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This is not what the American people meant when we demanded the Trump administration release the Epstein files.
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Nicole Russell, USA Today
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Tag: pam bondi
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Pam Bondi Deserves Backlash Over Epstein Testimony | RealClearPolitics
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2/11: The Takeout with Major Garrett
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Takeaways from Bondi’s fiery Epstein files testimony; Nancy Guthrie tip line gets over 4,000 calls in 24 hours, officials say.
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Federal appeals court upholds Trump mass detention policy for illegal immigrants
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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the Trump administration’s mass detention policy, allowing illegal immigrants to be detained without bond.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can lawfully deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested nationwide under the Constitution and federal immigration law.
Attorney General Pam Bondi reacted to the ruling, saying the Department of Justice (DOJ) “secured yet another crucial legal victory” in support of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
“The Fifth Circuit just held illegal aliens can rightfully be detained without bond — a significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn,” she wrote on X. “Thank you to Ben Hayes who argued this case, Brett Shumate and the @DOJCivil Division. We will continue vindicating President Trump’s law and order agenda in courtrooms across the country.”
BOASBERG ORDERS TRUMP TO BRING BACK CECOT MIGRANT CLASS DEPORTED IN MARCH
A federal appeals court upheld the Department of Homeland Security’s authority to detain illegal aliens without bond hearings, a ruling Attorney General Pam Bondi called a major legal victory for the Trump administration. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Circuit judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the majority opinion that “unadmitted aliens apprehended anywhere in the United States are ineligible for release on bond, regardless of how long they have resided inside the United States.”
Many illegal immigrants who were not detained at the border previously had the opportunity to request a bond hearing as their cases progressed, and those without a criminal history who were not deemed flight risks were often granted bond.
“That prior Administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority under” the law “does not mean they lacked the authority to do more,” Jones wrote.
SUPREME COURT ALLOWS TRUMP ICE RAIDS TO RESUME IN CALIFORNIA
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law allows illegal immigrants to be detained without bond, a decision praised by Attorney General Pam Bondi. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Writing in dissent, Circuit Judge Dana M. Douglas said that the members of Congress who passed the Immigration and Nationality Act roughly 30 years ago “would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people.”
Douglas noted that some of the people detained are “the spouses, mothers, fathers, and grandparents of American citizens.”
The ruling stems from two separate cases filed last year against the Trump administration, both involving Mexican nationals who had lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and were not considered flight risks, according to their attorneys.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law permits the Department of Homeland Security to deny bond hearings to illegal immigrants arrested across the country, siding with the Trump administration’s enforcement policy. (@ICE via X)
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Although they did not have criminal records, both were jailed for months last year before a lower court in Texas granted them bond last October.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Justice Department under scrutiny for revealing victim info and concealing possible enablers in Epstein files
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The Justice Department failed to black out identifying information about many of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and redacted the details of individuals who may have aided the convicted sex offender, prompting an outcry from survivors who accuse DOJ of botching the release of more than 3 million documents last week.A CNN review of the Epstein documents identified several examples of people whose identities were blacked out possibly helping to connect him with women, including redacted co-conspirators in a much-anticipated draft indictment of Epstein from the 2000s.A redacted individual wrote in one 2015 email to Epstein: “And this one is (i think) totally your girl.”In another 2014 email in the files, a person wrote to Epstein: “Thank you for a fun night… Your littlest girl was a little naughty.” But the name of the individual who wrote that message is redacted.The Department of Justice on Friday released what it said was the last of the Epstein files that it was required to disclose by law, but the documents have prompted widespread outcry about a continued lack of transparency and justice for Epstein’s many survivors.Epstein survivors are up in arms about the mishandled redactions, including blacked out statements that victims made to the FBI.A DOJ official said in a statement that any fully redacted names are of victims. “In many instances, as it has been well documented publicly, those who were originally victims became participants and co-conspirators,” the official said. “We did not redact any names of men, only female victims.”FBI and law enforcement names were also redacted, the DOJ official said.Meanwhile, the Justice Department has been scrambling to fix the improper disclosure of victim information.The Justice Department narrowly avoided a hearing in federal court on Wednesday by reaching an agreement late Tuesday with lawyers for some of the Epstein survivors, who had accused DOJ of releasing information about nearly 100 Epstein victims in the files.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged Monday that “mistakes were made” but argued that DOJ has moved expeditiously to correct any information unintentionally released.For Epstein survivors, the DOJ’s response is unacceptable.“To have pieces of my life be out there on display in that way, was really troublesome,” said Dani Bensky, who told CNN in a roundtable with Epstein survivors that her name, address and phone number were all initially in the files.“And I know that I’m public now, yes, it hurts me — but it really hurts our survivor sisters who are still ‘Jane Does’ even more,” she added.The furor over what is and isn’t included in the Epstein documents highlights how the department’s release of more than 3 million documents on Friday is hardly the end of the fight over the Epstein files — even as both Blanche and President Donald Trump have said they think it’s time to move on.Congress forced the disclosure of the Epstein documents after passing the Epstein Files Transparency Act last November over Trump’s initial objections. But the bipartisan group of lawmakers who pushed for the law’s passage say there are still millions of files that have not been released, which the DOJ argued fell within exceptions to the law not requiring their disclosure.Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the effort to release the files, have asked to view the unredacted files — and are still threatening Attorney General Pam Bondi with impeachment or contempt for failing to comply with the law if more are not disclosed.“The DOJ has protected the Epstein class with blanket redactions in some areas while failing to protect the identities of survivors in other areas,” Khanna said in a statement to CNN. “Congress cannot properly assess DOJ’s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record.”‘There’s no reason to redact it’The documents released on Friday include the names of numerous high-profile men who interacted with Epstein — who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges — a list that included Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and the former Prince Andrew, among many others. All have denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein and have never been charged by law enforcement with any crimes.But Epstein survivors say the files appear to shield those who specifically enabled the convicted sex offender’s abuse, as well as other men who may have been named in the survivors’ statements that were completely redacted.One Epstein survivor pointed to another FBI form contained in the files where full pages were blacked out.“It basically outlines everything that this person experienced and shared with the FBI. It was seven pages long and four of them looked like this,” Jess Michaels told CNN in an interview. “What happened to her and who did it is also redacted. So you cannot say in the same sentence: ‘There were no men, there was no list’ and redact this much of a statement. Because if there’s no men, then there’s no reason to redact it. There’s no other reason.”One of the most anticipated documents in the files was the controversial draft indictment from the Southern District of Florida from the 2000s, which would have charged Epstein, along with three others, who were described as having been “employed” by Epstein.The individuals are all described as having conspired to “persuade, induce, and entice individuals who had not attained the age of 18 years to engage in prostitution.” But their names are redacted.The files also include numerous email exchanges with Epstein that appear to describe the procurement of women.A redacted individual from a Paris modeling agency wrote in a 2013 email to Epstein: “New Brazilian just arrived, sexy and cute, 19yo .”The email appears in the files twice: In one version, the modeling agency’s name is redacted, but in another, the agency is not redacted from the sender’s email signature.In a 2018 email to Epstein, another redacted individual wrote: “I found at least 3 very good young poor.”“Meet this one,” the person continued. “Not the beauty queen but we both likes her a lot.”In a letter to Congress on Friday, the Justice Department detailed how it made redactions, saying it complied with the law by redacting victim information, child sex abuse materials and anything that would jeopardize an active investigation.DOJ also withheld 200,000 pages “covered by various privileges, including deliberative process privilege, the work-product doctrine, and attorney-client privilege,” according to the letter.At his press conference last Friday announcing the release of the files, Blanche said they did not contain information about evidence that would lead to the prosecution of any men who abused women.“I said this earlier, there’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information of men that we know about that we’re covering up or that we’re choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case,” Blanche said. “I don’t know whether there are men out there that abuse these women.”Scrambling to scrub filesIn the hours after Friday’s DOJ release, CNN reported that multiple survivors, including anonymous “Jane Doe” victims, were seeing their names and information throughout the documents that were published.Attorneys for some of the survivors sent a letter saying the DOJ’s failure to properly redact victims’ information had triggered an “unfolding emergency,” asking two federal judges in New York for an “immediate judicial intervention.”Sunday’s letter included testimony from various anonymous “Jane Doe” victims who described receiving death threats and harassment from the media since the publication of the files.“When DOJ believed it was ready to publish, it needed only to type each victim’s name into its own search function. Any resulting hit should have been redacted before publication. Had DOJ done that, the harm would have been avoided,” the lawyers wrote.DOJ said in a response filed to the judges that it had removed all documents that victims or their lawyers identified, and a Justice Department spokesperson had said it had 500 reviewers looking at the files “for this very reason.”“Mistakes were made by – you have really hard-working lawyers that worked for the past 60 days. Think about this though: you’re talking about pieces of paper that stack from the ground to two Eiffel Towers,” Blanche said Monday on Fox News. “The minute that a victim or their lawyer reached out to us since Friday, we immediately dealt with it and pulled it down.”Epstein’s survivors say the release of names, even if corrected, is yet another example of how the Justice Department failed them.“Publishing images of victims while shielding predators is just a failure of complete justice,” Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard told CNN. “There’s this deep sense of betrayal when the systems meant to protect you becomes the one causing all of this harm.”
WASHINGTON —The Justice Department failed to black out identifying information about many of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and redacted the details of individuals who may have aided the convicted sex offender, prompting an outcry from survivors who accuse DOJ of botching the release of more than 3 million documents last week.
A CNN review of the Epstein documents identified several examples of people whose identities were blacked out possibly helping to connect him with women, including redacted co-conspirators in a much-anticipated draft indictment of Epstein from the 2000s.
A redacted individual wrote in one 2015 email to Epstein: “And this one is (i think) totally your girl.”
In another 2014 email in the files, a person wrote to Epstein: “Thank you for a fun night… Your littlest girl was a little naughty.” But the name of the individual who wrote that message is redacted.
The Department of Justice on Friday released what it said was the last of the Epstein files that it was required to disclose by law, but the documents have prompted widespread outcry about a continued lack of transparency and justice for Epstein’s many survivors.
Epstein survivors are up in arms about the mishandled redactions, including blacked out statements that victims made to the FBI.
A DOJ official said in a statement that any fully redacted names are of victims. “In many instances, as it has been well documented publicly, those who were originally victims became participants and co-conspirators,” the official said. “We did not redact any names of men, only female victims.”
FBI and law enforcement names were also redacted, the DOJ official said.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has been scrambling to fix the improper disclosure of victim information.
The Justice Department narrowly avoided a hearing in federal court on Wednesday by reaching an agreement late Tuesday with lawyers for some of the Epstein survivors, who had accused DOJ of releasing information about nearly 100 Epstein victims in the files.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged Monday that “mistakes were made” but argued that DOJ has moved expeditiously to correct any information unintentionally released.
For Epstein survivors, the DOJ’s response is unacceptable.
“To have pieces of my life be out there on display in that way, was really troublesome,” said Dani Bensky, who told CNN in a roundtable with Epstein survivors that her name, address and phone number were all initially in the files.
“And I know that I’m public now, yes, it hurts me — but it really hurts our survivor sisters who are still ‘Jane Does’ even more,” she added.
The furor over what is and isn’t included in the Epstein documents highlights how the department’s release of more than 3 million documents on Friday is hardly the end of the fight over the Epstein files — even as both Blanche and President Donald Trump have said they think it’s time to move on.
Congress forced the disclosure of the Epstein documents after passing the Epstein Files Transparency Act last November over Trump’s initial objections. But the bipartisan group of lawmakers who pushed for the law’s passage say there are still millions of files that have not been released, which the DOJ argued fell within exceptions to the law not requiring their disclosure.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the effort to release the files, have asked to view the unredacted files — and are still threatening Attorney General Pam Bondi with impeachment or contempt for failing to comply with the law if more are not disclosed.
“The DOJ has protected the Epstein class with blanket redactions in some areas while failing to protect the identities of survivors in other areas,” Khanna said in a statement to CNN. “Congress cannot properly assess DOJ’s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record.”
‘There’s no reason to redact it’
The documents released on Friday include the names of numerous high-profile men who interacted with Epstein — who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges — a list that included Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and the former Prince Andrew, among many others. All have denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein and have never been charged by law enforcement with any crimes.
But Epstein survivors say the files appear to shield those who specifically enabled the convicted sex offender’s abuse, as well as other men who may have been named in the survivors’ statements that were completely redacted.
One Epstein survivor pointed to another FBI form contained in the files where full pages were blacked out.
“It basically outlines everything that this person experienced and shared with the FBI. It was seven pages long and four of them looked like this,” Jess Michaels told CNN in an interview. “What happened to her and who did it is also redacted. So you cannot say in the same sentence: ‘There were no men, there was no list’ and redact this much of a statement. Because if there’s no men, then there’s no reason to redact it. There’s no other reason.”
One of the most anticipated documents in the files was the controversial draft indictment from the Southern District of Florida from the 2000s, which would have charged Epstein, along with three others, who were described as having been “employed” by Epstein.
The individuals are all described as having conspired to “persuade, induce, and entice individuals who had not attained the age of 18 years to engage in prostitution.” But their names are redacted.
The files also include numerous email exchanges with Epstein that appear to describe the procurement of women.
A redacted individual from a Paris modeling agency wrote in a 2013 email to Epstein: “New Brazilian just arrived, sexy and cute, 19yo .”
The email appears in the files twice: In one version, the modeling agency’s name is redacted, but in another, the agency is not redacted from the sender’s email signature.
In a 2018 email to Epstein, another redacted individual wrote: “I found at least 3 very good young poor.”
“Meet this one,” the person continued. “Not the beauty queen but we both likes her a lot.”
In a letter to Congress on Friday, the Justice Department detailed how it made redactions, saying it complied with the law by redacting victim information, child sex abuse materials and anything that would jeopardize an active investigation.
DOJ also withheld 200,000 pages “covered by various privileges, including deliberative process privilege, the work-product doctrine, and attorney-client privilege,” according to the letter.
At his press conference last Friday announcing the release of the files, Blanche said they did not contain information about evidence that would lead to the prosecution of any men who abused women.
“I said this earlier, there’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information of men that we know about that we’re covering up or that we’re choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case,” Blanche said. “I don’t know whether there are men out there that abuse these women.”
Scrambling to scrub files
In the hours after Friday’s DOJ release, CNN reported that multiple survivors, including anonymous “Jane Doe” victims, were seeing their names and information throughout the documents that were published.
Attorneys for some of the survivors sent a letter saying the DOJ’s failure to properly redact victims’ information had triggered an “unfolding emergency,” asking two federal judges in New York for an “immediate judicial intervention.”
Sunday’s letter included testimony from various anonymous “Jane Doe” victims who described receiving death threats and harassment from the media since the publication of the files.
“When DOJ believed it was ready to publish, it needed only to type each victim’s name into its own search function. Any resulting hit should have been redacted before publication. Had DOJ done that, the harm would have been avoided,” the lawyers wrote.
DOJ said in a response filed to the judges that it had removed all documents that victims or their lawyers identified, and a Justice Department spokesperson had said it had 500 reviewers looking at the files “for this very reason.”
“Mistakes were made by – you have really hard-working lawyers that worked for the past 60 days. Think about this though: you’re talking about pieces of paper that stack from the ground to two Eiffel Towers,” Blanche said Monday on Fox News. “The minute that a victim or their lawyer reached out to us since Friday, we immediately dealt with it and pulled it down.”
Epstein’s survivors say the release of names, even if corrected, is yet another example of how the Justice Department failed them.
“Publishing images of victims while shielding predators is just a failure of complete justice,” Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard told CNN. “There’s this deep sense of betrayal when the systems meant to protect you becomes the one causing all of this harm.”
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Federal judge denies Minnesota’s request to temporarily halt Operation Metro Surge
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Federal judge Kate Menendez denied Minnesota’s motion for a temporary restraining order to halt “Operation Metro Surge” on Saturday. The court documents, filed on Saturday, say that Minnesota and its cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have not met their burden of proof.
The argument to halt operations, in part, stated that the federal operation is “causing harm to the Twin Cities and State themselves, as well as their residents.” Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”
In the court documents, Menendez cited another recent case where the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently vacated the preliminary injunction ruling that restricted the force federal agents can use on peaceful protesters, saying that court case had “much more settled precedent” in that case and that “the Court of Appeals determined that the injunction would cause irreparable harm to the government because it would hamper their efforts to enforce federal law.” Menendez also wrote, “If that injunction went too far, then halting the entire operation certainly would.”
“Because there is evidence supporting both sides’ arguments as to motivation and the relative merits of each side’s competing positions are unclear, the Court is reluctant to find that the likelihood-of-success factor weighs sufficiently in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the judge said in the ruling.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement after Menendez’s ruling that stated in part:
“Of course, we’re disappointed. This decision doesn’t change what people here have lived through — fear, disruption, and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis in the first place. This operation has not brought public safety. It’s brought the opposite and has detracted from the order we need for a working city. It’s an invasion, and it needs to stop.”
The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have sought a temporary restraining order in their lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump administration officials.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took to social media Saturday to laud the ruling, calling it “another HUGE” legal win for the Justice Department on X.
Minnesota’s argument
The state filed the lawsuit claiming the Trump administration has “violated the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” through infringement of police power and unlawful coercion. Minnesota alleges it “has been singled out and targeted by ICE in a way that no other state has experienced.”
In the court filing, Minnesota argues that the operation is not motivated by “a legitimate law-enforcement purpose” but rather serves as a “pretext for leveraging demands and punishing political leaders within the State and Twin Cities who oppose the Trump administration’s immigration policies.”
The state also claims that one of the Trump administration’s true objectives is gaining access to Minnesota’s voter rolls.
Court documents also state that the large-scale presence of federal agents has disrupted the healthcare industry, affected local businesses and stopped residents from going to religious services. The state also claims that “federal officers’ use of force and being detained on their way to and from school had had ‘negative impacts on attendance and student focus’” forcing several school districts to temporarily close.
Trump administration’s argument
The Trump administration argues Operation Metro Surge was launched “to address the dangers arising from the presence of illegal aliens in the Twin Cities.” The administration also argues the dangers are exacerbated by Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul’s sanctuary city policies.
The Department of Justice filed a 34-page lawsuit in 2025 alleging “Minnesota officials are jeopardizing the safety of their own citizens by allowing illegal aliens to circumvent the legal process.”
The Trump administration also claims that Operation Metro Surge has “strictly been in furtherance of “the enforcement of federal law,” in line with President Trump’s campaign promises.”
Operation Metro Surge is the largest federal deployment of law enforcement in United States history.
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Chloe Rosen
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Federal judge denies Minnesota’s request to temporarily halt Operation Metro Surge
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Federal judge Kate Menendez denied Minnesota’s motion for a temporary restraining order to halt “Operation Metro Surge” on Saturday. The court documents, filed on Saturday, say that Minnesota and its cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have not met their burden of proof.
The argument to halt operations, in part, stated that the federal operation is “causing harm to the Twin Cities and State themselves, as well as their residents.” Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”
In the court documents, Menendez cited another recent case where the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently vacated the preliminary injunction ruling that restricted the force federal agents can use on peaceful protesters, saying that court case had “much more settled precedent” in that case and that “the Court of Appeals determined that the injunction would cause irreparable harm to the government because it would hamper their efforts to enforce federal law.” Menendez also wrote, “If that injunction went too far, then halting the entire operation certainly would.”
“Because there is evidence supporting both sides’ arguments as to motivation and the relative merits of each side’s competing positions are unclear, the Court is reluctant to find that the likelihood-of-success factor weighs sufficiently in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the judge said in the ruling.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement after Menendez’s ruling that stated in part:
“Of course, we’re disappointed. This decision doesn’t change what people here have lived through — fear, disruption, and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis in the first place. This operation has not brought public safety. It’s brought the opposite and has detracted from the order we need for a working city. It’s an invasion, and it needs to stop.”
The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have sought a temporary restraining order in their lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump administration officials.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took to social media Saturday to laud the ruling, calling it “another HUGE” legal win for the Justice Department on X.
Minnesota’s argument
The state filed the lawsuit claiming the Trump administration has “violated the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” through infringement of police power and unlawful coercion. Minnesota alleges it “has been singled out and targeted by ICE in a way that no other state has experienced.”
In the court filing, Minnesota argues that the operation is not motivated by “a legitimate law-enforcement purpose” but rather serves as a “pretext for leveraging demands and punishing political leaders within the State and Twin Cities who oppose the Trump administration’s immigration policies.”
The state also claims that one of the Trump administration’s true objectives is gaining access to Minnesota’s voter rolls.
Court documents also state that the large-scale presence of federal agents has disrupted the healthcare industry, affected local businesses and stopped residents from going to religious services. The state also claims that “federal officers’ use of force and being detained on their way to and from school had had ‘negative impacts on attendance and student focus’” forcing several school districts to temporarily close.
Trump administration’s argument
The Trump administration argues Operation Metro Surge was launched “to address the dangers arising from the presence of illegal aliens in the Twin Cities.” The administration also argues the dangers are exacerbated by Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul’s sanctuary city policies.
The Department of Justice filed a 34-page lawsuit in 2025 alleging “Minnesota officials are jeopardizing the safety of their own citizens by allowing illegal aliens to circumvent the legal process.”
The Trump administration also claims that Operation Metro Surge has “strictly been in furtherance of “the enforcement of federal law,” in line with President Trump’s campaign promises.”
Operation Metro Surge is the largest federal deployment of law enforcement in United States history.
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Trump DOJ Misses Epstein Files Deadline, GOP Shrugs
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House Oversight and Government Reform Committee member Lauren Boebert.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesJust two months ago, there was a “revolt” in Congress over the Trump administration’s efforts to bury the Epstein files. Once it became clear that a few House Republicans would support a discharge petition requiring the files’ release, Donald Trump himself flipped on the issue and ordered GOP lawmakers to do the same. Nearly all congressional Republicans voted for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which gave the Department of Justice 30 days to release all of the materials (with redactions of materials that might harm Epstein’s victims). Some observers thought it might be the beginning of the end of Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Party or even over his own MAGA movement, where the Epstein files have long been the object of powerful conspiracy theories.
That 30-day deadline has now come and gone, and only a small fraction of the Epstein files have seen the light of day. Indeed, as the Guardian reports, the slow-walking from Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice seems downright defiant:
Justice department attorneys said in a 5 January Manhattan court filing that they had posted approximately 12,285 to DoJ’s website, equating to some 125,575 pages, under this legislation’s requirements. They said in this same letter that justice department staff had identified “more than 2 million documents potentially responsive to the Act that are in various phases of review”.
That these DoJ’s disclosures apparently comprise a drop in the bucket – and have done little to shed light on how Epstein operated with apparent impunity for years – has roiled survivors’ advocates and lawmakers.
The original House co-sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie, are so furious about the administration’s noncompliance that they have petitioned federal district court judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York to intervene and force an independent audit of the files and their release, arguing that the “DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act.”
Meanwhile, most of Massie’s congressional Republican colleagues seem to be moving along to other matters having made their one gesture the passage of the law Team Trump is now refusing to implement. As Politico reports, the widespread indifference is typified by Colorado representative Lauren Boebert, one of the handful of House Republicans who joined Khanna and Massie and forced the issue to the House floor via a rare discharge petition:
“I don’t give a rip about Epstein,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said last week when she was asked to take stock of the month since the Dec. 19 deadline.
“Like, there’s so many other things we need to be working on,” she added. “I’ve done what I had to do for Epstein. Talk to somebody else about that. It’s no longer in my hands.”
Even those Republicans who do “give a rip” about the Epstein files seem more interested in selectively than completely releasing them:
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who has worked with Democrats on a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigation into the Epstein case, said in a recent interview she’s now more more focused on holding Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for not honoring the panel’s subpoena to testify about Epstein.
Many of the photos released by the DOJ so far feature the former president consorting with Epstein, and the administration has sought to portray Bill Clinton as the real pariah, not Trump.
This is entirely contrary to the law that Representative Anna Paulina Luna and 215 other House Republicans voted to impose on the DOJ in an atmosphere of great self-righteousness. Luna told Politico the original deadline for release of the files wasn’t “realistic,” which does make you wonder why she voted for it just two months ago. Once viewed as a demonstration of the legislative branch’s last-ditch willingness to show just a little bit of independence from Team Trump, the Epstein files saga is now showing that only the judicial branch and perhaps midterm voters can exercise effective oversight of this lawless administration.
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Ed Kilgore
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Faith leaders says
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Faith leaders will hold a news conference Tuesday in the Twin Cities to announce the participation of “hundreds of Minnesota places of worship” in A Day of Truth and Freedom — which calls for people to not work, shop or go to school this Friday.
Organizers say the day’s aim is to “call for an immediate end to ICE operations” in the state.
“As leaders in their community, clergy are bearing witness to the constitutional and human rights violations happening on a daily basis in our state and communities as a result of DHS operations,” wrote a spokesperson with the St. Paul-based nonprofit Isaiah.
The Day of Truth and Freedom will also include a march and rally in downtown Minneapolis on Friday, starting at 2 p.m.
Several Twin Cities businesses and co-ops will also close Friday in solidarity, and organizers say several unions are also on board, including the St. Paul Federation of Educators, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, Unite Here Local 17, SEIU Local 26, and the transit union ATU.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
NOTE: The original airdate of the video attached to this article is Jan. 13, 2026.
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Stephen Swanson
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Epstein Files Release Delayed By Redactions, Department of Justice Says
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“This is a time-intensive process due to the voluminous materials, the idiosyncratic nature of many of the materials, and the need to protect victim-identifying information,” Bondi writes. “The Department will continue to apprise the Court of its progress in this regard,” she continues, but does not provide a timeline.
Frustrating, yes, but a situation Americans might have to accept. Though Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie asked to Engelmayer to appoint an independent monitor to oversee the file release, as they suspect “serious misconduct by the Department of Justice,” the judge’s hands appear to be tied at the moment. According to a letter sent to Engelmayer Friday by US Attorney Jay Clayton, the judge “lacks the authority” to appoint that neutral party, the Associated Press reports, as Khanna and Massie lack standing with the court that would allow them to make that demand.
Via statement, Khanna says that Clayton misunderstood their request, which was denied as neither Khanna nor Massie were involved in the criminal case against Maxwell, which resulted in the Epstein investigation’s sole conviction. “We are informing the Court of serious misconduct by the Department of Justice that requires a remedy, one we believe this Court has the authority to provide, and which victims themselves have requested,” Khanna says. “Our purpose is to ensure that DOJ complies with its representations to the Court and with its legal obligations under our law.”
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Eve Batey
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Bondi, Wasserman Schultz vow to protect Jewish community at pro-Israel summit
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Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during the 2026 Israeli-American Council (IAC) National Summit at the Diplomat Beach Resort Hollywood on Friday January 16, 2026. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
South Florida Sun Sentinel
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke about their commitments to the Jewish community and their respective parties’ plans to combat antisemitism and strengthen ties with Israel at an Israeli-American summit attended by thousands on Friday afternoon.
Speaking in front of a packed ballroom at a Hollywood beach resort, Bondi touted the Trump administration’s crackdown on antisemitic and anti-Israel acts, while Wasserman Schultz reassured attendees that the Democratic Party remains largely pro-Israel despite some far-left dissenters.
The Florida-bred elected officials spoke at the Israeli-American Council National Summit, touted as the largest pro-Israel Jewish conference of the year, during a segment about “Inspirational Role Models.” They were followed by a variety of speakers, including Israeli ambassadors, a former Hamas hostage, Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner and TV personality Siggy Flicker.
Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during the 2026 Israeli-American Council (IAC) National Summit at the Diplomat Beach Resort Hollywood on Friday January 16, 2026. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel) Mike Stocker South Florida Sun Sentinel Bondi began her address by recounting the night two Israeli Embassy staff members were gunned down near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., last year.
Bondi, who is a former prosecutor and Attorney General of Florida, told the audience that her office is seeking the death penalty against the gunman, Elias Rodriguez.
“Sarah and Yaron were shot, murdered because they were Jewish,” Bondi said. “It was horrible. Horrible. We will not tolerate that in our country any longer.”
Bondi said that antisemitism has gone “unchecked” in the United States for too long, citing examples of antisemitic hate crimes like the recent arson attack at a historic synagogue in Mississippi.
“Too many Jewish Americans have been forced to live in fear. Under President Trump’s leadership, this Department of Justice is dedicated to reversing this unacceptable trend,” she said.
Bondi pointed to the Justice Department’s million-dollar settlements against public universities over anti-Israel protests on campuses and Trump’s role in helping return the hostages of the October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel as examples of the administration’s commitment to combatting antisemitism.
She said the rising levels of anti-Jewish hate in America are a result of the “inaction” of institutions and leaders who have chosen to “look the other way.”
To close out her speech, Bondi told a story about how she personally helped get a student expelled from Florida State University for allegedly verbally attacking another student wearing an Israeli Defense Forces shirt on campus.
“It’s not a crime of great violence, but in my opinion, it’s a crime of great significance,” she said.
Later in the summit, as Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Weston, took the stage, her presence was met with a mixture of cheers and boos from the audience.
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz speaks during the 2026 Israeli-American Council (IAC) National Summit. Mike Stocker South Florida Sun Sentinel “I am Florida’s first Jewish Congresswoman,” she said, adding that the first bill that she passed 21 years ago created the National Jewish American Heritage month. “I am a Zionist. I am a proud Jewish mother and I represent a significant Jewish community as well as an Israeli-American community proudly.”
The moderator, Aviva Klompas, pointed out that many in the room may be concerned about the Democratic Party’s support for Israel amid the party’s internal division over issues like the war in Gaza.
“It is my job today and going forward to help reassure people who have angst about the Democratic Party.. that the Congress of the United States remains an overwhelmingly pro-Israel governmental institution,” she said.
Wasserman Schultz mentioned that even amid the election of pro-Palestinian champions like New York City’s newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party has also continued to elect many pro-Israel candidates, like Mark Levine, who was elected Comptroller of New York City, and the New York City Council’s first Jewish speaker, Julie Menin.
“We have a core group of organized members that work inside to educate new members as they’re coming in,” she said, adding that she will continue to lead women’s trips to Israel within the Democratic Party.
The congresswoman closed by saying that it is the larger responsibility of pro-Israel people to ensure the younger generation continues to get educated on issues like the Holocaust.
This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and donors in South Florida’s Jewish and Muslim communities, including Khalid and Diana Mirza and the Mohsin and Fauzia Jaffer Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
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Lauren Costantino
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Feds sue the Bay Area cities of Morgan Hill, Petaluma over bans on natural gas in new buildings
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Two cities in the San Francisco Bay Area are facing a lawsuit brought on by the Trump administration seeking to end their bans on natural gas in new buildings.
On Jan. 5, the Department of Justice filed a suit in the Northern District of California against the cities of Morgan Hill and Petaluma.
According to the text of the lawsuit, federal prosecutors argue such bans lead to “crushing” costs for residents and are preempted by federal law.
“These natural gas bans hurt American families and are outright illegal,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “Alongside the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice is working around the clock to end radical environmentalist policies, restore common sense, and unleash American energy.”
Adam Gustafson, the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said, “When states and cities pick winners and losers, consumers pay the price. Our complaint seeks to restore consumer choice so that people and businesses can build in a way that fits their needs best.”
According to prosecutors, Morgan Hill approved a ban on new natural gas infrastructure in 2019, while Petaluma followed two years later.
Another Bay Area city, Berkeley, was the first in the country to implement a ban on natural gas on new homes and buildings, citing concerns about climate change. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out Berkeley’s ordinance in 2024, following a challenge brought on by the California Restaurant Association.
“Under that controlling precedent, Morgan Hill’s and Petaluma’s natural gas bans are invalid-as numerous other California cities have recognized when recently repealing or suspending their equivalent bans,” the lawsuit said.
In a statement to CBS News Bay Area on Tuesday, Morgan Hill City Attorney Donald Larkin said the city follows federal law and will continue to do so.
“The City has not denied any permits for gas infrastructure based on the 2019 ordinance since the courts struck down Berkeley’s similar ordinance. In fact, the City has approved projects with gas infrastructure. While we are still reviewing the complaint, this lawsuit appears to be an unnecessary effort to require the City to follow laws with which the City is already in compliance,” Larkin said.
Petaluma City Attorney Eric Danly said in a separate statement to CBS News Bay Area that they are also complying with federal law and that they are not enforcing their ordinance following the 9th Circuit ruling.
“In fact, the City has not denied any project or permit applications based on its electrification regulations, and has approved and is processing development projects that include gas infrastructure. In any event, the City has observed that developers have generally opted voluntarily to install electric utilities,” Danly said.
The lawsuit calls for the court to declare the bans are preempted by federal law and to enter a permanent injunction to prevent the ordinances from taking effect.
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Tim Fang
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U.S. Treasury Secretary pushes for Minnesota fraud crackdown as tensions over ICE efforts flare
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the creation of a new IRS task force and other measures to combat fraud, underscoring the Trump administration’s focus on Minnesota amidst the immigration crackdown.
“Minnesota is going to be the protocols, procedures and investigative techniques and collaboration. Minnesota is going to be the genesis for a national rollout,” Bessent said. “Treasury will deploy all tools to bring an end to this egregious, unchecked fraud and hold perpetrators to account.”
According to Bessent, the IRS task force will specifically probe financial institutions that facilitate wire transfers, as evidence from the Feeding Our Future trial showed some suspects sent money to banks in Kenya and China. Bessent added that four Twin Cities-based businesses are under investigation, but did not share their names. The department is also requiring all financial institutions in Hennepin and Ramsey counties to report any overseas transfer of $3,000 or more.
“Think of the absurdity of money being wired from Minnesota by these individuals that could have come from government programs or from excess benefits,” Bessent added. “This should not be wired out of the country and we are going to be cracking down on that.”
Bessent’s visit also comes on the heels of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s announcement that a team of prosecutors is headed to Minnesota “to reinforce our U.S. Attorney’s Office and put perpetrators of this widespread fraud behind bars.”
“We will deliver severe consequences in Minnesota and stand ready to deploy to any other state where similar fraud schemes are robbing American taxpayers,” Bondi said.
Reached for comment, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office said it “categorically rejects the premise that the ‘underlying reason’ Trump has ordered the outsized presence of ICE in Minnesota is because of fraud,” and said “Ellison does have extensive experience in successfully fighting fraud.”
“What Donald Trump knows about fraud isn’t fighting it, it’s actually letting fraudsters out of prison,” Ellison’s office added.
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Dozens of South Florida prosecutors reviewing Epstein files, filing reveals
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A protester holds a sign related to the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, November 12, 2025.
AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing more than 2 million additional documents related to investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, and dozens of South Florida lawyers have been called in to help, Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed in a letter to a New York judge Monday.
The Justice Department has posted about 12,000 documents in response to a December deadline to release its files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. There are more than 2 million additional documents “that are in various phases of review,” Bondi wrote.
The new transparency law required the Justice Department release files from all investigations into the convicted sex trafficker — who is believed to have abused about 1,000 victims — by Dec. 19. The department blew past that deadline, releasing less than 1% of the potentially relevant files in its possession so far, according to Bondi’s letter.
The Justice Department announced two weeks ago, after the December deadline passed, that it had “uncovered” over a million additional documents to review. The department now believes many of those files are copies or “largely duplicative” of documents it already had in its possession, but still require examination, according to Bondi’s letter.
Initially, Justice Department attorneys in D.C. and the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York were reviewing the files, Bondi told a judge in mid-December. Since then, “dozens of lawyers” from the Miami-based U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida, where Epstein was investigated in the mid-2000s, have started reviewing files as well.
Bondi said these attorneys are being pulled from the Florida office’s criminal and national security divisions. Former prosecutors with the office believe it has become increasingly politicized under U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones, who is pushing to prosecute Donald Trump’s enemies, the Herald has reported.
In total, there are more than 400 lawyers across the Justice Department dedicated to reviewing Epstein files, Bondi said.
Also in the letter, which Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote to a judge in the U.S. case against Ghislaine Maxwell this week, the Justice Department described plans to “modify” its review process.
The department is changing its process for reviewing the documents, adding additional “electronic” reviews that were not included when Bondi detailed her plans for complying with the transparency law to the judge in December.
The latest updates come in addition to Blanche’s letter to Congress in December, obtained by the Herald, detailing the Justice Department’s plans to redact files above and beyond the requirements of the transparency act to protect victim information.
The Justice Department has also been blacking out information “otherwise covered by various privileges, including deliberative-process privilege, work-product privilege, and attorney-client privilege.”
Bondi said the new “electronic quality control searches” are to protect victim information that was inadvertently released in previous document dumps. But critics say the department has been withholding information from the released files without clear legal justification.
One document released last month, for example, redacted the names of the Epstein associates that were subpoenaed in 2019.
Records released by the DOJ Tuesday December 23, 2025 redacted the names of those Epstein associates were were subpoenaed in 2019. Department of Justice The roughly 12,000 documents that have been released thus far under the new transparency law have revealed dozens of new photos of Epstein and powerful figures, including former President Bill Clinton. They also included multiple references to Donald Trump, with one 2020 memo revealing Trump was on many more flights with Epstein in the mid 1990s than the DOJ was initially aware of.
The documents also shed new light on the FBI’s investigations into others who may have participated in Epstein’s crimes, with one document naming 10 possible co-conspirators. The Justice Department redacted seven of these alleged co-conspirators’ names in the documents, drawing sharp criticism from the lawmakers that sponsored the bill forcing the release of the files.
The Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating Epstein’s financial transactions before his death in 2019, the newly released documents revealed. The files also revealed Epstein’s lawyers continued working to influence Florida prosecutors after they negotiated a cushy 2007 plea deal avoiding lengthy prison time for Epstein.
As the Miami Herald documented in its 2018 ”Perversion of Justice” investigation, under that deal, Epstein was allowed to leave jail regularly to work from a nearby office space where, according to lawsuits, he allegedly continued to abuse girls.
Miami Herald reporters Julie K. Brown and Ben Wieder contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 6, 2026 at 3:38 PM.
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Claire Heddles
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Bondi says Trump ‘saved countless lives’ in Venezuelan dictator Maduro capture operation
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The capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was “not just about drugs,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in her first interview about the military operation on “Hannity” Monday.
Maduro and other defendants could face charges in other places, Bondi said.
“Nothing is off the table,” Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “These people must remain behind bars. They are responsible for the loss of so many lives, and these aren’t street-level drug dealers. They are narco-traffickers.”
On Monday, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism and other charges in federal court.
The Justice Department says Maduro provided “Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers and facilitated diplomatic cover for planes used by money launderers to repatriate drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro greets his supporters during a rally in Caracas on Dec. 1, 2025. (Pedro Mattey/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A man who had a brief exchange with Maduro in the Manhattan court told Fox News the dictator declared himself a “prisoner of war” and compared himself to Jesus.
“I am innocent, I am not guilty,” Maduro told the court. “I am a decent man. I am still president of my country.”
UN AMBASSADOR WALTZ DEFENDS US CAPTURE OF MADURO AHEAD OF SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING
Some Democrats have criticized the military operation as a violation of state sovereignty, comparing it to former President George W. Bush’s actions in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Bondi insisted “Operation Absolute Resolve” was “well within” President Donald Trump’s constitutional authority in response to critics.
Persons escorted out of plane believed to carry Maduro, wife after Operation Absolute Resolve under cover of darkness. (WNYW)
“It was a law enforcement function to arrest indicted individuals in Venezuela,” Bondi explained. “Our military pulled off a flawless, flawless execution of that.”
MARCO RUBIO CLASHES WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS ON VENEZUELA LEADERSHIP IN HEATED EXCHANGE
She went on to stress Saturday’s covert operation “saved countless lives.”
“The president saved thousands, countless lives tonight,” Bondi said. “But he also protected Americans from the TDA [Tren de Aragua] members who Maduro let into our country, forced into our country.”
Captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, appear with their attorneys Barry Pollack and Mark Donnelly at their arraignment in a federal court in New York City on Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. (Jane Rosenberg)
The attorney general listed several murder victims of Venezuelan gang members, including 22-year-old Laken Riley and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray.
“It’s horrific and it is going to stop,” she vowed.
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While Trump has said the U.S. will temporarily “run” Venezuela, Maduro’s allies in the government have contested the claim.
The Venezuelan dictator and his wife are set to appear in court again March 17.
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