U.S. Justice Department officials said Sunday that the redactions in the Epstein files were not made to shield President Donald Trump, responding to growing criticism over the limited and heavily censored release of the documents.
Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein voiced frustration after records from cases involving the late sex offender were made public on Friday, noting that large portions were blacked out and images obscured.
Meanwhile, after the Justice Department failed to release documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, as required by law, several members of Congress went beyond expressing outrage and warned of possible legal action.
According to a report by The Guardian, Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor who started West Coast Trial Lawyers, said Congress could in fact hold Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi or her deputy Todd Blanche in contempt. “But the matter would be referred to the Department of Justice, which would not prosecute.”
“It’s theoretically possible, but practically it’s not going to happen,” Rahmani said, as reported by The Guardian.
Rahmani said Congress would most likely respond by filing a lawsuit seeking a federal judge’s order requiring the Justice Department to release the requested records. If the department then “refuses or fails to comply,” Rahmani added, it could be found in contempt of court.
Eric Faddis, founder of the Colorado-based law firm Varner Faddis and a former prosecutor who now works as a trial attorney, expressed a similar view to Rahmani, as reported by The Guardian.
If Justice Department officials violated the act, they could be held in contempt of Congress, which would require a vote. The sergeant in arms, in turn, could detain them until they agree to comply, he said.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., argued that the Justice Department is obstructing the implementation of the law mandating the release of the documents, not because it wants to protect the Epstein victims.
“It’s all about covering up things that, for whatever reason, Donald Trump doesn’t want to go public, either about himself, other members of his family, friends, Jeffrey Epstein, or just the social, business, cultural network that he was involved in for at least a decade, if not longer," he said on CNN's “State of the Union.”
Trump, who had been friends with Epstein for years before their relationship soured, spent months attempting to keep the records sealed. While Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, he has maintained that the files contain nothing significant and that attention should be directed elsewhere.
Epstein was charged by federal prosecutors in New York in 2019 with sex trafficking. He later died in jail while awaiting trial.
“It’s not about the timeline, it’s about the selective concealment,” Khanna said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding that the redactions in the released files are excessive. He said he believes there will be "bipartisan support in holding her accountable, and a committee of Congress should determine whether these redactions are justified or not."
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on ABC's “This Week” that there needs “to be a full and complete explanation and then a full and complete investigation as to why the document production has fallen short of what the law clearly required,” but he stopped short of backing impeachment.
The missing files, which were available Friday but no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showed a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers.
In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The thousands of Epstein-related records posted publicly offer the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades worth of government scrutiny of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls.
Yet Friday's release, replete with redactions, has not dulled the clamor for information given how many records had yet to be released and because some of the materials had already been made public.