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    US justice department renews request to unseal Epstein grand jury materials

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    The justice department has renewed its request to unseal grand jury materials from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation that led to the disgraced financier’s federal indictment on sex-trafficking charges in 2019.The submission, signed by US attorney Jay Clayton for the southern district in New York, says that Congress made clear in approving the release of investigative materials last week that the court records should be released.Clayton asked in the filing to Manhattan federal court that the release of the materials should be done promptly because lawmakers gave a 30 day window after Donald Trump signed the measure into law last week. The justice department said the congressional action overrode existing law in a way that permits the unsealing of the grand jury records.But Judge Richard Berman denied a prior Trump administration request to make the grand jury transcripts public, citing a “significant and compelling reason” to deny the request.Berman said in August that 70 pages of grand jury transcripts and exhibits including a PowerPoint presentation, four pages of call logs and letters from victims and their attorneys, pale in comparison to what documents the government already has on Epstein.In that ruling, Berman wrote that “the government’s 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials” and that the request appeared a “diversion” from releasing documents in its possession.The grand jury materials largely consist of the testimony of an FBI agent, the sole witness in the grand jury proceedings, “who had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay”.But Berman said the compelling reason to keep the documents under seal was the “possible threats to victims’ safety and privacy”.A similar request to unseal grand jury testimony relating to the prosecution of Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was also rejected. Manhattan federal court judge Paul Engelmayer wrote that the government’s request to unseal “implies that the grand jury materials are an untapped mine lode of undisclosed information about Epstein or Maxwell or confederates, they definitively are not that”.Still, Clayton’s request comes soon after he was assigned to investigate Epstein’s relationship to prominent Democrats and four months after Maurene Comey, one of the lead prosecutors on the cases against Epstein and Maxwell, was fired soon before deputy attorney general Todd Blanche travelled to Florida to interview Maxwell.Asked last week how that the New York Epstein-Democrat investigation could affect the release of Epstein files in the government’s possession, Attorney General Pam Bondi said: “We’re not going to say anything else on that because now it is a pending investigation in the southern district of New York.” More

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      What are the Jeffrey Epstein files, and will more be released?

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      Tens of thousands of documents have been released by members of Congress related to Jeffrey Epstein, the child sexual abuser, that shed light on his communications with and about powerful people, including the president.Last week, Democratic members of Congress released three emails pertaining to Trump and Epstein, then Republican members released more than 20,000 emails.But the issue is not over – and more documents could be coming soon.Trump has now reversed course on releasing the files, calling on the US House to vote on Tuesday to force the justice department to release more Epstein documents. He has previously fought against the idea and referred to the issue as the “Epstein hoax”.While campaigning, Trump said he would release the so-called “Epstein files”, the documents about criminal investigations into his former friend, who died in jail by hanging in 2019. But since taking office, Trump has appeared to have broken that promise, rankling ardent Maga allies who have spent years calling for the documents’ release.Epstein knew powerful people of all political persuasions and counted them as friends. Releasing the documents has become a rallying cry to reveal more details about Epstein, including how he made his money, and the extent of involvement by those who supported him in his criminal activity, especially those with wealth and political sway.Earlier in July, the US justice department said it would not be releasing more documents, saying it could harm victims and insisting there was not a “client list”.The refusal to release documents has roiled the right, with some Republicans pushing strongly to compel the files to be public as others downplayed the issue or sided with Trump. Democrats have seized on the schism, calling for Congress to compel the release of the documents and calling out Trump’s hypocrisy.What are the ‘files’? What kinds of documents?The federal government has a “truckload” of documents from and about Epstein related to his criminal cases, according to reported comments of Pam Bondi, the US attorney general. This includes his flight logs for private planes and contacts, which is sometimes referred to as his “black book” – which has already been publicly posted online.A memo released by the justice department in July said the agency searched through its databases, hard drives and physical areas to find Epstein-related information, locating “more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence”.Within those files were images and videos of Epstein and his victims, some of whom are minors, and more than 10,000 downloaded videos and images of “illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography”.Some documents related to Epstein are under court-ordered seals. For instance, a federal judge this week denied a request from the justice department to unseal grand jury transcripts in a south Florida criminal investigation. Some of those that were once sealed have been unsealed, including some unsealed in early 2024 that identified names of people included in depositions and motions who previously were listed as John Does.“Much of the material is subject to court-ordered sealing,” the justice department memo said. “Only a fraction of this material would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial, as the seal served only to protect victims and did not expose any additional third parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing.”There are also serious concerns about identifying victims if some documents are released. The department said Epstein had harmed more than 1,000 victims, some minors, all of whom “suffered unique trauma”.“Sensitive information relating to these victims is intertwined throughout the materials. This includes specific details such as victim names and likenesses, physical descriptions, places of birth, associates, and employment history,” the memo said.Is there a ‘client list’?In its memo, the department says there was no “client list”, despite it being a longtime claim and rallying call for those embedded in the Epstein case, especially on the right.“There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions,” the memo says. “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”Julie K Brown, an investigative journalist with the Miami Herald who has been uncovering the Epstein case for years, said earlier this year that there was “no Jeffrey Epstein client list. Period. It’s a figment of the internet’s imagination – and a means to just slander people.”In an interview with the Atlantic, Brown said the list idea was a “red herring” that seems to have been born out of a phone directory Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, compiled, often referred to as the “black book”. People such as Trump and other celebrities were in the directory, but so were Epstein’s gardeners, barbers and others, Brown said.What has Trump said about the files?After Epstein’s death by suicide, Trump shared a tweet that claimed the Clintons were involved in his death. He also told reporters at the time that he had questions about whether Bill Clinton went to Epstein’s infamous island.While campaigning for the 2024 election, Trump said, when asked, that he would declassify the Epstein files, though he prioritized them below files about September 11 and the John F Kennedy assassination. “You don’t want to affect people’s lives if there’s phoney stuff in there, because there’s a lot of phoney stuff with that whole world,” he said then.Bondi said earlier this year that the justice department would be releasing a list of Epstein’s clients, telling Fox News that it was “sitting on my desk right now to review” – though she later said she was talking about case files and not a client list. The department released some information, dubbed a “first phase of files”, to rightwing influencers, though those files did not contain much new information.Trump has grown increasingly angry at those calling for the files to be released, and dismissed the entire controversy as “boring” and a “hoax”, something that “nobody cares about”.“I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” he wrote on Truth Social on 16 July.On 16 November, Trump said the files should be released.“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, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown,’” he wrote on Truth Social.Is Trump named in the files?Yes. Trump is known to be a one-time friend of Epstein’s. His name’s inclusion in the documents does not mean he was a party to any of Epstein’s criminal activity.Documents released by Democratic members of the House oversight committee included an email from Epstein to Trump biographer Michael Wolff in which Epstein said of Trump: “Of course, he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.” In another, he called Trump the “dog that hasn’t barked”.Epstein emailed people about Trump regularly, usually derogatorily. “I have met some very bad people,” he wrote in one email. “None as bad as Trump. Not one decent cell in his body.”What questions could these files help answer?There are many legitimate questions that the files could shed light on about Epstein and his circle.How Epstein made his money is still of much interest, as is how he financed his extensive sex-trafficking operation. Often referred to as a financier, he had vast wealth, owning expensive real-estate including two private islands, and a private jet.Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator from Oregon who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate finance committee, told the New York Times that four major banks had “flagged more than $1.5bn in transactions – including thousands of wire transfers for the purchase and sale of artwork for rich friends, fees paid to Mr Epstein by wealthy individuals, and payments to numerous women”.Questions still swirl over potential ties to the intelligence community. Bondi told reporters: “To him being an agent, I have no knowledge about that. We can get back to you on that.” The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett denied Epstein was an Israeli agent, a frequent claim made without evidence. “The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false,” Bennett said.And suspicion over the manner of Epstein’s death is still in the mix. The justice department released an 11-hour video of jail footage in the hours before and after his death, though there seems to be almost three minutes of footage missing, leading to further scrutiny. Bondi has said that missing footage is because the Bureau of Prisons was resetting video.There is also much to be discovered on how Epstein was able to evade justice for so long. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter, told the Atlantic her “one nagging question” goes back to 2008, when the justice department decided not to fully go after Epstein after local and state authorities first were looking into his crimes.“Who were the people behind that in the beginning?” Brown said. “Because if they had done their jobs, of all these people in 2006, 2007, and 2008 – if all those people working for us, the American public, had done their jobs, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. A lot of those victims would’ve never been victimized.” More

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      Ghislaine Maxwell eyeing commutation, whistleblower tells House Democrats

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      Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate and co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, is reportedly preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration to review, according to new allegations from a whistleblower shared with House Democrats.Democrats on the House judiciary committee announced on Monday that they had received information from a whistleblower that indicates that the British former socialite, 63, is working on filing a commutation application. They also said Maxwell had been receiving special treatment at federal prison camp Bryan in Texas – the minimum-security facility she was transferred to earlier this year.Congressman Jamie Raskin, the ranking member and top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, stated in a news release that the prison’s warden was also “helping” Maxwell “copy, print, and send documents” to support her bid for clemency.The exact content of this “commutation application” was unclear, Raskin added.Raskin states that according to the whistleblower, Maxwell has been receiving “customized” meals that are “personally delivered” to her cell, and that the warden has “personally arranged” private meetings for Maxwell and her visitors. The visits allegedly include providing a “special cordoned-off area” for visitors to arrive, as well as “an assortment of snacks and refreshments for her guests”.Maxwell’s visitors were also reportedly permitted to bring computers, which, Raskin described in the news release as an “unprecedented action by the Warden given the security risk and potential for Ms Maxwell to use a computer to conduct unmonitored communications with the outside world”.In one alleged instance, the whistleblower said that when phone lines went down for other inmates, Maxwell was given specific instructions about who she should tell her contacts to call and how those personnel would then connect to relay the call to Maxwell.The whistleblower further reportedly told the House Democrats that when Maxwell wanted to review and edit documents “quickly”, she “essentially used” the warden as her “personal secretary and administrative assistant”. The news release states that Maxwell’s correspondents would email documents directly to the warden, who would provide them to Maxwell, “who would review and edit them and provide them back to the Warden to scan and provide to the original sender”.Other privileges allegedly granted to Maxwell also include time to “play with” a service dog – a perk that the news release states is not “ordinarily allowed” –   as well as private after-hours access to the prison exercise area.Maxwell’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian regarding the whistleblower’s claims.In a statement to the Guardian, Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, said that “the White House does not comment on potential clemency requests”.“As President Trump has stated, pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell is not something he has thought about,” Jackson added.Over the weekend, reports surfaced that Maxwell told friends and family in emails from prison that she was “much happier” at the Texas facility than her previous prison.In August, Maxwell was moved from a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to the minimum-security camp in Texas, where most of the inmates are serving time for non-violent offenses and white-collar crimes. The transfer, which experts described as “unprecedented”, occurred just days after she was interviewed about the Epstein case by the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche – who also previously served as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.That interview came as the Trump administration was facing mounting pressure to release more documents related to the Epstein investigation and amid intense speculation around the president’s own personal ties to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, who was found dead in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting prosecution on sex-trafficking charges.In the news release on Monday, Raskin also announced that he had sent a letter to Trump demanding answers about the whistleblower’s allegations, and also called on the president to reject Maxwell’s commutation request.“You should not grant any form of clemency to this convicted and unrepentant sex offender,” Raskin wrote in the letter. “Your Administration should not be providing her with room service, with puppies to play with, with federal law enforcement officials waiting on her every need, or with any special treatment or institutional privilege at all.”Raskin requested that Blanche appear for a public congressional hearing to discuss the revelations and also posed three questions to Trump.Raskin asked whether Trump had discussed a potential commutation, or any form of presidential clemency, for Maxwell with Blanche or others; whether he had directed Blanche or anyone else in the administration to provide Maxwell with the transfer to the prison camp, or to give her favorable and preferential treatment in prison; and lastly whether Maxwell, her attorneys, family or representatives have made any promises to Trump or his attorneys.Raskin has asked for a response to the questions by 24 November.In another statement on Monday, Democratic representative Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform, called on Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican representative James Comer, who chairs the oversight committee, to “publicly oppose a commutation or pardon by President Trump.“Ghislaine Maxwell is a convicted sex offender who helped Jeffrey Epstein commit atrocities and rape against women and girls for decades,” Garcia said. “For months, we have been warning the American people that Trump’s Department of Justice is providing her with unprecedented benefits as a prisoner, including moving her to a less restrictive facility.“Thanks to brave whistleblowers and our partners on the judiciary committee, we have more evidence that Maxwell is seeking a pardon or commutation,” he added.In October, the US supreme court declined to hear an appeal from Maxwell on her sex-trafficking conviction. 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      House Democrat accuses Trump’s DoJ of ‘gigantic cover-up’ over shut Epstein inquiry

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      A top Democrat has demanded to know why the Trump administration “inexplicably killed” a criminal investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators as he accused the justice department of a “shameful and gigantic cover-up”.Jamie Raskin, a House judiciary committee ranking member and congressman from Maryland, claimed the decision to end the investigation in July had shielded an alleged network of “powerful individuals accused of enabling and engaging in the massive billion-dollar sex trafficking operation” while ignoring the accounts of women exploited by Epstein.In a letter to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, on Monday, Raskin asked: “Why would the Trump Administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kill an ongoing criminal investigation into a massive and decades-long criminal sex trafficking ring that preyed on girls and young women? Who exactly are you intending to protect by this action?”Raskin demanded to know why the investigation had abruptly ended despite the fact that nearly 50 women had provided information to prosecutors and the FBI as part of the years-long investigation into Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who was jailed in 2022. He claimed the women had identified to investigators at least 20 co-conspirators.“The information provided by this huge group of women was precise and detailed: they described how Mr Epstein, Ms Maxwell, and their co-conspirators orchestrated a sophisticated and clandestine sex trafficking conspiracy that trafficked them to at least 20 men,” Raskin wrote.“These survivors shared with the DOJ and FBI the specific identities of many of these co-conspirators, how this operation was structured and financed, and which individuals facilitated these crimes.”Efforts to pursue these leads appear to have been halted when Trump came into office, a press release from the committee claimed.The Epstein case has been under renewed scrutiny since the justice department and the FBI concluded in a memo in July that no secret client list of Epstein existed and no further charges were expected as investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties”. The memo contradicted previous claims made by Trump and Bondi, as well as conspiracy theories alleging Epstein was at the center of a larger plot.Raskin said the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York had been running an investigation into the disgraced financier’s alleged co-conspirators until January 2025, when prosecutors were ordered to transfer the case files to the justice department’s headquarters in Washington DC.Since then, “the investigation into co-conspirators has inexplicably ceased, and no further investigative steps appear to have been taken”, Raskin wrote, citing information provided by lawyers representing Epstein’s accusers.He said the women had made clear to the justice department and the FBI that Epstein and Maxwell did not act alone. “Yet, the Trump Administration has inexplicably killed this investigation, declared these survivors ‘not credible,’ and falsely claimed no evidence exists to support charges against additional co-conspirators,” Raskin added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe accused the justice department of abandoning promises made under the Biden administration to coordinate with victims in its pursuit of Epstein’s co-conspirators. “Your DOJ has abandoned those promises in pursuit of a shameful and gigantic cover-up,” he wrote.Raskin has asked Bondi for details of investigative steps relating to the case undertaken by the justice department since January 2025.In an email response, justice department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre blamed Democrats and the shutdown.“The Democrats have shut down the government and Congressional correspondence during a lapse in appropriations is limited. We look forward to continuing our close cooperation with the Committee in pursuit of transparency, as we have already provided 33,000 pages to the House Oversight Committee – more than was ever requested by the committee when the Ranking Member’s party was in the majority, once the Democrats stop playing games with taxpayer dollars and vote to re-open the government.” More

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      Top Democrat on House oversight panel demands Pam Bondi release Epstein files

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      The top Democrat on a congressional committee investigating the government’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s case demanded on Wednesday that Pam Bondi, the attorney general, turn over files related to the alleged sex trafficker, citing revelations from the posthumous memoir of a prominent abuse survivor.Virginia Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, published this week, details how Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell groomed and manipulated her.In Congress, the House oversight committee has been investigating the government’s handling of the prosecution of Epstein, who died in 2019 while in federal custody. In his letter to Bondi, the committee’s Democratic ranking member Robert Garcia said that the attorney general must hand over further documents about the case, citing details of Epstein and Maxwell’s abuse Giuffre reveals in her book.“Virginia Giuffre’s allegations are heartbreaking and horrific, including testimony that prominent world and US leaders perpetrated sexual assault and sex trafficking of girls and young women. Ms Giuffre clearly contradicts the agency’s claim that the Epstein files did not justify further investigation,” Garcia said in a statement.He called on the justice department to comply with a subpoena that the Republican-led panel’s members approved in August, writing to Bondi: “Your refusal to release the files and your continued disregard of a congressional subpoena raises serious questions about your motives.”Concerns over Epstein’s case flared up in July, when the justice department announced the alleged sex trafficker had died by suicide and no list of his clients existed to be released. That contradicted claims made by Trump and Bondi, as well as conspiracy theories alleging Epstein was at the center of a larger plot.In response, the House oversight committee opened its inquiry into the government’s handling of the case, while the Trump administration moved unsuccessfully to release transcripts of the grand jury that indicted Epstein. A top justice department official also interviewed Maxwell, who is incarcerated, and she was later relocated to a lower security prison.Trump has condemned the outcry over Epstein as a “Democrat hoax”. Despite that, three House Republicans have joined with all Democrats on a petition that will force a vote on legislation to release files related to the case, which is expected to be resolved once the ongoing government shutdown ends.Giuffre died by suicide in April this year, aged 41. After the Guardian published extracts of her memoir last week, the UK’s Prince Andrew gave up his honors and use of the Duke of York title. He has denied allegations he sexually assaulted Giuffre when she was 17, and admitted no liability when settling a civil case she brought for a reported £12m (about $16m).The House oversight committee’s investigation has led to the release of a lewd drawing Trump is said to have made for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Tens of thousands of pages of documents have already been released, many of which were already public. More

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      Epstein estate records release could shine light on sex trafficker’s connections – or show nothing at all

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      The release of records from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate to US lawmakers this week, as well as potentially suspicious transaction reports, could offer a roadmap to where the scandal swirling around the late convicted sex trafficker goes next.Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed full transparency around Epstein and his links to a wide circle of powerful, rich and famous associates. But instead, the administration has been accused of foot-dragging and a cover-up, and has faced intense scrutiny over the extent of Trump’s own social contact with Epstein.Due to be handed over this week to the House oversight committee chair are estate records that include Epstein’s 50th “birthday book” compiled with notes from friends – including an entry allegedly signed by Trump that is now the subject of a defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal.They also include Epstein’s last will and testament, agreements he signed with federal prosecutors in Florida in 2008, his contacts from his “black book”, non-disclosure agreements, and financial transactions and holdings. In addition, the committee has asked the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, for relevant suspicious activity reports (SARs) in connection with the investigation and prosecution of Epstein and his one-time girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell on sex-trafficking charges.The committee this week also plans to hold a transcribed interview with Alex Acosta, Trump’s first-term labor secretary who was US attorney for the southern district of Florida when the justice department struck a plea deal with Epstein that victims have repeatedly said allowed him to get away with many crimes.Then there is a stalled campaign by the Kentucky Republican representative Thomas Massie and the California Democrat Ro Khanna to pass legislation to force the government to release all documents relating to the Epstein-Maxwell investigation.The White House has reportedly advised Republicans in Congress that supporting the effort would “be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration”.Adding to pressure on the Trump administration, Epstein survivors said last week they would compile their own client list of alleged abusers if the information was not released. Massie and Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said they would read out the names on the House floor under a protective “speech or debate” clause.But none of the potential avenues for more information on the Epstein-Maxwell sex-trafficking conspiracy may be more fruitful than the financial disclosures, and especially the SARs, if they are made public.But the SARs request is already mired in partisan politics, with Democratic senator Ron Wyden accusing Bessent of withholding key information. In a letter, Wyden listed 58 people or institutions he wanted records on. “Treasury records shine a light on how high-profile individuals paid Epstein staggering sums of money, which was then used to move women around the world or engage in dubious transactions indicative of money laundering,” he said.Banks are required to file SARs with the treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network when they suspect a criminal violation, when specified transaction thresholds are reached, or when they suspect money laundering.According to Patrice Schiano, a former FBI forensic accountant now with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, an SAR itself does not necessarily reveal much – but it can be used by law enforcement to subpoena information, including the originator and beneficiaries of the transaction.“They’re documents that speak for themselves. You might find things you don’t necessarily know you’re looking for. Maybe a source is telling you something but you don’t really know the support behind the SARs, and there are ways with SARs you can begin to figure things out,” Schiano said.In a 2023 lawsuit, the Epstein victims and the US Virgin Islands claimed that JP Morgan notified the government of $1bn in suspicious transactions by Epstein dating back to 2003 – but made the report only after Epstein was arrested in 2019.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLawyers for the bank said it had flagged the treasury department six times, including as early as 2002, about Epstein’s financial activity and that the federal government gave no response and took no action. The bank settled the action for $290m. JP Morgan said that any association with Epstein “was a mistake, and we regret it”.According to Schiano, Epstein’s banking information, if lawmakers can get it, could be “a rich source”.Schiano added: “But you have to have access to SARs, then you have to get a subpoena, and then you have to crunch the data. It’s not easy to do, and it takes a long time, but they could have all the information they need to do a comprehensive investigation.”But will they? A release last week of more than 30,000 pages of Epstein-related documents yielded little new. Wyden noted in his letter that Bessent has twice declined to produce treasury documents to the committee. The senator and his staff viewed some of the SARs last year, but they were not allowed to copy the documents.A treasury department spokesperson called Wyden’s request “political theater”.Representative James Comer, the chair of the House oversight committee, has also issued deposition subpoenas to several former senior US government officials and figures such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Robert Mueller, William Barr, Jeff Sessions and Alberto Gonzales to testify.Marie Springer, author of The Politics of Ponzi Schemes: History, Theory, and Policy, warned the truth about Epstein may remain a mystery and even the release of estate records may show little.“I’m very suspicious about the whole Epstein case. I don’t think we will ever have full disclosure,” Springer said. “He had a lot of money for someone who didn’t graduate from college. The curiosity is around why and how, and the people alive now aren’t willing to tell the story.” More

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      The Jeffrey Epstein cover-up is an affront to US democracy | Rebecca Solnit

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      Rape is a crime against democracy in the most immediate sense of equality between individuals and the premise that we’re all endowed with certain inalienable rights. Most rapists operate on the premise that they can not only overpower the victim physically, but can do so socially and legally. They count on a system that discounts the voices of victims and only too often cooperates in silencing them, through shame, intimidation, threats, discrediting, the obscene legal instrument known as a nondisclosure agreement and a system too often run by men for men at the expense of women and children. That is to say, rapists count on getting away with it because of a system that hands them power and steals it from their victims. They count on a silencing system. On profound inequality.Which is what makes rape such a peculiar crime: it is the ritual enactment of the perpetrator’s power and the victim’s powerlessness, buttressed by the circumstances that puts and keeps each of them in those roles. It’s driven by the desire to use sexuality to cause physical and psychic injury, to dominate, to celebrate the rapist’s power and the victim’s powerlessness, to treat another human being as a person without rights, including the right to set boundaries, to say no and to speak up afterward. A society that perpetuates and protects this desire and arrangement is rape culture, and it’s been our culture throughout most of its existence.Democracy, in this context, means a society and system in which everyone’s rights matter, everyone’s voice is heard and everyone is equal under the law. Rapists count on this not being true, but is has become more true over the past half century, thanks to feminism, and changed a lot more over the past dozen years, thanks to more feminism. There has been a shift toward equality of of voice, rights and support from the legal system, from arresting officers to investigations, judges and juries (who, thanks to feminism, are no longer exclusively male). It hasn’t changed enough, but it’s changed a lot, which is how a hundred survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s rape club were able to gather with the support of Thomas Massie, a Republican congressperson from Kentucky, and Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative from California, on Wednesday morning to speak to the world about their experiences and demand justice.They became victims, and some were abused for years, because of the power differential between Epstein and the girls and young women. His power consisted not only of his immense and still-unexplained wealth, but of aid from a host of others. Some actively cooperated in manipulating and abusing them, as groomer and pimp-in-chief Ghislaine Maxwell did, along with the fellow rapists to whom Epstein offered these children and young women. Others knew and chose to protect him and his fellow abusers, and some still do, all the way to the very top.Mike Johnson, the House speaker, adjourned Congress earlier this summer to prevent votes on measures relating to Epstein and thereby protect Donald Trump. As the New Republic reported on Tuesday, “House Speaker Mike Johnson is offering Republicans a cowardly out to avoid voting on a bipartisan discharge petition to release the Epstein files in full.” Johnson’s main concern in this (and pretty much everything else he does) is to protect Trump. He is not alone. Jamie Raskin said in July: “They’d conscripted a thousand FBI agents to be working around the clock 24 hours going through a hundred thousand Epstein documents and told them to flag any mentions of Donald Trump … This might be one of the most massive cover-ups in the history of the United States unfolding before our eyes.”The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, ordered this frantic censorship scheme to protect Trump, which should have begotten a thousand front-page news stories demanding to know what exactly it took a thousand agents to hide from us and who exactly Trump is that he requires this kind of anti-democratic protection. Like Johnson, and like Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, who conducted a long, deeply wrong exculpatory softball interview with Maxwell, she’s serving one man rather than the 342 million people of this country. Trump himself, who over the summer seemed terrified and eager to distract from whatever there is to be found out about his role in all this, once again attempted to silence victims by calling the whole thing “a Democrat hoax” immediately after the news conference. Survivor Haley Robson called out Trump and declared: “I cordially invite you to the Capitol to meet me in person so you can understand this is not a hoax.”The women who spoke at Wednesday morning’s press conference made it clear they still fear they face threats, that the machinery of silencing is still at work. Katie Tarrant of the Washington Post writes, “Lisa Phillips, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, and her lawyer Brad Edwards, said victims were scared to speak publicly about other abusers for fear of legal action. Her response came in response to a question about a client list some victims said they are compiling.” Another Post journalist reports, “Anouska De Georgiou, who said she was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, said she and her daughter were threatened when she volunteered to be a witness in a lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell.”And this attempt to suppress the truth about crimes and silence victims is only too consistent with the Republican party and the Trump administration. The attacks on immigrants, refugees, Black and brown people, women, trans people, the positioning of the administration as above the law with the cooperation of the rogue conservatives of the supreme court: all this is an attempt to roll back not only the democratic gains of the past several decades, but the democratic principles of universal rights and equality under the law embedded in the constitution and the Bill of Rights.Rendering women second-class or maybe 11th-class citizens again is at the heart of the current rightwing agenda, with its pursuit of criminalization of pregnancy, denial of reproductive rights including access to birth control, the right to choose whether to bear children, and life-saving care for women who have miscarriages or otherwise need a pregnancy terminated. But this is only part of the attack on women. The administration has disproportionately fired Black women from government jobs. 300,000 Black women have left – or been pushed out of – the workforce in the last three months.Pete Hegseth, who himself settled rape allegations out of court, has fired women in high positions in the military, claims women are less qualified than men and has been reposting videos from Christian fanatics asserting women should not have the right to vote. Trump’s is quite literally a pro-crime administration, as major branches of federal government are pulled away from pursuing criminals to persecuting immigrants, often violating the law to do so. The administration has sought to cut funding for and dismantle programs addressing domestic violence. And of course the Trump administration is headed by Donald J Trump – a judge found in a civil claim that it was “substantially true” that Trump raped journalist E Jean Carroll. It’s rapists all the way down, and enablers all the way up.

      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility More

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      Ghislaine Maxwell never saw Trump in ‘any inappropriate setting’, transcript shows

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      The US Department of Justice has released the transcript and audio recording of an interview conducted by Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, with the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.In a post on X, Blanche said the materials were being released “in the interest of transparency”, providing links to the transcript and to audio files.The release includes documentation from a two-day interview conducted on 24 and 25 July. The materials comprise redacted transcripts for both days, along with multiple audio recordings – seven separate parts plus test recordings for day one, and four parts plus test recordings for day two.The department of justice gave Maxwell limited immunity to allow her to talk about her criminal case, but did not promise anything in exchange for her testimony, according to the transcript that was released.“The most important part of this agreement is that this isn’t a cooperation agreement, meaning that by you meeting with us today, we’re really just meeting,” Blanche told Maxwell. He added: “I’m not promising to do anything.”Maxwell, 63, was Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate and was convicted on five counts, including sex trafficking of minors, and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.Epstein died by suicide in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.Maxwell, in the released transcript, said she never saw Trump do anything inappropriate and she repeatedly showered Trump with praise. That sort of comment would have been welcomed by Trump and his circle who have been keen to dismiss concerns about this relationship with Epstein which have roiled his support base.“I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody,” Maxwell said.But she did detail the social relationship between Trump and Epstein, who cultivated a wide and powerful social circle for many years.“I don’t know how they met, and I don’t know how they became friends. I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together, but they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly,” she said.She added: “I think they were friendly like people are in social settings. I don’t … I don’t think they were close friends or I certainly never witnessed the president in any of … I don’t recall ever seeing him in his house, for instance,” she said.The justice department lawyers also quizzed Maxwell extensively about Epstein’s relationship with former president Bill Clinton, who travelled multiple times on Epstein’s plane and – like Trump – has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of wrongdoing.“President Clinton liked me, and we got along terribly well. But I never saw that warmth or that … that warmth, or however you want to characterize it, with Mr Epstein,” she said of Clinton’s contacts with Epstein.Maxwell also said she did not remember Trump having been in Epstein’s 50th birthday book, which she assembled.The Wall Street Journal reported in July that the book’s collection of letters included one with Trump’s name on it. The president has repeatedly denied writing the note and filed a lawsuit accusing the Journal of libel.Maxwell said she saw some parts of the birthday book before her trial, during its discovery phase.“There was nothing from President Trump,” Maxwell said.She also denied remembering any picture of a naked woman, a detail the Journal previously reported.Maxwell said Epstein did not know what to do to celebrate his 50th, and she suggested a birthday book like “my mom did … for my dad”.She added: “He said, I love that idea.”After her interview with justice department lawyers, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida, where she had been serving a 20-year sentence, to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.Neither her lawyer nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move which caused a storm of criticism and raised eyebrows as to whether Maxwell get some sort of deal for her cooperation.One legal expert said that the release of the transcript was Trump “getting what he wants” from the interview in the latest effort to calm the political storms around his links to Epstein that have dogged him for weeks.“From what we see from this transcript, Trump is getting what he wants. She is saying that Trump didn’t do anything untoward, nothing criminal. That’s what Trump wants. Ideally, he’d also like names of Democrats who did do something wrong, because that’s what the Maga base has been promised,” Dave Aronberg, former Democratic state attorney for Palm Beach county, told CNN.The House oversight committee has received the first round of Epstein documents from the justice department, which includes 33,000 pages of documents, according to panel staff.“The committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted,” a spokesperson for committee chair James Comer said. “The committee will also consult with the [justice department] to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations.”The committee subpoenaed files related to Epstein following a public outcry over the administration’s handling of its promises to release more information related to Epstein’s conduct and death.House Democrats seized on the issue and helped push Comer to subpoena the justice department for documents.“The Trump DoJ is providing records at a far quicker pace than anything” than it did during Joe Biden’s presidency, the committee spokesperson continued. 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      Ghislaine Maxwell’s grand jury transcripts are likely a dud, but other documents could reveal much

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      When Donald Trump’s Department of Justice requested the release of grand jury transcripts in criminal proceedings against sex-traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the move did little to quiet an ever-growing chorus of critics frustrated by the US president’s backtracking over disclosing investigative files.Indeed, the justice department’s filings in this request revealed that only two law enforcement officers testified during grand jury proceedings in New York, undermining notions that unsealing them would reveal numerous truths.Manhattan federal court judge Paul Engelmayer recently rejected the justice department’s unsealing gambit and, in his decision, dealt yet another blow to the suggestion that grand jury documents would foster transparency about Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes and their social links to powerful figures such as Bill Clinton, Donald Trump himself and many others.“Insofar as the motion to unseal implies that the grand jury materials are an untapped mine lode of undisclosed information about Epstein or Maxwell or confederates, they definitively are not that,” Engelmayer said, adding that anyone who expected new information to emerge from the documents “would come away feeling disappointed and misled”.“There is no ‘there’ there,” Engelmayer said in his written decision.In disabusing the possibility of bombshells in Maxwell’s grand jury transcripts, questions once again abound as to whether other investigative documents on Epstein will ever see the light of day – and whether there will be any political consequences for Trump if his justice department does not deliver them to a public increasingly convinced of a cover-up.Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor, said the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the FBI director, Kash Patel, have the legal power to release these other documents – but it might be politics that is keeping them from doing so.“They hold the key,” he said. “With a stroke of their pen, they can release the Epstein files.”Most of the Epstein files are not grand jury transcripts protected by sealing, Rahmani said. “There has to be a treasure trove of information that the Department of Justice has.“Members of the public [and] the media, they can’t compel the DoJ to release the information under a [Freedom of Information Act] request or anything similar, because there’s the law enforcement privilege, the deliberative process privilege,” Rahmani added. “The DoJ doesn’t have to make public its confidential files just because the public wants to, but they can certainly choose to do so.“Trump was inaugurated in January. Bondi has been AG for seven months now. How long does it take to go through these documents?“I think we’re waiting for something that’s never going to come to fruition.”Victims’ advocates have also noted that the Trump administration is capable of releasing these documents so that those whom Epstein and Maxwell preyed on can get justice.“For the last 20 years the victims have always wanted the full disclosure of information regarding Epstein and Maxwell’s sexual-trafficking scheme. They have always wanted all individuals to be held accountable for their part in the sexual exploitation,” said Spencer Kuvin, chief legal officer of Goldlaw, who has represented multiple Epstein victims.“The current administration has the power to release everything by merely signing an executive order. Instead of trying to help victims and expose sexual predators, they are more worried about protecting their friends who socialized with these criminals.”Analysts have voiced differing views on whether there is longterm political liability for Trump if the documents are not released.Susan MacManus, professor emerita of political science at the University of South Florida, said there are several possibilities. Republicans might hope that people grow bored with the issue and start focusing on other subjects.A smaller cohort of ultra-conservative Republicans, however, is dissatisfied that the documents have not been released.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“They’re disappointed in Trump because they think that there’s something hidden there, and they believe in transparency,” MacManus explained. Some Republicans might think that “ultimately, at least some of this stuff will come out”, implicating Democrat and Republican politicians alike.MacManus does not think that this issue will sway an election, however.“I see this as something that goes out of the picture and comes back in and goes out and comes back in,” MacManus said. “But I don’t think it’s enough to move somebody’s vote if they’re a Republican or if they’re a Democrat, they’re going to stick with their party.”Rick Wilson, the Lincoln Project co-founder and former Republican strategist, felt the document issue presented a dramatic problem for Trump.“I just feel like they’re in a really bad rut right now. I don’t think they’ve got an easy way out of this,” Wilson said.Wilson said that recent polling he’s conducted indicates that the controversy is not going away.“Americans, and Republicans in particular, are paying attention to this story because there is a ‘there’ there for them,” he said.Matt Terrill, a Republican strategist and managing partner of public affairs firm Firehouse Strategies, said that at the moment, interest in the issue has died down for the time being. Americans are focused on issues such as the economy, and many are on vacation.When Congress returns, however, Terrill expects the controversy will also return to the forefront, but that doesn’t mean the attention will be entirely on Trump. The House oversight committee subpoenaed Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as several former attorneys general and law enforcement officials, to testify about Epstein.“That could take the spotlight off President Trump,” he said. Even if this diverts attention from the president, Terrill said it would behoove the administration to be more open about whatever is going on.“There are many people in the Maga base who joined the Maga base because they want government transparency and they want accountability. They want justice and, for right or wrong, many people in the Maga base, and even those outside of the Maga base, feel as though they’re not getting that right now with this situation.”“So I do think it’s important, if you’re the administration, the Trump administration, to continue to put out everything you have in terms of this case,” he said. “If you can’t put things out, explain to the American people why you can’t put those things out.” More