US politics

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares24 Views

      in US Politics

      CDC website altered to reflect RFK Jr’s belief in link between vaccines and autism

      by

      A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website has been changed to reflect the belief of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health and human services secretary, that there is a link between vaccines and autism, a view flatly contradicted by experts and scientifically validated studies.Public health and autism specialists roundly condemned the alteration to the CDC’s “vaccine safety” webpage, after it was changed to read: “The statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.”Pointedly, it added: “Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.”The extent of the change was further underlined by an asterisk affixed to a pre-existing statement underneath, reading “vaccines do not cause autism”.An explanation at the bottom of the page said the statement had not been removed “due to an agreement with the chair of the US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website”.That explanation was in reference to the Louisiana Republican senator, Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor, who initially opposed Kennedy’s nomination as health secretary but later voted to confirm him on the basis that statements about how vaccines do not cause autism would remain on the CDC site.The new page did not cite any new research. It simply stated: “HHS [health and human services] has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.”The changes appear to be the latest example of Kennedy’s determination to impose his beliefs on the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC. They also triggered severe backlash from scientists and advocates, with former and present CDC staff saying the updated page did not go through the normal, scientific clearance process.“I spoke with several scientists at CDC yesterday and none were aware of this change in content,” Debra Houry, one of a group of CDC top officials who resigned in August, told the AP.“When scientists are cut out of scientific reviews, then inaccurate and ideologic information results.”The move was also condemned by the Autism Science Foundation, an organization that initially gave a cautious welcome to Kennedy’s stated mission to investigate the causes of autism – a disorder that can manifest itself in speech difficulties and repetitive behavior – after his confirmation.“We are appalled to find that the content on the CDC webpage ‘Autism and Vaccines’ has been changed and distorted, and is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism,” the foundation said in a statement.A previous version of the page stated that “studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). No links have been found between any vaccine ingredients and ASD.”Widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between vaccines and autism.“The conclusion is clear and unambiguous,” said Dr Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a statement Thursday.“We call on the CDC to stop wasting government resources to amplify false claims that sow doubt in one of the best tools we have to keep children healthy and thriving: routine immunizations.”The CDC has, until now, echoed the absence of a link in promoting Food and Drug Administration-licensed vaccines. A number of former CDC officials have said that what the CDC posts about certain subjects – including vaccine safety – can no longer be trusted.Dr Daniel Jernigan, who also resigned from the agency in August, told reporters that Kennedy seems to be “going from evidence-based decision making to decision-based evidence making”.Besides positing a link between vaccines and autism, Kennedy has subscribed to the belief that the condition may be caused by pregnant people taking Tylenol, a suspicion pushed vociferously by Donald Trump, who has urged expectant mothers to avoid taking the over-the-counter drug. More

    • 188 Shares21 Views

      in US Politics

      Congressman Ro Khanna warns officials not to impede Epstein files release: ‘They will be prosecuted’

      by

      Democratic congressman Ro Khanna was a major force behind the legislative campaign that led Donald Trump to back down from his opposition and sign into law a bill compelling the release of files related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.With the justice department now required to release the documents within 30 days, Khanna has a warning for those in the Trump administration who may find themselves pressed to withhold information: comply or face the consequences.“Now, it’s federal law for those documents to be released, and if the justice officials don’t release it, they will be prosecuted, and they … could be prosecuted in a future administration,” Khanna told the Guardian on Wednesday evening, shortly before Trump put his signature on a bill intended to reveal the truth about what he spent weeks calling a “Democrat hoax”.“The career officials [that] are making these decisions have to think that they’re going to be subject to future contempt of Congress or criminal prosecution, and they’re taking a huge risk … if they violate that, given that administrations change,” the California lawmaker added.As Democrats eye regaining control of the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections, Khanna also expressed his support for issuing a subpoena to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former British royal who was stripped of his titles over his affiliation with Epstein.A top UK minister has since said Mountbatten-Windsor should answer questions about the relationship from US lawmakers, and Khanna and other Democrats asked Mountbatten-Windsor to sit for a deposition voluntarily, though the former prince has not responded.“We could subpoena him, because then, if he ever visited the United States, he’d be in contempt of Congress, and … face prosecution,” Khanna said. “Maybe he never wants to visit the United States, but if he does, he would have to comply with the subpoena.”It would be up to the House of Representatives’s Republican majority to issue a subpoena, and Khanna said he had suggested doing so to James Comer, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, which is also investigating the Epstein case. He has not heard back, and spokespeople for Comer did not respond to a request for comment.A financier and one-time friend of the president, Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, after pleading guilty in 2008 to a sexual abuse charge in Florida after a deal with prosecutors. During last year’s campaign, Trump and his allies insinuated that there was more to be revealed about Epstein and his interactions with global elites, but in July, the justice department and FBI announced that they would release no further information.That sparked an outcry among Trump’s supporters as well as many of his opponents, which continued even after the president dismissed the concern as a politically motivated attack. Khanna then collaborated with Republican congressman Thomas Massie on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the release of the government’s files about Epstein. To overcome the objections of the House speaker, Mike Johnson, Massie circulated a discharge petition among lawmakers to force a vote on the bill.The petition took weeks to receive the 218 signatures necessary to succeed, due in part due to the 43-day government shutdown and Johnson’s refusal to swear in a newly elected Democratic representative. Earlier this week, Trump dropped his opposition to the bill, and the House approved it overwhelmingly. The Senate later agreed to pass it unanimously.“We cracked the Maga base. It’s the first time anyone has ever cracked the Maga base,” Khanna said, adding that the “courage of the survivors” of Epstein, who twice traveled to the US Capitol to publicly press for the release of the files, was similarly pivotal.The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, has been accused of undoing the justice department’s independence from the White House, and recently opened an investigation into ties between Democrats and Epstein at Trump’s request.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUnder the law, she is now tasked with releasing a wide range of files related to Epstein, his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and others who interacted with them, though there are exemptions for materials related to open investigations or that could jeopardize national security.Khanna would not speculate on what may be revealed by the files, but signaled that Democrats would not let the issue drop, and would pursue officials who do not follow the law, though that will likely have to wait until they reclaim the majority in one chamber of Congress.“If we have the House, the people will be held in contempt and in front of Congress if they’re not complying. And if there’s a new administration, they’re very likely to enforce the law if people have violated it,” he said.The Epstein files have already generated uncomfortable headlines for powerful Democrats, including Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary under Bill Clinton who this week announced he would stop teaching at Harvard University after emails released by the House oversight committee reignited questions about his ties with Epstein.Khanna said he was not concerned by the possibility that the documents could cost others in his party their reputation.“I believe that we need a clearing, frankly, of the elite governing class … whether they were Democrats or Republicans,” he said.“We need a generational change, and if there are people who are caught up in protecting sex offenders or people caught up in participating in sex trafficking or abuse of underage girls, they should not be part of the future of politics.” More

    • 188 Shares23 Views

      in US Politics

      Tears and solemnity at Cheney funeral – but no memorial for those killed in Iraq

      by

      You suspected that Maga had not conquered the Washington national cathedral when Bill Kristol was spotted at a men’s urinal conversing with Chris Wallace. You knew it for sure when James Carville, Anthony Fauci and Rachel Maddow were seen sitting close to one another in the nave.The funeral of the 46th US vice-president, Dick Cheney, who died earlier this month aged 84, was a throwback to a less raucous and rancorous time. Ex-presidents and vice-presidents, Democratic and Republican, made small talk, but Donald Trump, who spent Thursday crying treason and calling for Democrats to be put to death, and his deputy JD Vance were not invited.More than a thousand guests saw eight military body bearers place Cheney’s flag-draped casket on a catafalque as gently as lowering a baby in a crib. Then two hours of plangent music, solemn processions and tearful eulogies beneath stained glass and a soaring vaulted ceiling amounted to a requiem for the Republican party.Cheney used to be known as its Darth Vader and, fittingly, the neo-Gothic church’s exterior boasts a hand-carved grotesque of the Star Wars character. Vader terrorised the galaxy but saved his son and renounced the dark side of the Force on his deathbed. Cheney had imperial ambitions of his own but gained a measure of redemption by defending his daughter and democracy from Trump.There is some irony because, just as Joe Biden, who attended the funeral, paved the way for Trump’s return through his own stubborn egotism, so Cheney opened a Pandora’s box and unleashed the furies by helping expand the vast presidential powers that Trump enjoys today.As probably the most consequential vice-president in history, Cheney’s prosecution of the war on terror – he championed sweeping surveillance powers under the Patriot Act and defended controversial “enhanced interrogation” techniques – handed Trump a playbook to crack down on civil liberties at home and abroad.And the vice-president’s baseless advocacy for the 2003 invasion of Iraq – stating “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction” – was arguably the breaking point in public trust of the political class that fuelled Trump’s rise as an outsider pledging to drain the swamp.There were no cathedral services with pipe organs playing for the hundreds of thousands of people killed in the Iraq war and its aftermath. So Thursday’s honouring of Cheney – a gathering of the Washington elite, overwhelmingly white – was also an exercise in omission, a holy lesson in what a nation sees when it looks in the mirror and the things that cannot be said.A martian landing in the cathedral with no prior knowledge would have heard of a patriotic public servant described by his longtime cardiologist Jonathan Reiner as “a still point in the turning wheel”, and of a fisherman, horseman and man of the American west who loved John Wayne films, described by one of his devoted grandchildren as “vice-president turned rodeo grandpa”.Former NBC News correspondent Pete Williams, who was Cheney’s spokesman at the Pentagon, recalled “a good and decent man” and told the story of a letter sent to Cheney from a woman in Indianapolis who found his qualities to be attractive: “I showed this letter to Secretary Cheney and he took it home to brag about it.”Former president George W Bush, his tie blue, his hairline receding, eulogised Cheney as “solid and rare and reliable”, praising a man whose “talent and his restraint” exceeded his ego and was “smart and polished, without airs”.It fell to Bush to make only the most tangential reference to Cheney’s involvement in one of America’s darkest chapters. “This was a vice-president totally devoted to protecting the United States and its interests. There was never any agenda or angle beyond that. You did not know Dick Cheney unless you understood his greatest concerns and ambitions were for his country.”Translation: Cheney was not driven by ideology like the neocons Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz but merely wanted to protect the homeland.Liz Cheney – ousted from the congressional Republican party over her opposition to Trump – gave a similarly subtle nod to how, later in life, Cheney emerged as a critic of his own party’s populist drift (he called Trump a “threat to our republic” and even endorsed Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election).Noting that John F Kennedy, a Democrat, inspired her father to enter public service, she said: “He knew that bonds of party must always yield to the single bond we share as Americans. For him, a choice between defence of the constitution and defence of your political party was no choice at all.”Defending democracy at home while destroying democratic aspirations overseas was the paradox of Cheney and, indeed, of US power stretching back decades. Jeremy Varon, author of Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War: The Movement to Stop the War on Terror, speculates the double standard is based on the logic of us versus them.He said in a recent interview: “As an American, he can be covetous of the preservation of American democracy and feel that ensuring that America’s security is the best way to ensure the survival of the American democratic project. But in the name of national security, America will brutalise and run roughshod over the basic democratic right of self-determination of foreign peoples.”After sharing memories of being dragged to civil war battlefields by her father as a child, Liz Cheney rounded off her eulogy by paraphrasing Shakespeare: “Goodnight sweet dad, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” An alternative might have been: “I come to bury Cheney, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones. So let it be with Cheney.” More

    • 125 Shares15 Views

      in US Politics

      Justice department investigates handling of Adam Schiff’s mortgage fraud case

      by

      The justice department is investigating how two Trump allies handled the investigation into whether California senator, Adam Schiff, committed mortgage fraud, according to a copy of a subpoena obtained by the Guardian and a person familiar with the matter.The office of the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche is overseeing the inquiry, which appears to have developed as an offshoot of the main case into Schiff – a notable development since the justice department is essentially investigating activities of two close allies of the president.A federal grand jury in Maryland, where prosecutors are investigating the mortgage allegations against Schiff, issued the subpoena to Christine Bish, an associate of federal housing finance agency (FHFA) chief Bill Pulte and a Republican congressional candidate in California.The subpoena asked Bish, who previously filed an ethics complaint against Schiff accusing him of mortgage fraud, to provide her communications with Pulte, people claiming to work on his behalf, and people claiming to work on behalf of Ed Martin, the head of the justice department’s weaponization committee. The subpoena also asks for communications with Robert Bowes and Scott Strauss.Bish told CNN that when she went before the grand jury, prosecutors “seemed more concerned” about looking into whether “there was conspiracy or collusion between me and Pulte or me and Ed Martin”.ABC News reported that Bowes – who claims to be a financial fraud expert – reached out to Bish and spoke to her without knowledge of Maryland prosecutors or FBI agents. Strauss also reached out to her and asked that she send documents about Schiff to a private email, ABC reported.Both Pulte and Martin are strongly aligned with Trump and have helped him deploy the levers of the federal government to punish political enemies, including Schiff and the New York attorney general, Letitia James.According to MS NOW, the investigation is examining whether Pulte and Martin improperly assigned unauthorized people to help investigate mortgage fraud claims against Schiff and possibly James.Blanche and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, have shown some resistance to the mortgage fraud prosecutions. Earlier this year, they tried to protect Erik Siebert, the top federal prosecutor in Virginia, from being fired after he resisted efforts to charge James. They were unsuccessful. Siebert resigned, and Trump installed Lindsey Halligan, who moved ahead with charges against James and former FBI director James Comey.The inquiry may be a pre-emptive effort by the justice department to get ahead of expected defenses from Schiff in the event he is indicted. But if misconduct is discovered on the part of Pulte or Martin, it could doom the case. The case against Schiff has stalled as prosecutors have failed to produce adequate evidence, NBC reported last month.A lawyer for Schiff did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the justice department declined to comment.Pulte has criminally referred Schiff, James, Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and California congressman Eric Swalwell to the justice department for alleged mortgage fraud, all deny wrongdoing.Pulte’s tactics have repeatedly come under scrutiny. He has bypassed the FHFA’s inspector general, the office usually responsible for handling mortgage fraud accusations. And last week, the Wall Street Journal reported he removed ethics officials who were looking into whether FHFA officials had improperly accessed James’ mortgage information. More

    • 150 Shares28 Views

      in US Politics

      US judge halts Trump’s deployment of the national guard to Washington DC

      by

      A federal judge on Thursday halted for now Donald Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to Washington DC, dealing the president a temporary legal setback to his efforts to send the military to US cities over the objections of local leaders.US district judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former president Joe Biden, temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying national guard troops to enforce the law in the nation’s capital without approval from its mayor.Cobb paused her ruling until 11 December to allow the Trump administration to appeal.The legal fight is playing out alongside several others across the country as Trump presses against longstanding but rarely tested constraints on presidents using troops to enforce domestic law.The DC attorney general, Brian Schwalb, an elected Democrat, sued on 4 September after Trump announced the deployment on 11 August.The lawsuit accused Trump of unlawfully usurping control of the city’s law enforcement and violating a law prohibiting troops from performing domestic police work.Trump has unique law enforcement powers in Washington, which is not part of any state, but local officials say he overstepped by supplanting the mayor’s policing authority and violated legal prohibitions against federal troops engaging in civilian police work.Trump administration lawyers called the lawsuit a political stunt in court filings and said the president is free to deploy troops to Washington without the approval of local leaders. The administration also claims the troops are operating lawfully and successfully reducing crime.Trump, a Republican, has also moved to deploy troops in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, to combat what he describes as lawlessness and violent unrest over his crackdown on illegal immigration.Democratic leaders of those cities and their states have sued to block the deployments, saying they amount to an attempt to punish political foes with militarized shows of force. More

    • 188 Shares24 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats condemn Trump after he says they should be punished ‘by death’ over video post

      by

      Democrats expressed outrage after Donald Trump accused a group of Democratic lawmakers of being “traitors” and said that they should be arrested and punished “by death” after they posted a video in which they told active service members they should refuse illegal orders.The video, released on Tuesday, features six Democratic lawmakers who have previously served in the military or in intelligence roles, including senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, and representatives Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan and Jason Crow.“Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this constitution,” the lawmakers said in the 90-second video. “And right now, the threats to our constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear, you can refuse illegal orders, you can refuse illegal orders, you must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution.”That seemed to prompt a furious response from the US president.On Thursday morning, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.”In another post, he wrote: “This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??? President DJT.” In a third post, he added: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” He also reposted a statement that said: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”Following Trump’s statements on Thursday, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic whip Katherine Clark and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar released a joint statement condemning the remarks.“Political violence has no place in America,” they wrote. “Representatives Jason Crow, Chris DeLuzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan and Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin all served our country with tremendous patriotism and distinction. We unequivocally condemn Donald Trump’s disgusting and dangerous death threats against members of Congress, and call on House Republicans to forcefully do the same.”The Democratic leaders also said that they had been in contact with the House sergeant at arms and the United States Capitol police “to ensure the safety of these members and their families”.“Donald Trump must immediately delete these unhinged social media posts and recant his violent rhetoric before he gets someone killed,” the statement added.The lawmakers who appeared in the video also released a statement.“We are veterans and national security professionals who love this country and swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States,” they said. “That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. No threat, intimidation, or call for violence will deter us from that sacred obligation.”“What’s most telling is that the president considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” they continued. “Our service members should know that we have their backs as they fulfill their oath to the constitution and obligation to follow only lawful orders. It is not only the right thing to do, but also our duty.”They added: “Every American must unite and condemn the president’s calls for our murder and political violence. This is a time for moral clarity.”Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, also condemned Trump’s remarks and posted on X: “Let’s be crystal clear: the President of the United States is calling for the execution of elected officials.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe added: “This is an outright THREAT. Every Senator, every Representative, every American – regardless of party – should condemn this immediately and without qualification.”Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, defended Trump’s claim that the Democrats had engaged in “sedition”, describing the video as “wildly inappropriate”, adding: “It is very dangerous, you have leading members of Congress telling troops to disobey orders, I think that’s unprecedented in American history.”Johnson also reportedly told the Independent that in what he read of Trump’s posts, Trump was “defining the crime of sedition”.“But obviously attorneys have to parse the language and determine all that. What I’m saying, what I will say unequivocally, that was a wildly inappropriate thing for so-called leaders in Congress to do to encourage young troops to disobey orders,” Johnson added.During a White House press conference on Thursday afternoon, when asked by a reporter, “Does the president want to execute members of Congress?”, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, responded: “No.”“Let’s be clear about what the president is responding to,” Leavitt said. “You have sitting members of the US Congress who conspired together to orchestrate a video message to members of the US military, to active duty service members encouraging them to defy the president’s lawful orders.She said: “The sanctity of our military rests on the chain of command, and if that chain of command is broken, it can lead to people getting killed, it can lead to chaos, and that’s what these members of Congress … are essentially encouraging.” More

    • 138 Shares14 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans warn Bondi not to bury Epstein files after law’s passage

      by

      Within hours of Donald Trump signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law, Republican senators were on the ground to issue a pointed message to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi: don’t bury these documents.The bill’s passage marked a rare moment of bipartisan support in an otherwise ideologically fractured Congress as it now sets a 30-day deadline for the release of Department of Justice files related to the actions of convicted sex offender of minors and financier Jeffrey Epstein, dubbed by a judge “the most infamous pedophile in American history”.It also marked a rare defeat for Trump, whose own contacts with Epstein have been the subject of intense speculation, along with many other powerful figures who associated with the sex trafficker who killed himself in 2019. Trump had originally been against the passage of the bill, before switching in the face of a rebellion in his own party.The bill passed the House of Representatives with 427 votes and sailed through the Senate by unanimous consent, a level of cross party support rarely seen. Rather than celebrating, many Republican lawmakers spent the week bracing for what they fear may come: a slow drip of information, justified one way or another by Bondi’s justice department.“People who feel very strongly about this will feel like they’ve been duped” if the justice department claims “we can’t release anything because of an active investigation,” said Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. “I don’t think that that will help calm the suspicions many have harbored for a long while on this.”The anxiety stems from the Trump administration’s earlier resistance to transparency, which included months of dismissing public demands – and even insults for those calling for release – before reversing course this week when its passage became inevitable.Now, with Bondi opening investigations into exclusively Democrats mentioned in Epstein’s correspondence, Republicans are watching closely for signs the department might use those probes as a reason to redact or withhold materials as they are now part of an ongoing investigation.“If you do a blanket hold, I think that they’re going to have a lot of people angry,” said Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a judiciary committee member. “It would just add fuel to the fire if they don’t produce something meaningful” he added later.The legislation mandates release of unclassified materials within 30 days in a searchable format. Yet it contains exemptions for information that could jeopardize active investigations and for material depicting minors – potential escape hatches the Justice Department could exploit.The bill requires disclosure of materials related not only to Epstein but also to his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for recruiting and grooming underage girls for Epstein to abuse.Bondi acknowledged the congressional mandate on Wednesday, saying the department would “follow the law” while “protecting victims but also providing maximum transparency.”Still, her carefully measured words offered little comfort to some skeptics on Capitol Hill. Tillis pressed for clarity on any redactions. “I think they would do well to figure how to release as much as possible and then have a very well-articulated reason for that which they can’t,” he said.Republican senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, however, was more optimistic. “Congress has spoken. I fully expect the Justice Department to release all the documents. It will take a while, but I believe they’ve started,” he said, adding, “I’m hoping we’ll see the first tranche…after Thanksgiving.”The urgency reflects deep skepticism about how the justice department has handled the case historically.In 2008, then-US attorney Alexander Acosta approved a non-prosecution agreement that allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state prostitution charges, avoiding federal sex-trafficking prosecutions. Epstein served 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a minimum-security facility with work-release privileges. That deal, later ruled to have violated victims’ rights, shielded Epstein from far more serious federal charges for over a decade until his 2019 arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges.Epstein died in federal custody in August of that year, one month after his arrest on sex-trafficking charges. His death was officially ruled a suicide.The Epstein files, so far roughly tens of thousands of pages of emails and correspondence released by the House Oversight Committee, detail the convicted sex offender’s connections across political, academic, and financial elites. Names from both parties appear, though Trump’s comes up over a thousand times, mostly linked to Epstein’s apparent obsession with the presidency.Senate majority leader John Thune, a Republican, weighed in on the side of his colleagues. “I trust the judgment of the justice department to ensure that whatever files they release protect the victims,” he said. Congress had “clear intent” to “get the information out there”, he addedThe near-unanimous support – marred by just one dissenting vote in the House – reflects both public interest and political stakes. The justice department now has 30 days to make the materials available in searchable format. The FBI has indicated its records include more than 300 gigabytes of data and evidence. Content depicting child abuse will remain sealed, and information that could compromise ongoing investigations may be withheld or redacted.The real test is now with Bondi’s department. Republican senators have made it clear they will scrutinize any major delays or broad redactions, so how swiftly and transparently the justice department acts could shape perceptions of the Trump administration’s commitment to accountability on a highly sensitive matter.Republican senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri summed it up: “All the credible information that can be released should be released.” More