President Donald Trump<\/a>, who has appeared in multiple images and mentioned in details from the files, has denied any wrongdoing in connection to his relationship with Epstein, which he said ended around 2004.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \u201cTo give you an answer that will not satisfy your curiosity, we \u2014 perhaps to our damage \u2014 but we strongly, and rightly, believed that there should be an absolute separation between what we wanted as an administration and what the Department of Justice did,\u201d Harris shared on Kimmel’s show. \u201cWe absolutely adhered to that and it was right to do that.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Harris said it was important to Biden’s administration that \u201cThe Justice Department would make its decisions independent of any political or personal vendetta or concern we may have and that\u2019s the way it worked.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump speaks at his inauguration while former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris watch on Jan. 20, 2025.<\/p>\n
Kenny Holston-Pool\/Getty<\/p>\n
Congress passed a bill in November giving the Trump administration 30 days to release addition information from its investigations into Epstein.\n<\/p>\n
The bill, titled the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed 427-1 in the House and was approved unanimously in the Senate before it was signed into law by Trump on Nov. 19.\n<\/p>\n
On Friday, Dec. 19, the 30 days will be up and the Trump administration is required to release the remaining Epstein files, only withholding or redacting documents that are classified, or that could identify\u00a0victims or interfere with a federal investigation.\n<\/p>\n
Kimmel asked Harris if she thought that the president would, in fact, release all of the files on the deadline.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden on Jan. 15, 2025.<\/p>\n
Aaron Schwartz\/Sipa\/Bloomberg via Getty<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he has done to treat the Department of Justice as his personal law firm is criminal in proportion to what it\u2019s supposed to be and that it\u2019s supposed to be an independent body that does justice, blindfolded in terms of for whom but for the country they\u2019re supposed to operate without favor or fear,\u201d Harris replied.\n<\/p>\n
She added, \u201cSo I don\u2019t know that they are going to do what they\u2019re saying they\u2019re going to do, which is release all of the documents that the American people have a right to see.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump pose together in 1997.<\/p>\n
Davidoff Studios\/Getty\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite her condemnation of the Trump administration\u2019s practices since taking office in January, Harris did take a moment to acknowledge Republicans who have called for the files\u2019 release.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI will commend Republicans in Congress, those who have stood up to say, \u2018Release the files,\u2019 \u201d she noted.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\n<\/p>\n White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson previously shared a statement with PEOPLE, claiming, “The Democrat hoax against President Trump has been repeatedly debunked and the Trump Administration has done more for Epstein\u2019s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents, and calling for further investigations into Epstein\u2019s Democrat friends.”\n<\/p>\n
Jackson added, “It\u2019s time for the media to stop regurgitating Democrat talking points and start asking Democrats why they wanted to hang around Epstein after he was convicted.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW Former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about former President Joe Biden’s decision to not push…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-192039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}