Justice department has 30 days to release all Epstein files after Trump signs bill – US politics live | Donald Trump
Justice department has 30 days to release all Epstein files after Trump signs bill
Rachel Leingang
Donald Trump signed a bill on Wednesday directing the justice department to release files from the investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, surrendering in the face of joint pressure from Democratic opponents and the president’s conservative base.
The signature marked a sharp reversal for Trump, who had the authority as president to release the documents himself, but chose not to.
Democrats have gloried in the controversy over the files and the possibility they may contain compromising information about Trump, who had a personal friendship with Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Trump sought to flip that script after signing the bill in a posting to Truth Social that pointed out Epstein’s ties to the Democratic party.
“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!,” Trump wrote on Wednesday night.
The justice department has 30 days to release all files related to Epstein, including the investigation into his death by suicide in a federal prison cell. The legislation permits redacting identifying information of victims, but specifically bars officials from declining to disclose information over concerns about “embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity”.
Trump waffled on the issue for years before finally succumbing to political pressure. On the campaign trail, he pledged to release the Epstein files. Once in office, he changed his position, calling the issue a “hoax” and railing against those who wanted to make the documents public.
But he reversed course in recent days after it was clear the House of Representatives would pass legislation, saying “we have nothing to hide” and that “it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown’”.
After Trump indicated his approval of the bill, Republican holdouts swiftly moved it through the House and then the Senate. Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, had stalled the bill for months, and after the House passed it, Johnson said he hoped the Senate would amend it, which it did not.
The justice department said earlier this year that it had released all the documents it could about Epstein without hindering investigations or revealing information about his victims.
Key events
Sara Braun
Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University, will stop teaching at the school while it investigates his connection to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a spokesperson for Summers said on Wednesday.
Emails recently released by the US House oversight committee reignited questions about Summers’ relationship with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors. Many of the messages indicated a friendship that lasted well into 2019. Contact only ceased shortly before Epstein was arrested in July of that same year.
The Harvard Crimson was first to report the news.
Steven Goldberg, the spokesperson for Summers, told the newspaper that Summers, an economist and former US treasury secretary, is not scheduled to teach next semester, and that his co-teachers will take over the remaining classes of the current semester.
Summers will also take immediate leave from his role as the director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, which he has led since 2011.
“Mr Summers has decided it’s in the best interest of the center for him to go on leave from his role as director as Harvard undertakes its review,” Goldberg said.
The announcement comes mere days after Summers announced that he would step back from public commitments in light of the resurfaced messages with Epstein but would continue to teach.
In the emails, Summers appears to ask Epstein for advice on pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman that he describes as a mentee. In one message from 2018, Epstein refers to himself as Summers’ “wingman”.
In his latest post to Truth Social, Donald Trump has criticised Jimmy Kimmel again. Describing the late-night host as a “bum”, Trump called for him to be taken off “the air”.
Late-night hosts, including Kimmel, recently celebrated the congressional votes to release the Epstein files and decried Trump’s warm meeting with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
In his post, Trump wrote:
Why does ABC Fake News keep Jimmy Kimmel, a man with NO TALENT and VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS, on the air? Why do the TV Syndicates put up with it? Also, totally biased coverage. Get the bum off the air!!!
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its website on Wednesday to say that claims about vaccines not causing autism are not “evidence-based”, reports Reuters.
Vaccine skeptic and US health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr as well as US president Donald Trump have promoted the theory – contrary to scientific evidence – that childhood vaccines are a cause of autism. But the CDC’s website previously said “studies have shown there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder”.
According to Reuters, as of Wednesday night the agency’s website states:
The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
It added that health authorities have “ignored” studies supporting the link between the two.
Reuters reports that the agency kept the header “Vaccines do not cause autism” on its webpage, saying that it has not been removed due to an agreement with Senator Bill Cassidy, chair of the US Senate’s committee on health, education, labor and pensions.
The anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, which was previously led by Kennedy, applauded the changes to the CDC’s website, reports Reuters. The group said on X:
The CDC is beginning to acknowledge the truth about this condition that affects millions, disavowing the bold, long-running lie that ‘vaccines do not cause autism.
Kennedy has linked vaccines to autism and sought to rewrite the country’s immunization policies. Trump has also linked autism to the taking of pain medication Tylenol by pregnant women, a claim that is also not backed by scientific evidence.
The causes of autism are unclear, but no rigorous studies have found links between autism and vaccines, medications or components like thimerosal or formaldehyde.
Trump and Mamdani to meet in Oval Office on Friday after months of bickering
Donald Trump has confirmed a long-awaited meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will happen in Washington this week.
The sit-down, which Trump said on social media would take place on Friday in the Oval Office, could possibly represent a detente of sorts between the Republican president and Democratic rising star.
Saying it was “customary” for an incoming New York City mayor to meet with the president, Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said the incoming mayor planned to discuss with Trump “public safety, economic security and the affordability agenda that over one million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago”.
Trump for months has slammed Mamdani, falsely labelling him a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his home town if the democratic socialist was elected. He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalised American citizen in 2018, and to pull federal money from the city.
But following the November elections – in which Republicans lost badly in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as New York – Trump has spoken more about affordability, which had been a focal point across the Democratic campaigns. Last week in a social media post he declared that the Republicans were the “Party of Affordability!” This comes as the president and his fellow Republicans insist the economy has never been stronger.
Opening summary
Donald Trump signed a bill on Wednesday directing the justice department to release files from the investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, surrendering in the face of joint pressure from Democratic opponents and the president’s conservative base.
The signature marked a sharp reversal for Trump, who had the authority as president to release the documents himself, but chose not to.
Democrats have gloried in the controversy over the files and the possibility they may contain compromising information about Trump, who had a personal friendship with Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Trump sought to flip that script after signing the bill in a posting to Truth Social that pointed out Epstein’s ties to the Democratic party.
“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!,” Trump wrote on Wednesday night.
The justice department has 30 days to release all files related to Epstein, including the investigation into his death by suicide in a federal prison cell. The legislation permits redacting identifying information of victims, but specifically bars officials from declining to disclose information over concerns about “embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity”.
Meanwhile, Trump has confirmed a long-awaited meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will happen in Washington this week, setting up an in-person clash between the political opposites who for months have antagonised each other.
The sit-down, which Trump said on social media would take place on Friday in the Oval Office, could possibly represent a detente of sorts between the Republican president and Democratic rising star.
Calling Mamdani by his full name – and putting the mayor-elect’s middle name of Kwame in quotation marks – Trump posted on Wednesday night that Mamdani had asked for the meeting, promising: “Further details to follow!”
More on these stories in a moment, but first, here are some other key developments:
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Trump’s anti-climate agenda could result in 1.3m more deaths globally, analysis has found. A ProPublica and Guardian analysis that draws on sophisticated modeling by independent researchers found that Trump’s “America First” agenda of expanding fossil fuels and decimating efforts to reduce emissions will add substantially to the human cost, with the vast majority of deaths occurring outside the US.
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Federal prosecutors on Wednesday said they had never presented the final version of the indictment filed against James Comey to a full federal grand jury, a concession that adds to mounting challenges in their effort to prosecute the former FBI director.
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A state department is proposing to suspend 38 universities including Harvard and Yale from a federal research partnership program because they engage in diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices, according to an internal memo and spreadsheet obtained by the Guardian. The memo, dated 17 November, recommends excluding institutions from the Diplomacy Lab – a program that pairs university researchers with state department policy offices – if they “openly engage in DEI hiring practices” or set DEI objectives for candidate pools.
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Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University, will stop teaching at the school while it investigates his connection to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a spokesperson for Summers said on Wednesday. Emails recently released by the US House oversight committee reignited questions about Summers’ relationship with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors. Many of the messages indicated a friendship that lasted well into 2019. Contact only ceased shortly before Epstein was arrested in July of that same year.
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Democratic representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly funneling more than $5m worth of federal disaster funds from her company into her 2021 congressional campaign. The indictment states that Cherfilus-McCormick and her brother, Edwin Cherfilus, stole $5m in Fema overpayments that their family healthcare company received, moving the money through multiple accounts to hide its origins.