Effectively, they’re lastly right here. On Friday, the USA Division of Justice launched a big trove of recordsdata associated to notorious convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein. The discharge comes simply eight hours earlier than the deadline mandated by the Epstein Information Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed into regulation final month.
For the Trump administration, Epstein has been “a man that by no means dies,” within the phrases of Trump himself. For the reason that begin of Trump’s second time period, the DOJ and FBI have been scouring the businesses’ investigative holdings and releasing parts of that in spurts. Whereas Friday’s launch marks the biggest trove of Epstein-related paperwork thus far, the DOJ didn’t launch all of the paperwork in its possession, probably setting off a authorized battle that might result in impeachment and even prosecution of division officers underneath the regulation.
In July, a joint memo from the DOJ and FBI mentioned that after an “exhaustive assessment” of data, it had uncovered “greater than 300 gigabytes of information and bodily proof.” Not all of that’s a part of at present’s launch. The DOJ is allowed to withhold or redact sure classes of data from public disclosure, together with info that will determine victims (the memo famous that a big portion of the proof included pictures and movies of victims) and unlawful youngster intercourse abuse materials (which the memo mentioned was additionally included within the holdings.) The DOJ must submit a report back to Congress inside 15 days itemizing the classes of data launched and withheld, in addition to a abstract of redactions made and their authorized foundation.
The discharge consists of supplies gathered as a part of DOJ investigations into Epstein and his confederate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s at present serving a 20-year jail sentence for crimes associated to Epstein. That features logged bodily proof, scans of name logs, a whole scan of Therapeutic massage for Dummies, and extra.
As a part of their compliance with the Epstein transparency regulation, DOJ attorneys filed a number of motions to unseal grand jury supplies in issues associated to Epstein and Maxwell. These motions have been granted earlier this month.
Along with these supplies, the regulation requires the DOJ to launch different forms of info in its possession, together with these associated to people and organizations with identified or alleged ties to Epstein and his felony networks, inside communications about selections on whether or not to analyze or cost Epstein, and data associated to his loss of life whereas in his cell.
