Keep in mind the Epstein recordsdata? These had been high of thoughts two months in the past, earlier than the Trump administration invaded Minnesota, however have since fallen by the wayside. By no means concern, although. The administration is completely planning to launch them quickly. No, you’ll be able to’t know the way quickly. Simply belief them.
In a Tuesday submitting, the Division of Justice informed the judges overseeing U.S. v. Epstein and U.S. v. Maxwell, the underlying legal instances, that it “continues to make substantial progress in its efforts to establish doubtlessly responsive paperwork, evaluate these paperwork, redact sufferer figuring out info and privileged info, have interaction in high quality management processes, and put together responsive publication in accordance with the Act,” referring to the regulation signed final yr to power the recordsdata’ launch.
This reads like a highschool scholar making an attempt to decorate up their meager work and make it sound substantial. Did the DOJ assume that detailing each step of what’s a reasonably commonplace course of for reviewing and releasing recordsdata would persuade the court docket they had been working tremendous arduous?
There’s additionally the truth that the DOJ was required by regulation to have finished all this stuff practically six weeks in the past. Pretending that that is so onerous that the court docket and everybody else needs to be happy with how arduous they’re all working is ridiculous.
The DOJ’s letter additionally yammers on about how the administration “will proceed to function in accordance with the necessities of the Act” mandating the discharge of the recordsdata whereas additionally whining about how compliance is “a considerable enterprise.”
Too unhealthy, so unhappy. It’s a regulation that should be adopted.
After all, the administration hasn’t been working in accordance with the necessities of the regulation in any respect. The recordsdata—all of them—had been presupposed to be launched on Dec. 19. As a substitute, all that occurred that day was the discharge of a handpicked, minuscule variety of recordsdata, rigorously tailor-made to implicate former President Invoice Clinton whereas deleting a minimum of one launched file that featured President Donald Trump.
As for once we may see all these paperwork that the DOJ is working so very arduous on, would you want a bunch of adverbs that let you know nothing?
“The Division presently expects that it’s going to full these processes with respect to considerably all the doubtlessly responsive paperwork, together with publication to the Epstein Library web site, within the close to time period. The Division will not be in a position to present a particular date at the moment,” says the submitting.
Associated | DOJ admits to releasing lower than 1% of the Epstein recordsdata to date
Presently, considerably, doubtlessly—there’s an terrible lot of hedging there, which isn’t stunning. The administration has no actual intention of releasing all of these tens of millions of paperwork.
Whereas the administration is clearly hoping everybody will simply neglect about the entire thing, the American individuals haven’t. A current CNN/SSRS ballot discovered that 67% of Individuals assume the federal government is withholding details about the Jeffrey Epstein case, whereas solely 16% assume the federal government is working to launch every thing.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz additionally hasn’t forgotten about these recordsdata, nevertheless, at the same time as his state is underneath siege. After Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi despatched a threatening letter to Walz within the wake of the deadly taking pictures of Alex Pretti, Walz mentioned he “would simply give a professional tip to the AG. There’s 2 million paperwork within the Epstein recordsdata we’re nonetheless ready on. Go forward and work on these.”
The issue is that the Epstein Information Transparency Act doesn’t have any enforcement mechanisms in-built. Different routes to acquire the recordsdata, akin to personal litigation or Freedom of Info Act requests, nonetheless require the administration’s compliance. Nevertheless, the administration ignores court docket orders and FOIA requests as simply because it has ignored the current regulation.
The administration is caught in a quandary of its personal making. Trump and the GOP made Epstein, an accused intercourse trafficker, the image of degenerate pedophile elites all over the place, however they missed that the president was a kind of elites hanging round Epstein. Then Bondi bragged about how totally she had reviewed the recordsdata and the way sure she was that there was little point out of Trump.
That’s why this pretense of the DOJ partaking in a flurry of arduous work devoted to the reality rings so hole. The one arduous work the DOJ is partaking in is holding that fact from everybody else.
