Democrats use obscure law to seek release of Epstein files
The White House has been facing increasingly intense demands to be more transparent about the case of the disgraced financier, who died in federal prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The president raised further questions about his past relationship with Epstein on Tuesday when he told reporters he fell out with his former friend after he 'stole' female employees from the spa at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The Justice Department angered Trump supporters earlier this month when it confirmed that Epstein had died by suicide and had no secret 'client list' — rebuffing conspiracy theories held by Trump's far-right supporters about supposedly high-level Democratic complicity.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee wrote to the Justice Department asking for the materials under a section of federal law known as the 'rule of five.'
'The public has a right to know who enabled, knew of, or participated in one of the most heinous sex trafficking operations in history,' Schumer told reporters at the Capitol.
'Let me remind everyone of what's happened in recent months. Donald Trump campaigned on releasing the Epstein files. He broke that promise.'
The measure — introduced a century ago but rarely used — requires government departments to provide relevant information if any five members of the Senate's chief watchdog panel request it.
Epstein's accomplice Maxwell
It is not clear if it could be enforced in court, but even if the effort fails it keeps the spotlight on an issue that has upended Trump's summer, dividing Republicans and leading to the early closure of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Trump has urged his supporters to drop demands for the Epstein files, but Democrats in Congress — with limited Republican support — have also been seeking a floor vote to force their release.
House Oversight Committee Democrats, backed by some Republicans, approved a subpoena last week for the Justice Department to hand over the documents, although the demand has yet to be sent.
Lawmakers have also been seeking testimony from Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for her role in his alleged crimes.
Maxwell's lawyer has said she would speak to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee if granted immunity for her testimony.
'The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms Maxwell's attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony,' a spokesman for the panel said.
Democrats have tried to attach votes on the Epstein files to unrelated bills multiple times, prompting Speaker Mike Johnson to send lawmakers home for the summer a day early last week, shutting down the efforts.
Senate Democrats launched a separate effort to get the files released via a bill called the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but this cannot even be taken up until the House reconvenes in September.
Meanwhile the Supreme Court's justices are expected to consider at a September 29 conference ahead of their October term whether to hear an appeal by Maxwell of her sex trafficking conviction.
'This crime by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell was not a victimless crime.... It was about exploiting women, in fact, girls — girls who were mercilessly and repeatedly subject to abuse and trafficking,' said Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut.
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Al Arabiya
24 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
Special Coverage Five years on: Beirut Port blast victims still seek justice in Lebanon
Five years after one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history devastated Beirut's port and surrounding neighborhoods, victims' families and survivors are still fighting for justice as a long-stalled investigation slowly resumes under Lebanon's new government. In an apartment near the Lebanese capital's ravaged port, Paul and Tracy Naggear cradle their two young children born from a determination to keep living after losing everything that mattered most. Their three-year-old daughter Alexandra was among the more than 200 people killed when thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate exploded on August 4, 2020. Half a decade later, the Naggears' grief remains as raw as their anger over a stalled investigation that has yielded no answers, accountability, norjustice for their daughter. 'Our lives were destroyed on the fourth of August when my daughter Alexandra passed away,' Paul Naggear said during an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya English. 'Everything was destroyed, our apartment, our neighborhoods, our future. This is as tragic and traumatizing as you can imagine.' The couple's home on one of Beirut's main thoroughfares bore the full force of the blast that devastated much of the Lebanese capital. On that summer day, the Naggears found themselves among hundreds of thousands of residents living unknowingly in the shadow of a ticking time bomb, the improperly stored ammonium nitrate that had sat in a port warehouse for years. 'My wife and I decided on the day of our daughter's passing that we would continue living. We made the choice to live and to fight for her justice,' Naggear explained. The couple has since welcomed two sons, Axel and Rafael, who 'saved us, definitely, to some extent, and allow us to continue on this path.' But their determination to rebuild their lives has been shadowed by a maddening lack of answers about what caused the explosion that shattered their world. 'There is still no justice, which means that our daughter was taken from us, and still today, there is no accountability. There is no one behind bars,' Naggear said, his voice heavy with frustration. 'We have no idea of the truth of what happened that day.' Haunting questions The questions that haunt the Naggears reflect the broader mystery that continues to engulf Lebanon's deadliest peacetime disaster. They want to know why the ammonium nitrate was stored in front of potentially 300,000 people and households, and why nobody took action to remove the dangerous cargo or safeguard its location. Naggear's account of that chaotic day reveals the human cost of the government's unpreparedness. 'I had to take our daughter to the hospital on a scooter because you can imagine the situation she was in, because there was no immediate relief effort planned,' he recalled. His wife Tracy, who suffered three broken ribs, three broken vertebrae, and a severe head injury, 'had to walk for a very long time until she found a vehicle that took her to the hospital in a very, very bad condition.' In addition to the suffering, the family for four years watched as the investigative judge responsible for the case was systematically obstructed, due to what he described as government harassment. Though Naggear noted that 'the situation now, since earlier this year, has been better,' the fundamental questions about their daughter's death – and the deaths of more than 200 others – remain unanswered. Resuming an investigation Judge Tarek Bitar resumed his investigation into the incident in January after being forced to suspend it in 2021 due to intense political pressure. His renewed probe comes as Lebanon attempts to rebuild credibility under President Joseph Aoun and reformist Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, both of whom have pledged to uphold judicial independence. For Carmen Geha, an academic and consultant who witnessed the blast firsthand, the lack of accountability became unbearable. She left Lebanon three years ago, driven not by the explosion itself, but by what followed – or rather, what didn't. 'I left specifically because of the aftermath of the explosion, specifically because nothing happened after that, and it's been five years and nothing has happened,' Geha told Al Arabiya English. A fellow at Chatham House who was teaching at the American University of Beirut at the time, Geha participated in community cleanup efforts in the weeks following the disaster. 'I was at home, the building shook. I was in Beirut. Everybody thought it was in their own neighborhood,' she recalled of that August afternoon. 'And then we quickly realized that nothing was going to happen.' Investigation faces continued obstacles The devastating port blast was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been unsafely stored for years after arriving by ship, despite repeated warnings to senior officials. Multiple investigations have revealed that high-ranking Lebanese officials, including the president at the time, knew about the dangerous materials stored near residential areas. Bitar was accused of bias by several officials named in the probe, including former interior minister Nohad Machnouk, who is suspected of 'negligence and misconduct.' These officials launched a series of legal proceedings against the judge, effectively paralyzing the investigation. The probe was further hampered when Hezbollah, long a dominant force in Lebanese politics but now weakened by its recent war with Israel, accused Bitar of bias and demanded his removal. The militant group's opposition effectively brought the investigation to a halt for over two years. On April 11, two former top security officials appeared before Bitar for the first time since the investigation's resumption. 'Nothing has happened' Yaarob Sakher, a now retired Lebanese army brigadier, anxiously awaited the investigation into the explosion by the state but expresses disappointment, saying that Hezbollah's interference prevented any meaningful results. 'They blocked the investigation and nothing happened until now,' he said. For Geha, the scope of inaction extends far beyond the courtroom. 'Nobody went to jail. There's yet to be a court investigation. There has not been a trial. No victim compensation, bodies and debris and remains were continued to be identified months later.' The explosion was particularly devastating because of its scope and the prior knowledge of officials. 'There were public officials, including the president at the time, that he knew that there was explosive material at the port,' Geha said. 'So that idea that it was kind of building up that creepiness of it. So that's number one very particular kind of crime, second, the level of negligence and corruption that can cover up for something so big.' In the immediate aftermath of the blast, Beirut witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of community solidarity. Geha participated in academic-led initiatives to assess environmental damage and support collapsed small businesses, while volunteers across the city organized cleanup efforts and aid distribution. 'The one positive thing was the short lived, like, community efforts, sort of hope, the hope and the dark that emerges when, when a disaster happens, right?' she said. 'People really, you know, shunned, politicians, called for justice, helped each other, building restaurants, collecting glass, raising money, bringing medicine.' But this grassroots response couldn't compensate for institutional failures. 'That short lived elation could only be short lived, because people cannot fix a country. You need structures,' Geha explained. In addition to what was happening, international aid largely failed to materialize due to lack of trust in Lebanese government institutions. 'The aid didn't come in, and rightfully so, because government institutions couldn't be trusted,' she said. 'The government institutions entrusted with that process of organizing the aid failed, but there was a caretaker government that bulls****ed their way month after month.' Even the volunteer cleanup efforts later proved problematic. 'We realized later that actually, we shouldn't have been cleaning the debris, and that there's asbestos everywhere,' recalled, saying that it 'hurtthe eyes of the young people that were carrying broomsticks.'. Lasting trauma, continuing crisis The explosion occurred against the backdrop of Lebanon's ongoing economic collapse and followed massive anti-government protests in 2019. Rather than spurring meaningful reform, the blast's aftermath saw conditions worsen, culminating in another devastating war with Israel in 2023. 'That early elation then turned to frustration, emigration and increased tensions in the country, because it's a country of misery, of a million refugees that can't work. You have refugee camps that are armed. You have people with school dropouts. You have drug addiction, narcotic state, all on top of the initial elation turned into just horrible,' Geha said. Despite the new government's promises, Geha remains skeptical about prospects for justice. When asked what she hoped to see in the next five years, she called for 'a public trial, a proper process of indictment, a traditional investigation that wins people's hearts and minds. Maybe it's not going to [bring back] the dead, but it might create an impediment for level of evil again.' She said that Lebanon is not unique in experiencing political crimes and crimes against humanity, pointing to international models for truth commissions and transitional justice. 'There is a way to model this. There is a way that we can learn on setting up tools commissions, and there is a way…I really don't know whether there's no inertia.' The current government, led by President Aoun and Prime Minister Salam, has made the right statements about judicial independence, according to Geha. 'Now there is a government that says all the right things…and you know, it looks good, but I don't see why there isn't that destination.' Sakher all but shares Geha's concerns, fearing that the new government could ultimately turn out to be not so different from previous ones. Yet, he keeps wishing for real change and results regarding the investigation. 'Hope is there' The port blast investigation has broader implications for Lebanon's relationship with international partners and its prospects for recovery from multiple crises. The explosion occurred amid a severe economic collapse that has pushed millions into poverty and triggered massive emigration. As Lebanon marks the fifth anniversary of the explosion, the contrast between the scale of the tragedy and the absence of accountability remains unforgiveable said Geha, adding that the lack of progress represents not just a failure of justice, but a fundamental breach of the social contract. 'It's an insult. Honestly.' 'Like a city after war' Farea al-Muslimi, Research Fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Program, reflected on how the Beirut port blast fundamentally changed his understanding of conflict and governance in Lebanon. 'Personally, since I was there, first and foremost, the second day after the blast, Beirut looked like a city after a war,' al-Muslimi told Al Arabiya English. The scene, he said, reminded him of war-torn cities in Yemen and elsewhere, leading him to a broader realization about the nature of what Lebanese people were experiencing. 'The explosion made me rethink the very concept of war,' he said, adding what was being done to the Lebanese people constituted a war, but 'they did not have the right to call it a war or even the benefit of a war.' Instead, it was 'a war by their bankers, a war by the system, a war by the sectarian formula in the country – essentially a conflict with many criminals but where 'no one was called a criminal.' Al-Muslimi argued that the situation exemplifies what happens under Lebanon's power-sharing system andhe warned of its real consequences: 'You have a bunch of criminals, a bunch of warlords, and instead of them being in jail, you award them with a political formula that basically gives them new ways to continue launching these wars against civilians.' The researcher emphasized that Lebanon's dignity had been 'shattered' because those in power faced no accountability despite their failures. This lack of consequences, he suggested, stems from the need to maintain the country's sectarian power-sharing balance. Looking ahead, al-Muslimi expressed uncertainty about Lebanon's path forward. Five years after the blast, he questioned how the country could 'pull things together and move forward' without holding anyone accountable for what happened.
Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
Jury orders Tesla to pay more than $240 million in Florida Autopilot crash case
MIAMI: A Miami jury decided that Elon Musk's car company Tesla was partly responsible for a deadly crash in Florida involving its Autopilot driver assist technology and must pay the victims more than $240 million in damages. The federal jury held that Tesla bore significant responsibility because its technology failed and that not all the blame can be put on a reckless driver, even one who admitted he was distracted by his cellphone before hitting a young couple out gazing at the stars. The decision comes as Musk seeks to convince Americans his cars are safe enough to drive on their own as he plans to roll out a driverless taxi service in several cities in the coming months. The decision ends a four-year long case remarkable not just in its outcome but that it even made it to trial. Many similar cases against Tesla have been dismissed and, when that didn't happen, settled by the company to avoid the spotlight of a trial. 'This will open the floodgates,' said Miguel Custodio, a car crash lawyer not involved in the Tesla case. 'It will embolden a lot of people to come to court.' The case also included startling charges by lawyers for the family of the deceased, 22-year-old, Naibel Benavides Leon, and for her injured boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. They claimed Tesla either hid or lost key evidence, including data and video recorded seconds before the accident. Tesla said it made a mistake after being shown the evidence and honestly hadn't thought it was there. 'We finally learned what happened that night, that the car was actually defective,' said Benavides' sister, Neima Benavides. 'Justice was achieved.' Tesla has previously faced criticism that it is slow to cough up crucial data by relatives of other victims in Tesla crashes, accusations that the car company has denied. In this case, the plaintiffs showed Tesla had the evidence all along, despite its repeated denials, by hiring a forensic data expert who dug it up. 'Today's verdict is wrong,' Tesla said in a statement, 'and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla's and the entire industry's efforts to develop and implement lifesaving technology,' They said the plaintiffs concocted a story 'blaming the car when the driver – from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility.' In addition to a punitive award of $200 million, the jury said Tesla must also pay $43 million of a total $129 million in compensatory damages for the crash, bringing the total borne by the company to $243 million. 'It's a big number that will send shock waves to others in the industry,' said financial analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. 'It's not a good day for Tesla.' Tesla said it will appeal. Even if that fails, the company says it will end up paying far less than what the jury decided because of a pre-trial agreement that limits punitive damages to three times Tesla's compensatory damages. Translation: $172 million, not $243 million. But the plaintiff says their deal was based on a multiple of all compensatory damages, not just Tesla's, and the figure the jury awarded is the one the company will have to pay. It's not clear how much of a hit to Tesla's reputation for safety the verdict in the Miami case will make. Tesla has vastly improved its technology since the crash on a dark, rural road in Key Largo, Florida, in 2019. But the issue of trust generally in the company came up several times in the case, including in closing arguments Thursday. The plaintiffs' lead lawyer, Brett Schreiber, said Tesla's decision to even use the term Autopilot showed it was willing to mislead people and take big risks with their lives because the system only helps drivers with lane changes, slowing a car and other tasks, falling far short of driving the car itself. Schreiber said other automakers use terms like 'driver assist' and 'copilot' to make sure drivers don't rely too much on the technology. 'Words matter,' Schreiber said. 'And if someone is playing fast and lose with words, they're playing fast and lose with information and facts.' Schreiber acknowledged that the driver, George McGee, was negligent when he blew through flashing lights, a stop sign and a T-intersection at 62 miles an hour before slamming into a Chevrolet Tahoe that the couple had parked to get a look at the stars. The Tahoe spun around so hard it was able to launch Benavides 75 feet through the air into nearby woods where her body was later found. It also left Angulo, who walked into the courtroom Friday with a limp and cushion to sit on, with broken bones and a traumatic brain injury. But Schreiber said Tesla was at fault nonetheless. He said Tesla allowed drivers to act recklessly by not disengaging the Autopilot as soon as they begin to show signs of distraction and by allowing them to use the system on smaller roads that it was not designed for, like the one McGee was driving on. 'I trusted the technology too much,' said McGee at one point in his testimony. 'I believed that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes.' The lead defense lawyer in the Miami case, Joel Smith, countered that Tesla warns drivers that they must keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel yet McGee chose not to do that while he looked for a dropped cellphone, adding to the danger by speeding. Noting that McGee had gone through the same intersection 30 or 40 times previously and hadn't crashed during any of those trips, Smith said that isolated the cause to one thing alone: 'The cause is that he dropped his cellphone.' The auto industry has been watching the case closely because a finding of Tesla liability despite a driver's admission of reckless behavior would pose significant legal risks for every company as they develop cars that increasingly drive themselves.
Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
Trump says he has heard India will stop buying Russian oil
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he had heard that India would no longer be buying oil from Russia. (Developing story)
