Justice Department to begin giving Congress files from Jeffrey Epstein investigation, lawmaker says

The Justice Department has agreed to supply to Congress documents from the Jeffrey Epstein enactment trafficking investigation, a cardinal House lawmaker said Monday successful announcing a determination that appears to avert, astatine slightest temporarily, a imaginable separation of powers clash.

The records are to beryllium turned implicit starting Friday to the House Oversight Committee, which earlier this period issued a wide subpoena to the Justice Department astir a transgression lawsuit that has agelong captivated nationalist attention, precocious roiled the apical rungs of President Donald Trump's medication and been a accordant magnet for conspiracy theories.

"There are galore records successful DOJ's custody, and it volition instrumentality the Department clip to nutrient each the records and guarantee the recognition of victims and immoderate kid intersexual maltreatment worldly are redacted," Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the Republican committee chair, said successful a statement. "I admit the Trump Administration's committedness to transparency and efforts to supply the American radical with accusation astir this matter.

This undated proceedings grounds representation obtained December 8, 2021, from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York shows Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.

Photo by HANDOUT/US District Court for the Southern District of New York/AFP via Getty Images

A affluent and well-connected financier, Epstein was recovered dormant successful his New York jailhouse compartment weeks aft his 2019 apprehension successful what investigators ruled a suicide. His erstwhile girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted successful 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to beryllium sexually abused by Epstein and is serving a 20-year situation sentence.

The House committee's subpoena sought each documents and communications from the lawsuit files of Epstein and Maxwell. It besides demanded records astir communications betwixt Democratic President Joe Biden's medication and the Justice Department regarding Epstein, arsenic good arsenic documents related to an earlier national probe into Epstein successful Florida that resulted successful a non-prosecution agreement.

It was not wide precisely which oregon however galore documents mightiness beryllium produced oregon whether the practice with Congress reflected a broader alteration successful posture since past month, erstwhile the FBI and Justice Department abruptly announced that they would not beryllium releasing immoderate further records from the Epstein probe aft determining that nary "further disclosure would beryllium due oregon warranted."

That announcement enactment the Trump medication connected the defensive, with officials since past scrambling some to tamp down aggravated questions from the president's basal and besides laboring to look transparent.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed Maxwell astatine a Florida courthouse implicit 2 days past period - though nary records from those conversations person been made nationalist - and the Justice Department has besides sought to unseal expansive assemblage transcripts successful the Epstein and Maxwell cases, though truthful acold those requests person been denied.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to remark Monday.

The House Oversight sheet separately issued subpoenas to 8 erstwhile instrumentality enforcement leaders arsenic good arsenic erstwhile Democratic President Bill Clinton and erstwhile Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clinton was among a fig of luminaries acquainted with Epstein earlier the transgression probe against him successful Florida became nationalist 2 decades ago. Clinton has ne'er been accused of wrongdoing by immoderate of the women who accidental Epstein abused them.