As of yesterday, members of Congress who sit on the House or Senate Judiciary Committees can see unredacted versions of the Epstein files the Department of Justice (DOJ) has already released. As Herb Scribner of Axios explained, the documents are available from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM on computers in the DOJ building in Washington, D.C. The lawmakers cannot bring electronic devices into the room with them, but they are allowed to take notes. They must give the DOJ 24 hours notice before they access the files.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act required the DOJ to release all the Epstein files by December 19. Only about half of them have been released to date, and many of them are so heavily redacted they convey little information. After members of Congress complained, on Friday, January 30, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said they could see the unredacted documents if they asked.
In a letter dated the next day, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) immediately asked for access on behalf of the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, saying they would be ready to view the files the following day, Sunday, February 1.
After viewing the files briefly yesterday, Raskin told Andrew Solender of Axios that when he searched the files for President Donald Trump’s name, it came up “more than a million times.” Raskin suggested that limiting members’ access to the files is part of a cover-up to hide Trump’s relationship with the convicted sex offender, a cover-up that includes the three million files the DOJ has yet to release despite the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. One of the files he did see referred to a child of 9. Raskin called it “gruesome and grim.”
Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) added: “There’s still a lot that’s redacted—even in what we’re seeing, we’re seeing redacted versions. I thought we were supposed to see the unredacted versions.”
Material that has come out has already shown members of the administration and their allies are lying about their connections to Epstein. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who lived next door to Epstein for more than ten years, said in October that he had cut ties with Epstein in 2005 after visiting his home and being disgusted. The files show that in fact, Lutnick not only maintained ties with Epstein but also was in business with him until at least 2018, long after Epstein was a convicted sex offender. Members of both parties have called for Lutnick to resign.
Testifying today before the Senate Appropriations Committee, where members took the opportunity to ask him about his ties to Epstein. Lutnick acknowledged that he had had more contact with Epstein than he had previously admitted, but maintained: “I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him.” But even Republicans expressed discomfort with Lutnick’s visit with his family to Epstein’s private island.
Khanna called for Lutnick to resign. “In this country, we have to make a decision,” he said. “Are we going to allow rich and powerful people who were friends and had no problem doing business and showing up with a pedophile who is raping underage girls, are we just going to allow them to skate? Or, like other countries, are we going to have…accountability for the people who did that?”
In the U.S. there has been little fallout so far for those in the files except the resignation of Wall Street lawyer Brad Karp, senior partner for Paul Weiss—the first law firm to cave to Trump’s demands last March. Material from the files shows that Karp plotted with Epstein to get a woman they disliked charged with a crime and deported.
In Europe the revelation that a leader had ties to Epstein has abruptly ended careers. The former British ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, was fired and has created a crisis for Prime Minister Keir Starmer for appointing him. Two senior Norwegian diplomats are under investigation for gross corruption from their ties to Epstein; one of them, Mona Juul, resigned Sunday from her position as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq. Slovakia’s national security advisor Miroslav Lajčák resigned after messages between him and Epstein showed them talking about women while also discussing Lajčák’s meetings with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
Poland announced it was launching an investigation into whether Epstein was tied to Russian intelligence. “More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services,” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said. “I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.”
Yesterday, Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking, testified by video before the House Oversight Committee. She refused to answer any questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her lawyer said she is “prepared to speak fully and honestly” if Trump grants her clemency.
Todd Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, all part of the Department of Homeland Security, testified today before the House Committee on Homeland Security. As Eric Bazail-Eimil of Politico reported, Lyons defended the actions of ICE agents, saying they are properly enforcing immigration laws and that they are the real victims of the encounters that have left protesters dead or injured because the protests put agents in danger. Most Republicans backed them up, saying the Democrats are trying to stop the removal of criminals.
Democrats asked the men about federal arrests of U.S. citizens and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and demanded changes at ICE and Border Patrol. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security will run out on February 13, and the administration officials warned members of Congress that a shutdown would disrupt their operations and thus endanger national security. Representative James Walkinshaw (D-VA) later told a reporter: “Look, all of this comes from Stephen Miller’s sick and twisted, deranged Great Replacement theory. Whether these folks here…know it or not, they’re…just pawns in Stephen Miller’s sick and twisted scheme.”
Daniel Klaidman, Michael Kaplan, and Matt Gutman of CBS News reported that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after a federal raid on a popular horse racing venue in Wilder, Idaho, led to the detention of 105 undocumented immigrants as well as the temporary detention of 375 U.S. citizens or lawful residents. Only five arrests ended in criminal charges, all for unlicensed gambling.
Answering allegations that agents had used zip ties on children, both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) field office in Boise and Homeland Security spokesperson Trisha McLaughlin flatly denied the allegations. “ICE didn’t zip tie, restrain, or arrest any children,” she said. “ICE does not zip tie or handcuff children. This is the kind of garbage rhetoric contributing to our officers facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats.” But after photographic evidence of zip-tie bruises on a 14-year-old female U.S. citizen as well as personal testimony, the FBI changed their assertion to say no “young” children were zip-tied.
Court documents unsealed today show that the FBI raid on the warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, that led to the seizure of 700 boxes of ballots and other election related items was based on debunked claims of fraud from 2020 election deniers. As Ashley Cleaves and Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket explained, the affidavit that informed the search warrant came from Kurt Olsen, one of the lawyers who worked with Trump to overturn the 2020 election and whom Trump has recently appointed director of election security and integrity. In the affidavit, Olsen recycled a number of debunked theories.
Legal analyst Joyce White Vance notes that, aside from the merits of the case, it appears that the statute of limitations has run out on any potential election crimes stemming from 2020. She goes on to expose the weakness of the case itself and, finally, to point out that both the General Assembly and the Georgia State Election Board that said there was no intentional fraud or misconduct in the counting of the Fulton County ballots in 2020 were Republican led. White suggests the raid was “less about bringing a meritorious criminal prosecution against specific individuals and more about casting suspicion over Fulton County’s voting system and ability to conduct a fair election.”
Today the National Governors Association cancelled its annual bipartisan meeting with the president that usually involves a business meeting and a dinner. Trump had disinvited two Democratic governors, Jared Polis of Colorado and Wes Moore of Maryland, prompting the rest of the Democratic governors to refuse to attend. “Democratic governors have a long record of working across the aisle to deliver results and we remain committed to this effort. But it’s disappointing this administration doesn’t seem to share the same goal. At every turn, President Trump is creating chaos and division, and it is the American people who are hurting as a result,” the Democratic governors wrote. “If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year. Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states.”
Moore is the vice-chair of the NGA. Yesterday its chair, Oklahoma’s Republican governor Kevin Stitt, wrote: “Because NGA’s mission is to represent all 55 governors, the Association is no longer serving as the facilitator for that event, and it is no longer included in our official program.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “I just spoke with the president about this. It is a dinner at the White House. It’s the ‘People’s House.’ It’s also the president’s home, and he can invite whomever he wants to dinners and events here at the White House.”
In Washington today, a grand jury refused to indict six Democratic members of Congress for breaking a law that makes it a crime to “interfere with, impair, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces of the United States.” Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy captain and astronaut; Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA analyst; and Representatives Jason Crow of Colorado, a former Army Ranger; Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, a former Navy officer; Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, a Navy veteran; and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, a former Air Force officer, recorded a video last November reminding service members that they must refuse illegal orders.
Trump called it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
Although the bar for an indictment is so low that grand juries almost always return one, the Trump administration’s attempts to harass those he perceives as opponents have been so outrageous that grand juries have repeatedly refused to go along. The New York Times called today’s refusal “a remarkable rebuke.”
