Democrats in the United States have moved to force President Donald Trump to release files from the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, invoking an obscure law to keep up the pressure on an issue that has roiled Trump’s administration and base.
The White House has been facing increasingly intense demands to be more transparent about the disgraced financier, who died in federal prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The president raised further questions about his past relationship with Epstein on Tuesday when he told reporters he fell out with his former friend after Epstein “stole” employees from the spa at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The Department of Justice angered Trump supporters earlier this month when it said Epstein had died by suicide and had no “client list” – rebuffing conspiracy theories about the supposed complicity of high-profile Democrats that leading figures in Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement had been pushing for years.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee wrote to the Justice Department asking for the materials under a section of federal law known as the “rule of five”.
The measure, introduced a century ago but rarely used, requires government departments to provide relevant information if any five members of the Senate’s chief watchdog panel request it.
It is not clear if it could be enforced in court, but even if the effort fails, it keeps the spotlight on an issue that has upended Trump’s summer, dividing his Republican Party and leading to the early closure of the House of Representatives.
Trump’s administration, seeking to ease the uproar, urged two judges to release testimony to a grand jury that indicted Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges.
In late-night court filings on Tuesday, federal prosecutors said unsealing the materials would be appropriate given the “abundant public interest” in the case of Epstein and Maxwell, a now-imprisoned British socialite.
Trump supporters angered
Trump had promised to make public Epstein-related files if re-elected and accused Democrats of covering up the truth. But Trump’s Justice Department has now said the previously touted Epstein client list did not in fact exist, angering Trump’s supporters.
The department first sought court permission on July 18 to make public transcripts of the confidential grand jury testimony given by witnesses years ago in the two cases, but Manhattan-based US District Judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer asked the government to flesh out the legal bases for the requests.
Even if one or both of the judges allow the transcripts to be made public, it is not clear whether the public would learn anything new or noteworthy about Epstein or his longtime girlfriend Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021.
Lawmakers have also been seeking testimony from Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in a Florida prison for her role in his crimes.
Maxwell’s lawyer has said she would speak to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee if granted immunity for her testimony.
“The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony,” a spokesman for the panel said.
Democrats have also sought to attach votes on the Epstein files to unrelated bills multiple times, prompting House Speaker Mike Johnson to send lawmakers home for the summer a day early last week rather than risk them succeeding.
“Donald Trump promised he would release the Epstein files while he was on the campaign trail. He made that promise, and he has yet to do it,” Schumer said in a speech on Tuesday on the Senate floor.
In the filings, prosecutors said the only witness at Epstein’s grand jury was an FBI agent. That same agent and a New York City Police Department detective were the only witnesses to testify before Maxwell’s grand jury, prosecutors said.
Maxwell’s four-week trial in 2021 included public testimony from sex trafficking victims, associates of Epstein and Maxwell, and law enforcement officers.
She is asking the Supreme Court to overturn her conviction. She had pleaded not guilty.