meeting twice with Blanche<\/a> last year. The deputy attorney general cited \u201cnumerous threats against her life\u201d, without providing details.<\/p>\nThe move prompted questions from Democratic lawmakers, who asked whether Maxwell had \u201cbeen given special treatment in exchange for political favours\u201d as Trump\u2019s own relationship with Epstein comes under growing scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling the Epstein scandal a \u201choax\u201d, and saying he broke off ties in the early 2000s, before Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a prostitution charge.<\/p>\n
Maxwell is the only person convicted of crimes related to Epstein, whose connections to powerful individuals worldwide have been revealed in the Epstein files.<\/p>\n
The release of the documents has set in motion political crises in multiple countries, including in the United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer is clinging to his job after it was revealed that his former ambassador to the US had maintained close ties with Epstein.<\/p>\n
Democratic lawmakers, however, bemoaned that political figures in the US seem to be escaping unscathed so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just afraid that the general worsening and degradation of American life has somehow conditioned people not to take this as seriously as we should be taking it,\u201d said Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland.<\/p>\n
Unredacted files<\/p>\n
Separately, on Monday, several Democratic and Republican lawmakers also visited a Justice Department office in Washington, DC, to look through the unredacted versions of the Epstein files. The lawmakers were given access to the more than 3 million released files in a reading room with four computers, as part of an arrangement with the Justice Department.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers can only make handwritten notes, and their staff are not allowed in with them.<\/p>\n
In a news conference after their visit, Khanna and Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who sponsored the legislation to force the release of the files, expressed concern that some names had been removed from the records that have been made public.<\/p>\n
The law allows redactions to protect the identities of victims, but says no records could be withheld \u201con the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary\u201d.<\/p>\n
Massie told reporters that he has identified six individuals who are \u201clikely incriminated by their inclusion in these files\u201d, but whose names were redacted.<\/p>\n
Khanna said that \u201cthere\u2019s no explanation\u201d why the names of those people were withheld.<\/p>\n
The two lawmakers declined to name the six individuals, but Massie said one was \u201cpretty high up\u201d in a foreign government, and Khanna noted that another is a \u201cprominent individual\u201d.<\/p>\n
Massie also called on the Justice Department to pursue accountability for the men, but said he could potentially name them in a House floor speech, where his actions would be constitutionally protected from lawsuits.<\/p>\n
In a subsequent social media post,\u00a0Massie shared an image of a redacted document relating to a \u201cco-conspirator\u201d, stating that the person was a \u201cwell known retired CEO\u201d and that the redaction should be removed.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department has previously said no new prosecutions are expected over the Epstein case.<\/p>\n
Trump fought for months to prevent the release of the vast trove of documents about Epstein, but a rebellion among Republicans forced him to sign off on the law mandating that all the records be released.<\/p>\n
The move reflected intense political pressure to address what many Americans, including Trump\u2019s supporters, have long suspected to be a cover-up to protect rich and powerful men in Epstein\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ghislaine Maxwell, the associate and former girlfriend of the late Jeffrey Epstein, has refused to answer questions before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3071,3,111,2818,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-459434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-sexual-assault","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-us-canada","19":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}