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Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic proposal Thursday to sue the Trump administration over allegations that it did not fully release the Epstein files, as mandated under a law unanimously approved by senators and signed by the president nearly three months ago.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked for unanimous consent on a resolution compelling the Republican-led Senate to challenge President Donald Trump in court to release more records from the government’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, said Jan. 30 that the department had finished complying with the new law after a final release of 3 million pages, containing 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. In total, the department released about 3.5 million records since the law’s passage.
The latest tranche revealed a global network of numerous men in powerful positions in communication with Epstein.
Late and redacted
The legal deadline to release the files was Dec. 19.
“Fifty days past the deadline, at best, according to the Department of Justice’s own admissions, maybe half of all the available Epstein files have been released,” Schumer said on the floor Thursday morning.
Schumer said that among the records released, many have been “redacted to an absurd degree.”
“This is not what the law requires. This is a mockery of the truth and an insult to the survivors. What makes this all the more sickening is that in over 1,000 instances, the Justice Department failed to follow the law and leaked the identities of over 100 victims. But do you know who the Justice Department did seem to protect? Epstein’s co-conspirators,” Schumer continued.
The minority leader entered into the congressional record a letter he brought along from roughly 20 Epstein victims decrying the “reckless and dangerous” release of victims’ identities.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., blocked the resolution, chalking it up as “another reckless political stunt designed to distract Americans from Democrats’ dangerous plan to shut down the Department of Homeland Security.”
Barrasso was referring to negotiations underway to fund DHS. Democrats have demanded changes to immigration enforcement tactics after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis, and numerous other U.S. citizens were injured by federal agents during Trump’s surge into blue states.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., criticized Barrasso’s objection on the floor, calling it “morally wrong.”
The White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘Hunger or thirst for information’
Blanche told reporters on Jan. 30, “There’s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
He said no information uncovered in the files warranted new prosecutions.
The new law, dubbed by lawmakers as the Epstein Files Transparency Act, required the DOJ to make publicly available “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ’s possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein,” including materials related to Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein avoided federal charges in 2008 when he pleaded guilty to Florida state prostitution charges, including for the solicitation of a minor.
A 2007 draft of a federal indictment that laid out more robust charges was among the files released by the DOJ on Jan. 30.
By Ashley Murray, News From The States
