U.S. DOJ to hand Epstein files over to Congress starting Friday
Court records will be turned over to the Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Friday.
The committee, which subpoenaed the files earlier this month, seeks records related to Epstein. Separate subpoenas call for deposition interviews with Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as former law enforcement personnel, in a decades-old case that has been a persistent distraction for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.
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'There are many records in DOJ's custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,' Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the Republican committee chair, said in a statement.
'I appreciate the Trump Administration's commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter.'
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Epstein, the former financier infamous for operating an underage sex trafficking ring with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell, was a known associate of Trump and other high-profile individuals.
He died by suicide in prison while awaiting trial in 2019. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for helping lure teenage girls to be abused by Epstein.
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Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising, with a performance by Rod Stewart at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005 in New York City. Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Epstein's relationship with the president has been subject to heightened scrutiny in recent weeks after the Trump administration walked back a promise to release the files. Many politicians, including Calif. Governor Gavin Newsom and the family of Martin Luther King, Jr., say the Trump administration is attempting to distract from the files' contents and deflect Republican pressure for transparency.
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In July, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche spent two days interviewing Maxwell inside a Florida courthouse, though records from the meeting have not been made public. Last week, a judge denied the Justice Department's request to unseal grand jury documents from Maxwell's 2021 trial on the basis that the majority of the files were already in the public domain.
'A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government's motion for their unsealing was aimed not at 'transparency' but at diversion – aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such,' Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote.
Trump claims to have cut ties with Epstein after he 'stole' employees from the president's Mar-a-lago estate, including Virginia Giuffre — one of Epstein's most high-profile accusers, who died by suicide earlier this year.
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White House staff have recently hinted that Trump ousted Epstein from his circle around 2004 for inappropriate behaviour.
The House committee's subpoena is seeking all documents and communications from the case files of Epstein and Maxwell.
It also demanded records detailing conversations between former president Joe Biden's administration and the Justice Department regarding Epstein, as well as documents related to an earlier federal investigation into Epstein in Florida that resulted in a non-prosecution agreement.
— With files from The Associated Press
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