcement who work to put these kinds of monsters behind bars."[^2][^5] The office's report of November 2020 found that the former U.S. Attorney [Alexander Acosta](/people/alexander-acosta/) "exercised poor judgment" in resolving the federal investigation through the agreement and found no professional misconduct by him or by the other subjects, who included [Drew Oosterbaan](/people/drew-oosterbaan/) of the Criminal Division.[^5][^6] ### The August 2019 Letter The Justice Department's Executive Secretariat logged as received on August 12, 2019, two days after Epstein was found dead in the [Metropolitan Correctional Center](/places/metropolitan-correctional-center-new-york/), a congressional-priority letter "FROM: The Honorable Ben Sasse, United States Senate ... TO: AG," described as a "Ltr from Chmn Sasse, Subcomte on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts, requesting information regarding the apparent suicide of Jeffrey Epstein...while being held in Federal Bureau of Prisons custody." The control sheet assigned the reply to the Office of Legislative Affairs and routed copies for information to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the [Federal Bureau of Investigation](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/), the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.[^3] ### In-Q-Tel In-Q-Tel's Form 990 for the fiscal year ending March 2025 lists "B Sasse (Trustee)" with compensation of 35,000 dollars, alongside Admiral Mike Mullen, Ted Schlein and Stephanie O'Sullivan, formerly the CIA's director of science and technology, at the same figure. The corporation's filings from 2018 onward list trustees who have included the former CIA director George Tenet and the former CIA deputy director for intelligence Jami Miscik.[^4][^7] [^1]: unitedstates/congress-legislators project, legislators-historical.json (birth date and Senate terms, compiled from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress), accessed September 25, 2026. https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-historical.json [^2]: Office of Senator Ben Sasse, "DOJ Responds to Sasse, Opens Epstein Investigation," press release, February 6, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20221110180105/https://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2019/2/doj-responds-to-sasse-opens-epstein-investigation [^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00175125, DataSet 9, Executive Secretariat control sheet, Workflow ID 431394P, received August 12, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00175125.pdf [^4]: In-Q-Tel, Inc., Internal Revenue Service Form 990, fiscal year ending March 2025, Part VII compensation of officers, directors and trustees, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 52-2149962. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/522149962 [^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA02847284, Prior DOJ Disclosures, report, Office of Professional Responsibility, "Investigation into the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida's Resolution of Its 2006-2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation," November 2020, Executive Summary pp. v to vii and n. 6. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/Prior%20DOJ%20Disclosures/Memos.%20&%20Correspondence/EFTA02847284.pdf [^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, report of November 2020, Chapter V, filed as Document 204-3, United States v. Maxwell, No. 1:20-cr-00330 (S.D.N.Y.). https://web.archive.org/web/20260117012446/https://www.justice.gov/multimedia/Court%20Records/United%20States%20v.%20Maxwell,%20No.%20120-cr-00330%20(S.D.N.Y.%202020)/204-03.pdf [^7]: In-Q-Tel, Inc., Internal Revenue Service Form 990, fiscal years 2011 to 2025, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/522149962