Key Highlights
- Blanche’s comments drew sharp rebuke from Capitol Hill, where top legislators threatened legal action “in the face of this violation of federal law”. Speaking in an interview on Fox News on Friday morning, Blanche said: “I expect we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today, and those documents will come in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into Mr Epstein”. However, he said that he expected that Friday’s release would not include the full set of the Epstein files held by the Department of Justice. Epstein files to be released after months of delays from Trump officialsRead more“I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said.
- “There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim.”The potential delay in releasing all the files, appears to go against the language of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by Donald Trump on 19 November. Representatives Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, top Democrats on the House oversight committee, released a statement on Friday afternoon that said: “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.”The law mandates the release of all of the department’s documents related to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein within 30 days of the date the law was enacted, with exceptions to only withhold files that contact certain information such as personal information of victims and materials that would impede an ongoing investigation or national security. Following Blanche’s remarks, Thomas Massie, the Republican representative who has spearheaded the effort in Congress to release the files alongside Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, posted an image of the text of the law on X. In the post, Massie highlighted the phrase “not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this act” as well as the word “all” in the sentence that reads: “Not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall, subject to subsection (b), make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice”. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, also released a statement in response to Blanche’s comments.“The law Congress passed and President Trump signed was clear as can be the Trump administration had 30 days to release ALL the Epstein files, not just some,” Schumer said.
- “Failing to do so is breaking the law.
- This just shows the Department of Justice, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi are hellbent on hiding the truth. Democrats release new Epstein photos ahead of DoJ transparency deadlineRead more“Senate Democrats are working closely with attorneys for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and.
