The mainstream media has run with the Trump administration’s myth that they have turned over all of the Epstein files documents.
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin said that the Trump administration has only turned over half of the documents, and the documents that have been released, hundreds of thousands of pages have been redacted.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on February 11, and Raskin and committee Democrats want to review the unredacted files before she appears.
Raskin wrote to the DOJ:
Our review is particularly urgent because DOJ itself claims to have identified over six million potentially responsive pages, but after releasing only about half of them—including over 200,000 pages that DOJ redacted or withheld—says strangely that it has fully complied with the Act. We seek to ensure that your redactions comply with the Act’s requirement that materials be withheld only in narrow circumstances, such as protecting victims’ personally identifiable information, and not on the basis of ‘embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.
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Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a tranche of documents related to disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and claims to have fully satisfied its obligations under the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA). At the press conference, Deputy Attorney General Blanche also said: “If any Member of Congress wishes to review any portions of the response of production in any unredacted form, they’re welcome to make arrangements with the Department to do so, and we’re happy to do that.”
Moreover, in light of Attorney General Bondi’s appearance in a hearing before the Committee on February 11, it is vital that Committee Members and staff have an opportunity to review the unredacted files in order to evaluate the lawfulness and appropriateness of your redactions and to examine the Attorney General about them.
It is shocking that so many people are willing to take what the Trump DOJ has released at face value.
The full documents need to be reviewed.
It isn’t smart to look for compliance with the law from an administration that is being led by a 34-time convicted felon.
Democrats need to conduct oversight because it is a tiny fraction of what the Epstein survivors deserve.
What do you think? Should Democrats get the unredacted Epstein files? Share your thoughts in the comments below.