Every other Tuesday, the team behind Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa to talk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
The Department of Justice released millions of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein last Friday. Those files showed communications between Epstein and many powerful people.
This comes after Congress passed a law late last year to make all of the Epstein files public.
Civics 101 host Nick Capodice joined Julia to explain how the Epstein Files Transparency Act happened and what’s next after the latest release of documents.
Transcript
Okay Nick, so let's start with how we got here. What started the legislation that demanded the release of the Epstein files?
It is a long timeline, Julia. And it would take me about 20 to 30 minutes just to sort of speed read it, so I'm not going to do that. But, let me just say, after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she had a client list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients on her desk, she then said the DOJ had found no evidence implicating any third parties whatsoever. So a small group of Republican members of Congress, led by Thomas Massie, created what's called a discharge petition. This is a very rare procedural move which takes a bill out of committee where about 95% of bills die and it forces it onto the floor of the House for a vote.
So the bill that was brought out is what is now called the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The House voted almost unanimously. There was one member of the House, Clay Higgins, who opposed it because he claimed it would harm the victims that Epstein and others abused. But the bill went through the House. Then it went through the Senate without even a floor vote, and it was signed by the president that same week. This bill mandated [that] all files related to Jeffrey Epstein must be released by Dec. 19.
And were they? Was that deadline met?
No, it most certainly was not. In the period around that deadline of Dec. 19 — just to name a few things — the U.S. invaded Venezuela. The U.S. captured its president, Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. went to the mat regarding the acquisition of Greenland. It deployed ICE officers to Minneapolis and other cities. And frankly, Julia, our news cycle was relatively devoid of coverage on the DOJ's violation of this bill. However, just last week, Jan. 30, on a Friday afternoon, the department did, as you said, release 3 million documents.
Three million [documents] — that’s an awful lot. Has everything now been released?
It is an awful lot, but it is not a complete release. This release is about half of the total documents which were required to be released by the act, passed in November. Now, I want to add here that the act demanded minimal redactions, only withholding “personal information of victims and materials that would jeopardize an active federal investigation.”
This latest drop, like all the others, has been significantly redacted. Contrary to the stated intent of Rep. Clay Higgins, it is more often the names and photos of the abusers that have been redacted, not the names of the victims. The Wall Street Journal reported that of the 47 victims, 45 of their names were revealed in this release. However, many names [of the abusers] are still referenced in this latest batch. The New York Times has found over 38,000 references to President Donald Trump and his wife so far.
So what’s the next step? Will further information be released?
We don't know, Julia. I will say though, this battle is one of the only bipartisan efforts I have seen in the last year. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie have together announced they are, “prepared to move forward on impeachment or contempt regarding Attorney General Bondi's refusal to release the files.” So we're just going to have to wait and see.
