Epstein files: Democrats vow to fight Trump officials’ plan to hold back some documents, slamming ‘violation of federal law’ – live
House Democrats vow to fight Trump officials’ plan to hold back some Epstein files, slamming ‘violation of federal law’
Further to that, the ranking members on the House oversight and judiciary committees respectively, Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, have issued this statement slamming the Trump administration’s “decision to defy the Epstein Files Transparency Act” by not releasing all the Epstein files today.
“We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law,” they said.
Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring. For months, Pam Bondi has denied survivors the transparency and accountability they have demanded and deserve and has defied the Oversight Committee’s subpoena. The Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself, even as it gives star treatment to Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Courts around the country have repeatedly intervened when this Administration has broken the law. We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law. The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ.
Key events
And on 8 September, the House oversight committee released another tranche of material from Epstein’s estate, including the now-infamous birthday book.
The 238-page scrapbook was given to Epstein as a present on his 50th birthday and featured contributions attributed to high-profile figures including Trump, Bill Clinton and the then UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson (Mandelson was sacked a few days later).
The most explosive section was an apparent birthday note from Trump, contained within a sketch of a naked woman’s torso. The drawing has “Donald” signed below its pelvis, along with an imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein.
A cryptic message quotes Trump as saying: “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,” wishing that “every day be another wonderful secret” and adding: “Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?”
Trump has denied drawing the figure or writing the note.
Another image showed Epstein standing among palm trees and holding an oversized cheque for $22,500 with a “Trump” signature on it. Partly redacted writing below the image says Epstein showed “early talents with money + women” and had sold a “fully depreciated [redacted] to Donald Trump”.
Going back further, on 12 November the committee released damning emails that suggested Donald Trump knew about Epstein’s conduct, including one in which Epstein said “of course [Trump] knew about the girls” procured for his sex-trafficking ring, and another that said Trump “spent hours” with one victim at Epstein’s house.
In one of the memos, Epstein alleged to his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell in April 2011 that Trump had had a lengthy engagement in the company of one of the disgraced financier’s sex-trafficked victims.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. [victim’s name redacted] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned,” the message reads.
In her reply, Maxwell said: “I have been thinking about that.”
A second message, sent by Epstein to Trump biographer Michael Wolff in January 2019, indicates that Trump had asked him to resign from Mar-a-Lago, the president’s exclusive members-only club in Florida.
But, Epstein says, he was “never a member ever” and adds “of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop”.
Later that day, the committee’s Republican majority countered by releasing its own tranche of 23,000 documents, accusing Democrats of “cherrypicking” the memos “to generate clickbait”.
On 3 December, Democrats on the committee also released 73 photos and four videos of Epstein’s private island home, where he is alleged to have trafficked young girls.
The images and videos showed Epstein’s home, including bedrooms, a telephone, what appeared to be an office or library, and a chalkboard on which the words “fin”, “intellectual”, “deception” and “power” are written. Several photos show a room with a dentist chair and masks hanging on the wall. The New York Times reported that Epstein’s last girlfriend was a dentist who shared an office with one of his shell companies. The videos appear to be a walk-through of the property.
The materials were from law enforcement authorities in the US Virgin Islands. They were taken in 2020, the year after Epstein died by suicide in jail.
As well as the new batch of 68 photos released yesterday from a trove of about 95,000 the committee obtained from Epstein’s estate (see my recap here), Democrats on the House oversight committee have published tens of thousands of documents over the past year.
In a previous drop from 12 December, the committee released a tranche of what they called “disturbing” photographs – some of which had been seen before – featuring prominent figures including Donald Trump, former British prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, former president Bill Clinton, former treasury secretary Larry Summers, film director Woody Allen, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Trump’s former political adviser Steve Bannon, and Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin empire.
A reminder that there is no suggestion of wrongdoing and the photos do not implicate any of the individuals pictured in Epstein’s crimes.
Other photos showed construction work on the exterior of Epstein’s island home, and included more photographs of the yellow dentist’s office that was featured in a similar release of images and videos by the committee on 3 December, as well as a bathroom, a “Trumpkin” (a pumpkin decorated as Donald Trump), and Epstein in a bathtub.
Trump features in three of the 19 images initially released in that drop. In one, he is photographed with six women, some in Hawaii dress, and whose faces are blacked out. In the second, he is seen alongside Epstein listening to a woman with blond hair who appears to be sharing a joke. In the third, apparently taken onboard an aircraft, he is sitting alongside another woman with longer blond hair, and whose face is also blacked out.
The president’s face in cartoon form, and the words “I’m huuuuge”, appear in another image on square packets with a sign advertising a “Trump condom” for $4.50. The novelty items were on sale before Trump’s first election win in 2016, and earned a place in the Smithsonian Institution’s political satire collection.
A collection of sex toys, including restraints, a catalog and a guide to the Japanese art of shibari (a form of bondage), appear in three more images. Epstein was accused of hosting sex parties for clients at his homes in New York, Florida and at his private Caribbean island retreat, Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the chorus of US legislators reminding the justice department of its legal obligations after it said this morning it won’t meet its deadline to release all the Epstein files today.
The Republican representative wrote on X:
My goodness, what is in the Epstein files? Release all the files. It’s literally the law.
As I reported earlier, her colleague Thomas Massie, who co-led the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the files, also stressed that he wanted all the documents released today.
He shared a picture of the text of the law in a post on X this morning, highlighting the part that says “all” of the files must be released within 30 days.
Wisconsin Republicans have threatened to impeach Judge Hannah Dugan unless she resigns following her conviction on charges of obstructing federal officers who were trying to arrest an undocumented immigrant outside her courtroom
Dugan faces up to five years in prison after a jury on Thursday found her guilty of felony charges. Federal prosecutors alleged that she distracted agents trying to arrest the man and led him out through a private door.
Conviction in the high-profile case represents a boost for Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant deportation agenda.
While the Wisconsin constitution bars convicted felons of holding public office, state law also lays down that a convicted office holder’s seat does not become vacant until they have been sentenced. No sentencing date has been set for Dugan.
However, Wisconsin’s Republican state assembly speaker, Robin Vos, and majority leader, Tyler August, called on her to resign immediately or face impeachment.
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“Wisconsinites deserve to know their judiciary is impartial and that justice is blind,” they said in a joint statement. “Judge Hannah Dugan is neither, and her privilege of serving the people of Wisconsin has come to an end.”
Trump announces deals with another nine drugmakers to lower prices
A short while ago, Donald Trump announced deals with nine major pharmaceutical companies that will lower the prices of some medicines.
It brings the total number of drugmakers the administration has reached deals with to 14, with Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Roche’s Genentech unit, Gilead, GSK, Merck, Novartis and Sanofi all participating in today’s announcement.
“This is the biggest thing ever to happen on drug pricing and on healthcare. This will have a tremendous impact on health care itself,” Trump said in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, flanked by the pharmaceutical companies’ chief executives.
“They’re going to pay our country the lowest price paid anywhere in the world, and they will list their most popular drugs on TrumpRX.gov,” he added.
Trump previously announced agreements with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk after he sent letters out in July to all 17 companies, urging them to offer so-called most-favored-nation prices to Medicaid and ensure new medicines launch at prices no higher than those in other wealthy countries. In return, the companies that reached deals secured three-year exemptions from any tariffs Trump might slap on imported pharmaceuticals in the future.
AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson and Regeneron are the last major drugmakers that have yet to announce deals with the administration. Trump said he would be meeting with them in the coming weeks in an effort to get them to sign on to lowering their costs.
A judge in Texas has ordered the unsealing of documents in the divorce case of the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, in a move with potential implications for a forthcoming Senate race.
Paxton’s wife of 38 years, is suing him for divorce on “biblical grounds” and “recent discoveries”, having previously stood by him in a 2023 impeachment trial, which exposed an extramarital affair, and a succession of other legal troubles.
The judge’s order followed an agreement between lawyers for Paxton and a coalition of news outlets to make the records public.
Their disclosure could provide fodder for opposition attacks on Paxton in the campaign leading up to the Republican primary scheduled for 3 March, in which the attorney general is seeking to unseat the sitting GOP senator, John Cornyn.
Groups supporting Cornyn, who has been criticized for a willingness to work with Democrats, have already spent $21m on television campaign adverts aimed at warding off the threat from Paxton, who is seen as a loyal acolyte of Donald Trump.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio spoke about Russia-Ukraine peace efforts and defended the Trump administration’s increasing military pressure on Venezuela during an end-of-year news conference today.
“There’s no peace deal unless Ukraine agrees to it. But there’s also no peace deal unless Russia agrees to it,” Rubio said. ″So our job is not to force anything on anyone. It is to try to figure out if we can nudge both sides to a common place.”
The US proposal has been through numerous versions with Trump going back and forth between offering support and encouragement for Ukraine and then seemingly sympathizing with Putin’s hardline stances by pushing Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to territorial concessions. Kyiv has rejected that concession in return for security guarantees intended to protect Ukraine from future Russian incursions.
Rubio has also been a leading proponent of military operations against suspected drug-running vessels from Venezuela that have been targeted by the Pentagon in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September.
In an interview with NBC News on Friday, Trump would not rule out a war with Venezuela. Rubio sidestepped a direct question about whether the US wants “regime change in 2026” in the South American country.
“We have a regime that’s illegitimate, that cooperates with Iran, that cooperates with Hezbollah, that cooperates with narco-trafficking and narco-terrorist organizations,” Rubio said, “including not just protecting their shipments and allowing them to operate with impunity, but also allows some of them to control territory.”
Senator Adam Schiff of California has joined a wave of lawmakers today who are demanding that the Trump administration honor the law by releasing the full Epstein files after deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said the justice department won’t meet its Friday deadline for full disclosure.
“The Epstein Files Transparency Act is clear: while protecting survivors, ALL of these records are required to be released today. Not just some,” Schiff wrote on X. “The Trump administration can’t move the goalposts. They’re cemented in law.”
Two rightwing influencers have clashed at the annual youth conference of Turning Point USA, the conservative pressure group founded by the late Charlie Kirk.
The fissures within the movement were laid bare on the stage in Phoenix when Ben Shapiro, a prominent podcaster, attacked the former Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, and other figures on the right as grifters and charlatans who mislead their followers with conspiracy theories and false narratives, AP reported.
Shapiro also accused Carlson of “an act of moral imbecility” over his recent podcast interview with the far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes, who has peddled antisemitic views and voiced admiration for Hitler.
Carlson responded with mockery less than an hour later, saying he “laughed” at what he called Shapiro’s attempt to “deplatform” him.
“To hear calls for deplatforming and denouncing people at a Charlie Kirk event, I’m like, what?” Carlson said. “This is hilarious.”
