The Justice Department’s incomplete and heavily redacted release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files has sparked accusations of a Trump administration cover-up of select associates of the notorious sex offender.
Many Democrats, as well as some Republicans, say the Justice Department is withholding files in violation of a law enacted by Congress last month requiring their release.
“It’s all about covering up things that, for whatever reason, Donald Trump doesn’t want to go public, either about himself, other members of his family, friends, Jeffrey Epstein, or just the social, business, cultural network that he was involved in for at least a decade, if not longer,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche disputed that narrative. He said Democrats’ attempts to portray Mr. Trump as complicit in Epstein’s crimes are “failing over and over again.”
“There is nothing that he has to hide in the Epstein files. There never was,” Mr. Blanche said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
The Justice Department posted hundreds of thousands of documents from the Epstein files to its website Friday, the deadline mandated under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Congress passed with near-unanimous support and Mr. Trump signed into law.
Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, and Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat, who spearheaded the legislation’s passage, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that they are drafting an “inherent contempt” measure that would fine Attorney General Pam Bondi until she releases all the Epstein files the law requires.
“Everything is getting produced,” Mr. Blanche said. He noted that only privileged information, such as attorney-client communications or information identifying victims, is being withheld or redacted.
Additional documents will be released once the Justice Department completes its “very methodical process with hundreds of lawyers looking at every single document,” he said.
The material the Justice Department released Friday includes video footage of the New York City jail where Epstein committed suicide, Epstein’s contact book, flight logs and an entire redacted list of 254 masseuses.
It also featured several photos of former President Bill Clinton with Epstein, other elite associates and unidentified women, including Mr. Clinton pictured in a hot tub and another on Epstein’s private jet.
Mr. Clinton has denied any wrongdoing, but Mr. Trump has called on the Justice Department to investigate him and other top Democrats with known ties to Epstein.
Mr. Blanche declined to confirm Sunday whether the department is investigating Mr. Clinton or whether it is planning additional prosecutions related to Epstein’s crimes.
The Justice Department removed some documents from the public website after a victims’ rights group raised concerns. One was a drawer full of photos, including two that pictured Mr. Trump with women.
“We learned after releasing that photograph that there were concerns about those women and the fact that we had put that photo up. So we pulled that photo down,” Mr. Blanche said. “It has nothing to do with President Trump.”
The photographs featuring Mr. Trump were restored to the Justice Department website Sunday.
It is well known that Mr. Trump and Epstein socialized in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the two had a falling out before Epstein was charged with sex crimes.
Marina Lacerda, one of the women who says she survived sexual assault by Epstein, beginning when she was 14, told The Associated Press that the justice system is failing the victims and “redacting names that don’t need to be redacted.”
“Who are we trying to protect? Are we protecting the survivors, or are we protecting these elite men that need to be put out there?” she said. “These are predators that are in the files. They need to be brought to justice.”
Mr. Khanna said he and Mr. Massie were aware of documents that exist but haven’t been released, such as the 60-count indictment drafted in 2007 to charge Epstein.
That indictment was shelved in favor of a non-prosecution agreement in which Epstein pleaded guilty to just two Florida state prostitution charges. He served 13 months in jail and was not indicted on federal sex trafficking charges until 2019.
“I want to know who were these other people who were on Epstein’s rape island, who were the people who saw young girls being paraded around at parties, 13-, 14-, 15-year-olds, and didn’t say anything,” Mr. Khanna said. “Instead of holding elites accountable, Pam Bondi is breaking the law.”
Mr. Massie said he won’t be satisfied that all the files have been released until the Epstein survivors say they are. He said their attorneys told him that the victims reported at least 20 men to the FBI for being involved in Epstein’s sex crimes.
“They’ve described their professions in general, but they’ve only given me one of those names, and I mentioned that in a congressional hearing, Jes Staley,” Mr. Massie said of the former top executive at J.P. Morgan, where Epstein was a client. “So I searched these documents, I didn’t see Jes Staley’s name, nor did I see 19 other names.”
The rarely used oversight power of inherent contempt, which Mr. Massie and Mr. Khanna want to deploy against Ms. Bondi, allows Congress to fine or jail people who disregard its laws or subpoenas.
Mr. Massie called it the “most expeditious way to get justice for these victims” because it doesn’t require going through the courts.
Mr. Khanna floated the idea of impeaching Ms. Bondi this weekend but then agreed that inherent contempt was a more realistic recourse.
“We only need the House for inherent contempt, and we’re building a bipartisan coalition,” Mr. Khanna said. “It would fine Pam Bondi for every day that she’s not releasing these documents.”
Mr. Raskin, whose committee has jurisdiction over the Justice Department, said that “everything is on the table” for Congress to force the release of all the Epstein files.
Several Democrats floated the idea of legal action, but Mr. Raskin said it’s not clear that anyone other than House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, would have standing to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the institution.
Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrat, suggested that Congress could use the appropriations process to force compliance, as the Justice Department is one of the agencies that lawmakers need to fund before a Jan. 30 deadline.
“I’d rather focus on those tools than get into discussions about contempt,” he said on “Meet the Press.”
• Susan Ferrechio contributed to this report.
