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Tag: files

  • These aren’t real photos of Mamdani as a child with Epstein

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    Social media posts claim to show photos of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a child, along with his mother Mira Nair, attending multiple events with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But the images aren’t real. 

    American actor Michael Rapaport posted a picture on X showing Nair, a filmmaker, holding a baby and standing next to former President Bill Clinton and Epstein in what looks like a tropical setting. 

    “Mira Nair holding her baby Zohran Mamdani with Bill and Epstein,” Rapaport wrote Jan. 31. “Yeah….read that again….”

    Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones shared another image Feb. 1 on X of what appeared to be Mamdani as a child posing with Nair, Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein, Clinton, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

    Other X users also shared multiple images of Mamdani as a child supposedly attending Epstein’s events.

    (Screenshot of X post)

    The images went viral online after the Department of Justice released millions of more documents related to the Epstein files. The files include a 2009 email that says Nair attended an after-party for the film Amelia, which she directed. The party was held at Maxwell’s Manhattan townhouse.

    Mamdani was born in 1991 and the email is from 2009, so if Mamdani had attended the party with his mother, he would have been about 18 years old at the time, not a child as the images claim to show.

    PolitiFact found that the images of Nair with Mamdani as a child and Epstein were generated with artificial intelligence. 

    The photos originated on a parody account known as “DFF,” which describes itself on X as sharing “high quality AI videos and memes.”

    The account shared the fake photos Jan. 31 and all of them had a “DFF” watermark. It also admitted one of the images was fake, saying, “Damn you guys failed. I purposely made him a baby which would technically make this pic 34 years old. Yikes.”

    (Screenshot of AI-images with DFF watermarks)

    PolitiFact uploaded the three images shared by DFF to Gemini, Google’s AI tool. It found the images contain the SynthID watermark for images created or edited by the tool. It’s not visible looking at the images, but Google’s technology can detect it.

    We rate the claim that images shared on X are real photos of Mamdani as a child with his mother and Epstein Pants on Fire! 

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  • At least 16 files have disappeared from the DOJ webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein

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    At least 16 files disappeared from the Justice Department’s public webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — including a photograph showing President Donald Trump — less than a day after they were posted, with no explanation from the government and no notice to the public.Related video above: Justice Department’s partial release of Epstein files frustrates lawmakersThe missing files, which were available Friday and no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.The Justice Department didn’t answer questions Saturday about why the files disappeared but said in a post on X that “photos and other materials will continue being reviewed and redacted consistent with the law in an abundance of caution as we receive additional information.”Online, the unexplained missing files fueled speculation about what was taken down and why the public was not notified, compounding long-standing intrigue about Epstein and the powerful figures who surrounded him. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee pointed to the missing image featuring a Trump photo in a post on X, writing: “What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.”The episode deepened concerns that had already emerged from the Justice Department’s much-anticipated document release. The tens of thousands of pages made public offered little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years, while omitting some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal Justice Department memos on charging decisions.Scant new insight in the initial disclosuresSome of the most consequential records expected about Epstein are nowhere to be found in the Justice Department’s initial disclosures, which span tens of thousands of pages.Missing are FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions — records that could have helped explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.The gaps go further.The records, required to be released under a recent law passed by Congress, hardly reference several powerful figures long associated with Epstein, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew, renewing questions about who was scrutinized, who was not, and how much the disclosures truly advance public accountabilityAmong the fresh nuggets: insight into the Justice Department’s decision to abandon an investigation into Epstein in the 2000s, which enabled him to plead guilty to that state-level charge, and a previously unseen 1996 complaint accusing Epstein of stealing photographs of children.The releases so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York City and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with some photos of celebrities and politicians.There was a series of never-before-seen photos of former President Bill Clinton, but fleetingly few of Trump. Both have been associated with Epstein, but both have since disowned those friendships. Neither has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and there was no indication the photos played a role in the criminal cases brought against him.Despite a Friday deadline set by Congress to make everything public, the Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring survivors’ names and other identifying information. The department has not given any notice when more records might arrive.That approach angered some Epstein accusers and members of Congress, who fought to pass the law forcing the department to act. Instead of marking the end of a yearslong battle for transparency, the document release Friday was merely the beginning of an indefinite wait for a complete picture of Epstein’s crimes and the steps taken to investigate them.”I feel like again the DOJ, the justice system is failing us,” said Marina Lacerda, who alleges Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York City mansion when she was 14.Many of the long-anticipated records were redacted or lacked contextFederal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.The documents just made public were a sliver of potentially millions of pages of records in the department’s possession. In one example, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Manhattan federal prosecutors had more than 3.6 million records from sex trafficking investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, though many duplicated material already turned over by the FBI.Many of the records released so far had been made public in court filings, congressional releases, or Freedom of Information Act requests, though, for the first time, they were all in one place and available for the public to search for free.Ones that were new were often lacking necessary context or heavily blacked out. A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY,” likely from one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021, was entirely blacked out.Trump’s Republican allies seized on the Clinton images, including photos of the Democrat with singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, and even Epstein with TV newscaster Walter Cronkite. But none of the photos had captions, and no explanation was given for why any of them were together.The meatiest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007, yet never charged him.Transcripts of grand jury proceedings, released publicly for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 and in ninth grade.One had told investigators about being sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.Another, then 21, testified before the grand jury about how Epstein had hired her when she was 16 to perform a sexual massage and how she had gone on to recruit other girls to do the same.”For every girl that I brought to the table, he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them that if they are underage, just lie about it and tell him that you are 18.”The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers did more than a decade later with the U.S. attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.Acosta, who was labor secretary during Trump’s first term, cited concerns about whether a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal border between sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, something more commonly handled by state prosecutors.”I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that the public today would likely view the survivors differently.”There’s been a lot of changes in victim shaming,” Acosta said.Associated Press journalists Ali Swenson, Christopher L. Keller, Aaron Kessler and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

    NEW YORK (AP) —

    At least 16 files disappeared from the Justice Department’s public webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — including a photograph showing President Donald Trump — less than a day after they were posted, with no explanation from the government and no notice to the public.

    Related video above: Justice Department’s partial release of Epstein files frustrates lawmakers

    The missing files, which were available Friday and no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

    The Justice Department didn’t answer questions Saturday about why the files disappeared but said in a post on X that “photos and other materials will continue being reviewed and redacted consistent with the law in an abundance of caution as we receive additional information.”

    Online, the unexplained missing files fueled speculation about what was taken down and why the public was not notified, compounding long-standing intrigue about Epstein and the powerful figures who surrounded him. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee pointed to the missing image featuring a Trump photo in a post on X, writing: “What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.”

    The episode deepened concerns that had already emerged from the Justice Department’s much-anticipated document release. The tens of thousands of pages made public offered little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years, while omitting some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal Justice Department memos on charging decisions.

    Scant new insight in the initial disclosures

    Some of the most consequential records expected about Epstein are nowhere to be found in the Justice Department’s initial disclosures, which span tens of thousands of pages.

    Missing are FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions — records that could have helped explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.

    The gaps go further.

    The records, required to be released under a recent law passed by Congress, hardly reference several powerful figures long associated with Epstein, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew, renewing questions about who was scrutinized, who was not, and how much the disclosures truly advance public accountability

    Among the fresh nuggets: insight into the Justice Department’s decision to abandon an investigation into Epstein in the 2000s, which enabled him to plead guilty to that state-level charge, and a previously unseen 1996 complaint accusing Epstein of stealing photographs of children.

    The releases so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York City and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with some photos of celebrities and politicians.

    There was a series of never-before-seen photos of former President Bill Clinton, but fleetingly few of Trump. Both have been associated with Epstein, but both have since disowned those friendships. Neither has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and there was no indication the photos played a role in the criminal cases brought against him.

    Despite a Friday deadline set by Congress to make everything public, the Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring survivors’ names and other identifying information. The department has not given any notice when more records might arrive.

    That approach angered some Epstein accusers and members of Congress, who fought to pass the law forcing the department to act. Instead of marking the end of a yearslong battle for transparency, the document release Friday was merely the beginning of an indefinite wait for a complete picture of Epstein’s crimes and the steps taken to investigate them.

    “I feel like again the DOJ, the justice system is failing us,” said Marina Lacerda, who alleges Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York City mansion when she was 14.

    Many of the long-anticipated records were redacted or lacked context

    Federal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.

    The documents just made public were a sliver of potentially millions of pages of records in the department’s possession. In one example, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Manhattan federal prosecutors had more than 3.6 million records from sex trafficking investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, though many duplicated material already turned over by the FBI.

    Many of the records released so far had been made public in court filings, congressional releases, or Freedom of Information Act requests, though, for the first time, they were all in one place and available for the public to search for free.

    Ones that were new were often lacking necessary context or heavily blacked out. A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY,” likely from one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021, was entirely blacked out.

    Trump’s Republican allies seized on the Clinton images, including photos of the Democrat with singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, and even Epstein with TV newscaster Walter Cronkite. But none of the photos had captions, and no explanation was given for why any of them were together.

    The meatiest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007, yet never charged him.

    Transcripts of grand jury proceedings, released publicly for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 and in ninth grade.

    One had told investigators about being sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.

    Another, then 21, testified before the grand jury about how Epstein had hired her when she was 16 to perform a sexual massage and how she had gone on to recruit other girls to do the same.

    “For every girl that I brought to the table, he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them that if they are underage, just lie about it and tell him that you are 18.”

    The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers did more than a decade later with the U.S. attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.

    Acosta, who was labor secretary during Trump’s first term, cited concerns about whether a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.

    He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal border between sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, something more commonly handled by state prosecutors.

    “I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that the public today would likely view the survivors differently.

    “There’s been a lot of changes in victim shaming,” Acosta said.

    Associated Press journalists Ali Swenson, Christopher L. Keller, Aaron Kessler and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

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  • At least 16 files have disappeared from the DOJ webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein

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    At least 16 files disappeared from the Justice Department’s public webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — including a photograph showing President Donald Trump — less than a day after they were posted, with no explanation from the government and no notice to the public.Related video above: Justice Department’s partial release of Epstein files frustrates lawmakersThe missing files, which were available Friday and no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.The Justice Department didn’t answer questions Saturday about why the files disappeared but said in a post on X that “photos and other materials will continue being reviewed and redacted consistent with the law in an abundance of caution as we receive additional information.”Online, the unexplained missing files fueled speculation about what was taken down and why the public was not notified, compounding long-standing intrigue about Epstein and the powerful figures who surrounded him. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee pointed to the missing image featuring a Trump photo in a post on X, writing: “What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.”The episode deepened concerns that had already emerged from the Justice Department’s much-anticipated document release. The tens of thousands of pages made public offered little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years, while omitting some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal Justice Department memos on charging decisions.Scant new insight in the initial disclosuresSome of the most consequential records expected about Epstein are nowhere to be found in the Justice Department’s initial disclosures, which span tens of thousands of pages.Missing are FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions — records that could have helped explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.The gaps go further.The records, required to be released under a recent law passed by Congress, hardly reference several powerful figures long associated with Epstein, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew, renewing questions about who was scrutinized, who was not, and how much the disclosures truly advance public accountabilityAmong the fresh nuggets: insight into the Justice Department’s decision to abandon an investigation into Epstein in the 2000s, which enabled him to plead guilty to that state-level charge, and a previously unseen 1996 complaint accusing Epstein of stealing photographs of children.The releases so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York City and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with some photos of celebrities and politicians.There was a series of never-before-seen photos of former President Bill Clinton, but fleetingly few of Trump. Both have been associated with Epstein, but both have since disowned those friendships. Neither has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and there was no indication the photos played a role in the criminal cases brought against him.Despite a Friday deadline set by Congress to make everything public, the Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring survivors’ names and other identifying information. The department has not given any notice when more records might arrive.That approach angered some Epstein accusers and members of Congress, who fought to pass the law forcing the department to act. Instead of marking the end of a yearslong battle for transparency, the document release Friday was merely the beginning of an indefinite wait for a complete picture of Epstein’s crimes and the steps taken to investigate them.”I feel like again the DOJ, the justice system is failing us,” said Marina Lacerda, who alleges Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York City mansion when she was 14.Many of the long-anticipated records were redacted or lacked contextFederal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.The documents just made public were a sliver of potentially millions of pages of records in the department’s possession. In one example, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Manhattan federal prosecutors had more than 3.6 million records from sex trafficking investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, though many duplicated material already turned over by the FBI.Many of the records released so far had been made public in court filings, congressional releases, or Freedom of Information Act requests, though, for the first time, they were all in one place and available for the public to search for free.Ones that were new were often lacking necessary context or heavily blacked out. A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY,” likely from one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021, was entirely blacked out.Trump’s Republican allies seized on the Clinton images, including photos of the Democrat with singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, and even Epstein with TV newscaster Walter Cronkite. But none of the photos had captions, and no explanation was given for why any of them were together.The meatiest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007, yet never charged him.Transcripts of grand jury proceedings, released publicly for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 and in ninth grade.One had told investigators about being sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.Another, then 21, testified before the grand jury about how Epstein had hired her when she was 16 to perform a sexual massage and how she had gone on to recruit other girls to do the same.”For every girl that I brought to the table, he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them that if they are underage, just lie about it and tell him that you are 18.”The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers did more than a decade later with the U.S. attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.Acosta, who was labor secretary during Trump’s first term, cited concerns about whether a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal border between sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, something more commonly handled by state prosecutors.”I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that the public today would likely view the survivors differently.”There’s been a lot of changes in victim shaming,” Acosta said.Associated Press journalists Ali Swenson, Christopher L. Keller, Aaron Kessler and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

    NEW YORK (AP) —

    At least 16 files disappeared from the Justice Department’s public webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — including a photograph showing President Donald Trump — less than a day after they were posted, with no explanation from the government and no notice to the public.

    Related video above: Justice Department’s partial release of Epstein files frustrates lawmakers

    The missing files, which were available Friday and no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

    The Justice Department didn’t answer questions Saturday about why the files disappeared but said in a post on X that “photos and other materials will continue being reviewed and redacted consistent with the law in an abundance of caution as we receive additional information.”

    Online, the unexplained missing files fueled speculation about what was taken down and why the public was not notified, compounding long-standing intrigue about Epstein and the powerful figures who surrounded him. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee pointed to the missing image featuring a Trump photo in a post on X, writing: “What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.”

    The episode deepened concerns that had already emerged from the Justice Department’s much-anticipated document release. The tens of thousands of pages made public offered little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years, while omitting some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal Justice Department memos on charging decisions.

    Scant new insight in the initial disclosures

    Some of the most consequential records expected about Epstein are nowhere to be found in the Justice Department’s initial disclosures, which span tens of thousands of pages.

    Missing are FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions — records that could have helped explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.

    The gaps go further.

    The records, required to be released under a recent law passed by Congress, hardly reference several powerful figures long associated with Epstein, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew, renewing questions about who was scrutinized, who was not, and how much the disclosures truly advance public accountability

    Among the fresh nuggets: insight into the Justice Department’s decision to abandon an investigation into Epstein in the 2000s, which enabled him to plead guilty to that state-level charge, and a previously unseen 1996 complaint accusing Epstein of stealing photographs of children.

    The releases so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York City and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with some photos of celebrities and politicians.

    There was a series of never-before-seen photos of former President Bill Clinton, but fleetingly few of Trump. Both have been associated with Epstein, but both have since disowned those friendships. Neither has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and there was no indication the photos played a role in the criminal cases brought against him.

    Despite a Friday deadline set by Congress to make everything public, the Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring survivors’ names and other identifying information. The department has not given any notice when more records might arrive.

    That approach angered some Epstein accusers and members of Congress, who fought to pass the law forcing the department to act. Instead of marking the end of a yearslong battle for transparency, the document release Friday was merely the beginning of an indefinite wait for a complete picture of Epstein’s crimes and the steps taken to investigate them.

    “I feel like again the DOJ, the justice system is failing us,” said Marina Lacerda, who alleges Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York City mansion when she was 14.

    Many of the long-anticipated records were redacted or lacked context

    Federal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.

    The documents just made public were a sliver of potentially millions of pages of records in the department’s possession. In one example, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Manhattan federal prosecutors had more than 3.6 million records from sex trafficking investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, though many duplicated material already turned over by the FBI.

    Many of the records released so far had been made public in court filings, congressional releases, or Freedom of Information Act requests, though, for the first time, they were all in one place and available for the public to search for free.

    Ones that were new were often lacking necessary context or heavily blacked out. A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY,” likely from one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021, was entirely blacked out.

    Trump’s Republican allies seized on the Clinton images, including photos of the Democrat with singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, and even Epstein with TV newscaster Walter Cronkite. But none of the photos had captions, and no explanation was given for why any of them were together.

    The meatiest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007, yet never charged him.

    Transcripts of grand jury proceedings, released publicly for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 and in ninth grade.

    One had told investigators about being sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.

    Another, then 21, testified before the grand jury about how Epstein had hired her when she was 16 to perform a sexual massage and how she had gone on to recruit other girls to do the same.

    “For every girl that I brought to the table, he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them that if they are underage, just lie about it and tell him that you are 18.”

    The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers did more than a decade later with the U.S. attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.

    Acosta, who was labor secretary during Trump’s first term, cited concerns about whether a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.

    He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal border between sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, something more commonly handled by state prosecutors.

    “I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that the public today would likely view the survivors differently.

    “There’s been a lot of changes in victim shaming,” Acosta said.

    Associated Press journalists Ali Swenson, Christopher L. Keller, Aaron Kessler and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

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  • Justice Department Begins Releasing Long-Awaited Files Tied To Epstein Sex Trafficking Investigation – KXL

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department released thousands of files Friday from its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein even as it acknowledged that its documents disclosure about the wealthy financier, known for his connections to President Donald Trump and other influential people, was incomplete.

    The records arrived with public anticipation that they could offer the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades worth of government investigations into Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls. But it remained unclear how much substantive new information was included in the photos, call logs, grand jury testimony and interview transcripts, or how much if any additional insight might be gleaned about Epstein’s relationships with rich and powerful contacts.

    The files were being released in accordance with a congressionally set deadline of Friday, but the Justice Department signaled that it would not fully meet that mark, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche telling Fox News Channel that he expected the department to release “several hundred thousand” records Friday and then several hundred thousand more in the coming weeks.

    Their release has long been demanded by a public hungry to learn whether any of Epstein’s rich and powerful associates knew about — or participated in — the abuse. Epstein’s accusers have also long sought answers about why federal authorities shut down their initial investigation into the allegations in 2008.

    Bowing to political pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump on Nov. 19 signed a bill giving the Justice Department 30 days to release most of its files and communications related to Epstein, including information about the investigation into his death in a federal jail. The law’s passage was a remarkable display of bipartisanship that overcame months of opposition from Trump and Republican leadership.

    What the law allows
    That law allows for redactions about the victims or ongoing investigations but makes clear no records shall be withheld or redacted due to “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”

    Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Nov. 14 that she had ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s ties to Trump’s political foes, including former President Bill Clinton. Bondi acted after Trump pressed for such an inquiry, though he did not explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men Trump mentioned in a social media post demanding the investigation has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.

    In July, Trump dismissed some of his own supporters as “weaklings” for falling for “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax.” But both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., failed to prevent the legislation from coming to a vote.

    Trump did a U-turn on the files once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable. He insisted that the Epstein matter had become a distraction to the Republican agenda and that releasing the records was the best way to move on.

    The Epstein investigations
    Police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein in 2005 after the family of a 14-year-old girl reported she had been molested at his mansion. The FBI joined the investigation, and authorities gathered testimony from multiple underage girls who said they had been hired to give Epstein sexual massages.

    Ultimately, though, prosecutors gave Epstein a deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution. He pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges involving someone under age 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

    Epstein’s accusers then spent years in civil litigation trying to get that plea deal set aside. One of those women, Virginia Giuffre, accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters, starting at age 17, with numerous other men, including billionaires, famous academics, U.S. politicians and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Britain’s Prince Andrew.

    All of those men denied the allegations. Prosecutors never brought charges in connection with Giuffre’s claims, but her account fueled conspiracy theories about supposed government plots to protect the powerful. Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia in April at age 41.

    Federal prosecutors in New York brought new sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail a month after his arrest. Prosecutors then charged Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, with recruiting underage girls for Epstein to abuse.

    Maxwell was convicted in late 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence, though she was moved from a low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after she was interviewed over the summer by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Her lawyers argued that she never should have been tried or convicted.

    The Justice Department in July said it had not found any information that could support prosecuting anyone else.

    Lots of Epstein records were already public
    After nearly two decades of court action and prying by reporters, a voluminous number of records related to Epstein is already public, including flight logs, address books, email correspondence, police reports, grand jury records, courtroom testimony and transcripts of depositions of his accusers, his staffers and others.

    Yet, the public’s appetite for more records has been insatiable, particularly for anything related to Epstein’s associations with famous people including Trump, Mountbatten-Windsor and Clinton.

    Trump was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling out. Neither he nor Clinton has ever been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise.

    Mountbatten-Windsor denied ever having sex with Giuffre, but King Charles III stripped him of his royal titles this year after Giuffre’s memoir was published after she died.

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    Jordan Vawter

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  • President Trump Signs Epstein Files Bill – KXL

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    (UMA SANGHVI/The Palm Beach Post Via AP, File)

    WASHINGTON, DC (AP) – President Donald Trump signed a bill Wednesday to compel the Justice Department to make public its case files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a potentially far-reaching development in a years-long push by survivors of Epstein’s abuse for a public reckoning.

    The president’s signing sets a 30-day countdown for the Justice Department to produce what’s commonly known as the Epstein files. Those include everything the Justice Department has collected over multiple federal investigations into Epstein, as well as his longtime confidante and girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for luring teenage girls for the disgraced financier. Those records total around 100,000 pages, according to a federal judge who has reviewed the case.

    It will also compel the Justice Department to produce all its internal communications on Epstein and his associates and his 2019 death in a Manhattan jail cell as he awaited charges for sexually abusing and trafficking dozens of teenage girls.

    The legislation, however, exempts some parts of the case files. The bill’s authors made sure to include that the Justice Department could withhold personally identifiable information of victims, child sexual abuse materials and information deemed by the administration to be classified for national defense or foreign policy.

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    Tim Lantz

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  • Congress Acts Swiftly To Force Release Of Epstein Files, Sending Bill To Trump – KXL

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Both the House and Senate acted decisively Tuesday to pass a bill to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a remarkable display of approval for an effort that had struggled for months to overcome opposition from President Donald Trump and Republican leadership.

    When a small, bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a petition in July to maneuver around House Speaker Mike Johnson’s control of which bills reach the House floor, it appeared a longshot effort — especially as Trump urged his supporters to dismiss the matter as a “hoax.”

    But both Trump and Johnson failed in their efforts to prevent the vote. Now the president has bowed to the growing momentum behind the bill and even said he will sign it. Just hours after the House passed the bill, the Senate agreed to pass the bill with unanimous consent once it is sent to the Senate.

    The bill passed the House 427-1, with the only no vote coming from Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican who is a fervent supporter of Trump. He said in a statement that he opposed the bill because it could release information on innocent people mentioned in the federal investigation.

    The decisive, bipartisan work in Congress Tuesday further showed the pressure mounting on lawmakers and the Trump administration to meet long-held demands that the Justice Department release its case files on Epstein, a well-connected financier who killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges he sexually abused and trafficked underage girls.

    “These women have fought the most horrific fight that no woman should have to fight. And they did it by banding together and never giving up,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as she stood with some of the abuse survivors outside the Capitol Tuesday morning.

    “That’s what we did by fighting so hard against the most powerful people in the world, even the president of the United States, in order to make this vote happen today,” added Greene, a Georgia Republican and longtime Trump loyalist.

    The bill’s passage would be a pivotal moment in a yearslong push by the survivors for accountability for Epstein’s abuse and reckoning over how law enforcement officials failed to act under multiple presidential administrations.

    A separate investigation conducted by the House Oversight Committee has released thousands of pages of emails and other documents from Epstein’s estate, showing his connections to global leaders, Wall Street powerbrokers, influential political figures and Trump himself. In the United Kingdom, King Charles III stripped his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after pressure to act over his relationship with Epstein.

    The bill forces the release within 30 days of all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. It would allow the Justice Department to redact information about Epstein’s victims or continuing federal investigations, but not information due to “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”

    Trump’s reversal on the Epstein files
    Trump has said he cut ties with Epstein years ago, but tried for months to move past the demands for disclosure.

    Still, many in the Republican base have continued to demand the release of the files. Adding to that pressure, survivors of Epstein’s abuse rallied outside the Capitol Tuesday morning. Bundled in jackets against the November chill and holding photos of themselves as teenagers, they recounted their stories of abuse.

    “We are exhausted from surviving the trauma and then surviving the politics that swirl around it,” said one of the survivors.

    Another, Jena-Lisa Jones, said she had voted for Trump and had a message for the president: “I beg you Donald Trump, please stop making this political.”

    The group of women also met with Johnson and rallied outside the Capitol in September, but have had to wait months for the vote.

    That’s because Johnson kept the House closed for legislative business for nearly two months and refused to swear-in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona during the government shutdown. After winning a special election on Sept. 23, Grijalva had pledged to provide the crucial 218th vote to the petition for the Epstein files bill. But only after she was sworn into office last week could she sign her name to the discharge petition to give it majority support in the 435-member House.

    It quickly became obvious the bill would pass, and both Johnson and Trump began to fold. Trump on Sunday said Republicans should vote for the bill.

    Yet Greene told reporters that Trump’s decision to fight the bill had betrayed his Make America Great Again political movement.

    “Watching this turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart,” she said.

    How Johnson is handling the bill
    Rather than waiting until next week for the discharge position to officially take effect, Johnson held the vote under a procedure that requires a two-thirds majority.

    But Johnson also spent a morning news conference listing off problems that he sees with the legislation. He argued that the bill could have unintended consequences by disclosing parts of federal investigations that are usually kept private, including information on victims.

    “This is a raw and obvious political exercise,” Johnson said.

    Still, he voted for the bill. “None of us want to go on record and in any way be accused of not being for maximum transparency,” he explained.

    Meanwhile, House Democrats celebrated the vote as a rare win. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries described it as “a complete and total surrender.”

    Senate plans to act quickly
    Even as the bill cleared his chamber, Johnson pressed for the Senate to amend the bill to protect the information of “victims and whistleblowers.” But Senate Majority Leader John Thune showed little interest in that notion, saying he doubted that “amending it is going to be in the cards.”

    Thune said he would quickly assess senators’ views on the bill to see if there were any objections. He said the bill could be brought forward in the Senate as soon as Tuesday evening and almost certainly by the end of the week.

    Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer also indicated he would attempt to pass the bill Tuesday.

    “The American people have waited long enough,” he said.

    Meanwhile, the bipartisan pair who sponsored the bill, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., warned senators against doing anything that would “muck it up,” saying they would face the same public uproar that forced both Trump and Johnson to back down.

    “We’ve needlessly dragged this out for four months,” Massie said, adding that those raising problems with the bill “are afraid that people will be embarrassed. Well, that’s the whole point here.”

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    Jon Eric Smith

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  • The Darkest Thread in the Epstein E-mails

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    On Sunday, the anti-trafficking organization World Without Exploitation released a P.S.A. featuring eleven of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. Each of the women holds a photograph of herself from around the age at which she first encountered the reviled sex offender. (“I was fourteen years old” . . . “I was sixteen years old” . . . “I was sixteen” . . . “Seventeen” . . . “Fourteen years old.”) The P.S.A. ends by directing viewers to call their congressional representatives to urge the release of the remaining Epstein files: “It’s time to bring the secrets out of the shadows.”

    This plea may appear to have some momentum. Last week, the House Oversight Committee made public more than twenty thousand pages of documents subpoenaed from Epstein’s estate, and, in days to come, the House is expected to vote on a bill to open up a trove of Justice Department files related to Epstein. But, even if the bill passes the House, it may die in the Senate, or by a veto from President Donald Trump, or in the hands of Pam Bondi, the U.S. Attorney General.

    Trump, after months of stonewalling on the release of the remaining Epstein papers, appeared to reverse himself over the weekend, posting to Truth Social, “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party.” He added, “I DON’T CARE!” But we know Trump cares deeply about anything that bears his name, and his name is all over last week’s tranche of documents. House Democrats singled out a 2011 e-mail in which Epstein called Trump the “dog that hasn’t barked,” and another message, from 2019, in which Epstein invoked Trump’s private club, Mar-a-Lago, and said that “of course he knew about the girls”—presumably referring to girls such as Epstein’s most prominent accuser, Virginia Giuffre, who was a teen-age locker-room attendant at Mar-a-Lago when she was first spotted by Epstein’s main accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. But Giuffre, who died in April, always maintained that she had never witnessed inappropriate conduct by Trump.

    And, if Giuffre had made such allegations, it’s not clear that the President’s advocates would mind all that much. The conservative talk-show host and MAGA stalwart Megyn Kelly recently said that she knows “somebody very, very close to this case” who felt that Epstein “was not a pedophile.” Rather, Kelly went on, “He was into the barely legal type, like, he liked fifteen-year-old girls. And I realize this is disgusting. . . . I’m just giving you facts.” A fifteen-year-old girl, if it needs to be noted, is not “barely legal”; there is no U.S. state in which the age of consent is lower than sixteen. In any case, Kelly continued, “There’s a difference between a fifteen-year-old and a five-year-old.” Insisting upon this difference may become more urgent, depending on what is in the D.O.J. files and whether they are made public.

    The avalanche of e-mails, text messages, and court documents in last week’s House dump offers various revelations, but, at times, it can also induce a strange mental fog—a wintry mix of amnesia and déjà vu. It’s hard to pinpoint, amid the overwhelm, what you knew and when you knew it. Epstein’s many friends and associates may know the feeling.

    I didn’t remember, for example, Epstein’s legal team arguing that he could not be accused of coercion or enticement of his many victims because the sexual assaults that occurred at his West Palm Beach home were “spontaneous.” I also did not recall his team asserting that, because two underage victims may have lied about their age when Epstein met them, “their testimony actually confirms his innocence.” It would seem hard to forget such things, but perhaps it was too difficult to believe them in the first place.

    I likewise did not remember that, in 2004, Trump won a bidding war against Epstein for a Palm Beach mansion, an incident that may have precipitated a falling out between the old pals; I did not recall that local police began investigating Epstein for sex crimes shortly after the sale, or that, just four years later, Trump sold the property for more than double what he paid for it, to the Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev. This is what is known, I believe, as the art of the deal.

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    Jessica Winter

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  • Adelita Grijalva Sworn In As The House’s Newest Member, Paving The Way For An Epstein Files Vote – KXL

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Adelita Grijalva was sworn in as the newest member of Congress on Wednesday, more than seven weeks after she won a special election in Arizona to fill the House seat last held by her late father.

    Grijalva was sworn in by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday shortly before the House returned to session to vote on a deal to fund the federal government. After delivering a floor speech, Grijalva signed a discharge petition to eventually trigger a vote to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein, giving it the needed 218 signatures.

    Grijalva’s seating brings the partisan margin in the House to a narrow 219-214 Republican majority. She vowed to continue her father’s legacy of advocating for progressive policies on issues like environmentalism, labor rights and tribal sovereignty.

    In a speech on the House floor after being sworn in, Grijalva said it was time for Congress “to restore a full and check and balance to this administration.”

    “We can and must do better. What is most concerning is not what this administration has done, but what the majority of this body has failed to do,” she said.

    The seating of Grijalva brings an end to a weekslong delay that she and other Democrats said was intended to prevent her signature on the Epstein petition .

    Johnson had refused to seat Grijalva while the chamber was out of session, a decision that prompted condemnation from Grijalva, a lawsuit from Arizona’s attorney general and speculation that Johnson was delaying her induction into the House to stall a vote on whether to require the Justice Department release documents related to the late convicted sex trafficker.

    Grijalva had said she would join the petition from Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., after taking office, giving it the 218 signatures needed. Three Republicans have signed onto Massie’s petition — Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

    President Donald Trump has been reaching out about the Epstein petition to Boebert and Mace, according to a person familiar with the effort who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

    A busy first day
    Grijalva’s arrival kicks off a busy day on Capitol Hill as hundreds of House members return, their trips potentially complicated by travel delays caused by the shutdown.

    Lawmakers who win special elections typically take the oath of office on days when legislative business is conducted. But with the House out of session since Sept. 19, Johnson had said he would swear her in when everyone returned. He did swear in two Republican members this year when the chamber was not in legislative session.

    “I don’t think he’s thought of anything that he’s doing, in this case, as anything personal,” Grijalva told The Associated Press in an interview. “It feels personal because, literally, my name was attached. I also know that if I were a Republican, I would have been sworn in seven weeks ago.”

    “We’ve been waiting for this so long that it’s still surreal,” she said.

    She will start her House tenure by voting on the Senate-passed legislation to reopen the government. Grijalva and most Democrats are expected to oppose it because it does not extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire at the end of the year. Republicans can still pass the bill with their slim majority.

    The 218th signature on an Epstein file discharge petition
    Grijalva is the final necessary signature on a discharge petition linked to legislation that would require the Justice Department to release all unclassified documents and communications related to Epstein and his sex trafficking operation. But her move will not mean a vote right away, due to House rules.

    Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, said he expects voting on the Epstein bill to take place in early December.

    Emails released Wednesday from Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are likely to reignite interest in the issue. Epstein wrote in a 2011 email that Trump had “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with a victim of sex trafficking and said in a separate message years later that Trump “knew about the girls.”

    “The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

    Leavitt and Republicans on the committee said the person in question was Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with a number of his rich and powerful friends. Giuffre, before she died this year, had long insisted that Trump was not among the men who had victimized her.

    Arizona’s first Latina congresswoman
    Rep. Raúl Grijalva, Adelita’s father, died in March after more than two decades in the House, where he built a reputation as a staunch progressive.

    Adelita Grijalva has long been active in local politics. She served on the Tucson Unified School District board before joining the Pima County Board of Supervisors, where she became only the second woman to lead the board.

    She won the Sept. 23 special election with ease to complete the remainder of her father’s term, representing a mostly Hispanic district in which Democrats enjoy a nearly 2-to-1 voter registration advantage over Republicans. Grijalva said the win was emotional.

    “I would rather have my dad than have an office,” she said.

    She told the AP that environmental justice, tribal sovereignty and public education are among her priorities, echoing the work her father championed.

    “I know that the bar is set very high, and the expectation is high of what we’re going to be able to do once sworn in,” she said.

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    Jordan Vawter

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  • Congress is set to receive the first batch of Epstein files. It’s not likely to quell the drama.

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    The Justice Department is expected on Friday to start handing the first batch of Jeffrey Epstein files over to Congress. But it may be a while before lawmakers get the information they want — if ever.

    The DOJ is taking a piecemeal approach to transmitting documents to Capitol Hill, pursuant to a subpoena issued this month by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after Democrats on the panel forced the matter.

    The committee, led by Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer, anticipates receiving an initial tranche of files related to the convicted sex offender by the end of the day Aug. 22. Making these materials public, however, will be a slow, deliberative process.

    That’s because House Oversight intends to coordinate with the Justice Department on taking steps to shield the names of the women who were victims of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019, and information around ongoing criminal cases.

    “The Committee intends to make the records public after thorough review to ensure all victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted,” said an Oversight Committee spokesperson, granted anonymity to share details about the panel’s internal activities. “The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations.”

    If the Justice Department follows precedent, both Democrats and Republicans on House Oversight would get access to the materials. While under a typical arrangement, the majority — in this case Republicans — would control its disclosure, either party could release the materials unilaterally.

    Democrats, however, intend to review the files before releasing them publicly, according to a person familiar with Oversight Democrats’ planning, speaking on condition of anonymity to share internal party strategy.

    The files they receive could include FBI reports of witness interviews; materials seized from the searches of Epstein’s vast properties in New York, the Virgin Islands, Palm Beach and New Mexico; and the affidavits used to gain permission from judges to execute those searches.

    There are a variety of complicating factors to consider, among them the ongoing legal challenge that Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein associate, is pursuing against her 20-year conviction for sex trafficking crimes. House Oversight previously subpoenaed Maxwell for testimony and is negotiating the conditions of the interview with her legal team. Maxwell, who was sentenced in 2021, is demanding that she be granted immunity from further criminal proceedings in exchange for her cooperation.

    The plodding process is unlikely to satisfy demands for transparency from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, though. And House GOP leaders shouldn’t expect to return from the August recess free from the drama that consumed them in July.

    “After months of stonewalling, calling Epstein files a hoax, and telling people nothing but porn exists in their possession, the administration now admits the files exist, and agrees to release some of them,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a social media post this week. “Americans want transparency though, not smoke and mirrors.”

    Massie, with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), has been leading the charge to force a floor vote on a resolution that would compel the release of the Epstein files, and the two men say they’ll follow through on plans when Congress returns to use procedural maneuvers to call the measure up without leadership’s consent.

    The Massie-Khanna resolution would call for the materials to be made public with redactions only for the purposes of protecting names of victims, hiding sexually explicit content and in instances where ongoing legal cases could be compromised. In other words, the lawmakers want to guarantee the identities of Epstein’s associates, if applicable, are revealed.

    Last month, Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans should give the DOJ time to reveal the documents in a responsible manner that would respect the privacy of Epstein’s victims. However, President Donald Trump — who had ties to Epstein, a well-known financier — was also pushing to move past the issue after his allies had stoked conspiracy theories for years about what authorities were hiding.

    Yet Massie, Khanna and allies would not budge from their stance that members must be allowed to vote to bring the files to light, disrupting the Rules Committee that tees up floor consideration for most legislation. Leaders opted to send their members home a few days ahead of schedule for the summer recess rather than stay in Washington to take politically uncomfortable votes.

    Democrats are also signaling they won’t be satisfied by the DOJ’s game plan and will continue to make the issue a political headache for Republicans.

    “Releasing the Epstein files in batches just continues this White House cover-up. The American people will not accept anything short of the full, unredacted Epstein files,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement. “We will keep pressing until the American people get the truth — every document, every fact, in full. The administration must comply with our subpoena, by law.”

    Efforts to draw a wedge in the GOP over the Epstein files were taking place as far away as Texas this week, where Gene Wu, chair of the state’s House Democratic Caucus, offered an amendment to delay Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting efforts until after the release of Epstein materials.

    Meanwhile, back in Washington, lawmakers will regroup on Capitol Hill on Sept. 2 with just four weeks left to avert a government shutdown, and there’s already concern in GOP leadership over the time the House could waste continuing to fight over perceived distractions.

    “I’d really like to see this resolved, if possible, before we get back,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-Va.), chair of the House Rules Committee, told reporters this week. “We’re going to have a lot of work to do when we get back in September. I’ve already looked at my September calendar, and it looks pretty busy.”

    Foxx, whose committee work was derailed by members’ efforts to force Epstein-related votes, called the saga “a tempest in a teapot.”

    In February, the Department of Justice released what it called the “first phase” of documents related to the Epstein investigation, which has been a fixation of some of the president’s supporters. It has long been public that Trump — along with other prominent figures, like Bill Clinton — are referenced in documents previously released in court cases surrounding Epstein. But Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing linked to Epstein.

    The real firestorm, however, began in earnest in early July, when the department quietly released a memo saying the federal government did not find evidence of a so-called Epstein “client list.” Conspiracists had long postulated that Epstein kept such a list of people with whom he trafficked young women, and that it was being hidden to protect the rich and powerful.

    No additional disclosures would be forthcoming, the unsigned memo said, which quickly — and predictably — set off a complicated political quagmire for the president and the GOP amid accusations that the administration was reneging on its promise for transparency.

    Trump, in an effort to quash the outrage, asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury materials in the most recent investigations of Epstein and Maxwell in New York, as well as an earlier federal probe of Epstein in Florida. In recent weeks, all three judges assigned to resolve the unsealing requests rebuffed the administration, with the most recent rejection coming Wednesday.

    The judges said the department hadn’t justified taking the unusual step of unsealing the secret files and that, in any event, most of material in the files had already been made public through Maxwell’s trial or other means.

    Still, even if the grand jury transcripts and exhibits were made public, they represent a tiny fraction of the material the Justice Department possesses in the Epstein and Maxwell investigative files that are the subject of the congressional subpoena.

    When the House Oversight Committee interviewed Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, as part of its probe into the Epstein matter earlier this month, Barr told congressional investigators that he did not know why the documents were being withheld, according to a person familiar with his testimony and granted anonymity to describe the private conversation.

    The lack of transparency around the process, however, might have to do with the fact that some grand jury materials may need court approval, Barr suggested, and that current policy prohibits the release of unsubstantiated information.

    Ultimately, the House Oversight subpoena currently represents the best chance for bringing some information to light — and for the Trump administration to get limited details released to satisfy those clamoring for action.

    Longstanding DOJ policies as well as a federal law — the Privacy Act of 1974 — limit disclosures about living individuals investigated for potential crimes. However, that law and those DOJ rules do not apply to Congress, which is generally free to ignore individuals’ pleas for discretion. DOJ has sometimes used that distinction to effectively make sensitive information public by transmitting it to Congress — with GOP and Democratic lawmakers then able to cherry pick what of the sensitive information they choose to share.

    A DOJ spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

    Erica Orden, Josh Gerstein and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

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  • The Toms Cause Chaos on ‘The Viall Files’! Plus, ‘Vanderpump Rules,’ ‘Beverly Hills,’ and ‘Miami.’

    The Toms Cause Chaos on ‘The Viall Files’! Plus, ‘Vanderpump Rules,’ ‘Beverly Hills,’ and ‘Miami.’

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    Finally reunited after a brief hiatus, Rachel Lindsay and Jodi Walker kick off today’s Morally Corrupt by recapping Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz’s chaotic Viall Files episode (1:58), before diving into the Season 11 premiere of Vanderpump Rules (10:39). Then, Rachel and Jodi break down Season 13, Episode 14 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (33:24). Finally, Rachel is joined by Callie Curry to chat about Season 6, Episode 14 of The Real Housewives of Miami (50:01).

    Host: Rachel Lindsay
    Guests: Jodi Walker and Callie Curry
    Producers: Devon Baroldi
    Theme Song: Devon Renaldo

    Subscribe: Spotify

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    Rachel Lindsay

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