Justice Department's heavily redacted Epstein file release draws criticism from lawmakers

John Yang:

Good evening. I'm John Yang. Overnight, the Justice Department released hundreds more heavily redacted pages of material it had gathered on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Still, what's been made public so far falls well short of the full disclosure required by the law Congress passed last month.

These new releases come in addition to the thousands of pages of photos, correspondence and other material released on Friday afternoon. And the Justice Department says there will be much more to come in the coming weeks.

Among the latest batch, released around midnight, is a phone message slip that reads, she has females for Mr. J.E. Jeff Mason is a White House correspondent for Reuters. Jeff, these new files, the files even that were released yesterday, tell us a lot about more detail about Jeffrey Epstein. But does it tell us anything about his relationship with Donald Trump? With President Trump.

Jeff Mason, White House Correspondent, Reuters:

Very little. And that's one thing that people were maybe anticipating getting more information on. But the files have some mentions of Trump and some conversations, but no photos.

One of the pieces of evidence that people were expecting was not in the release. And in general, the files were focused on other people in Jeffrey Epstein's orbit and not the current president of the United States.

John Yang:

Even with that, this is now going to be spread out over several weeks. It's not going to be a one day story, one day headline. Does the White House have a strategy to deal with that?

Jeff Mason:

Well, their strategy so far has been largely to say, A, that they are being very transparent by taking or taking doing this document release and following the law. A statement from a White House spokeswoman yesterday pretty much said just that and accused Democrats of not answering questions about their connections with Jeffrey Epstein.

I think broadly, the White House would be happy for this whole issue to go away. And that is evidenced by the fact that President Trump spent months trying to prevent these documents from coming out. That led to a lot of discord within his MAGA base and led to some divisions within Congress about amongst Republicans. In the end, they ended up passing this law and the president signed it.

But some Democrats and in fact, at least one Republican are saying that the administration did not follow the law with its limited release on Friday.

John Yang:

Well, one of those Republicans is the co-sponsor, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. He tweeted today that the release grossly fails to comply with the law. What can they do? Can they go to court and sue over this?

Jeff Mason:

Well, that's a good question. I don't know if that's something that they're thinking of doing. Certainly I do know, because this is what the Justice Department has said, is that they're planning to release more, but they are saying that there are so many things that have to go through that they just couldn't basically do it all in one batch, but that there will be multiple additional batches coming.

But as you say, even the co-sponsor of the bill on the Republican side, Congressman Massie, is upset about that.

John Yang:

And also, these documents are so heavily redacted. There are some pages that are just totally black from being blacked out, inked out. Is anybody talking about that or complaining about that?

Jeff Mason:

Yes, there are concerns about that. I think in one case, there were 100 pages of grand jury testimony that were redacted. Now, the law allows the Justice Department to release some of the files with redactions in specific instances with regard to victims of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, with regard to abuse. But the amount of the redactions surprised people who are expecting to get more information than they felt they received.

John Yang:

And the law actually says they can't redact to protect the reputation of anybody. Anybody. Do we have any idea when these additional files are going to be released in the future?

Jeff Mason:

All we know is that they'll be coming out in batches in the coming weeks. So I would expect that journalists like ourselves will be watching this story over the holidays and probably well past that.

And some of the questions that people were hoping to get answered in this first batch are the ones that will continue to be asked in terms of connections that other people had and knowledge that other people had of Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes.

John Yang:

You mentioned this split in the MAGA base and it spread to the House Republicans. Does any of this threaten support for President Trump?

Jeff Mason:

Well, I mean, exhibit A of that is the rift now between President Trump and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who threw her support behind this legislation and behind additional transparency for the Epstein files that led to this major break with the president, with whom she had a close relationship. And the two of them have really been MAGA, you know, very connected in the MAGA base and supported by the MAGA base.

So to your question, will there be more? It's hard to say, but certainly Congresswoman Greene has suggested that there are more divisions coming or more breakaways coming from within the base and within the Republican Party over multiple things. But certainly a lot of it seems to have been triggered by this.

John Yang:

Jeff Mason of Reuters, thank you very much.

Jeff Mason:

My pleasure.