{"id":547262,"date":"2026-04-23T23:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547262\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:22:10","slug":"us-government-watchdog-to-investigate-epstein-files-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547262\/","title":{"rendered":"US government watchdog to investigate Epstein files release"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, Massie told the BBC that he was angry about the lack of prosecutions by the justice department.<\/p>\n

“Men need to be perp-walked in handcuffs to the jail, and until we see that here in this country… we don’t have a system of justice that’s working,” he told the BBC Newsnight programme.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general<\/a> overseeing the justice department, partly over her handling of the Epstein files. She has been replaced by Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer.<\/p>\n

Blanche, in an interview earlier this month after he became acting attorney general, told Fox News that the Epstein files “should not be a part of anything going forward”.<\/p>\n

Trump has been criticised by supporters for his oversight of the administration’s handling of the case, with some saying he should have done more to ensure investigators uncover and pursue other criminal associates of the notorious paedophile.<\/p>\n

Survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse also continue to call for accountability.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, one of the most outspoken survivors, Annie Farmer, released a statement criticising a report that some lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee – which has been investigating Epstein and how he escaped justice for years – would endorse Trump granting a pardon to Maxwell in return for her co-operation with the panel’s investigation. <\/p>\n

“A pardon is profoundly insulting and a deep betrayal. In the clearest terms possible, this move would be detrimental to survivors,” she said. <\/p>\n

“We ask the Department of Justice to permanently close the door on any pardon or commutation for Maxwell and instead open the door on a criminal investigation into the enablers of Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell’s abuse.”<\/p>\n

The DoJ did not immediately respond to a request from the BBC for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Massie told the BBC that he was angry about the lack of prosecutions by the justice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-547262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}