One month after the deadline set by Congress for the Justice Department to release all files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Trump administration has made available less than 1% of the files. This comes as President Trump has dramatically expanded immigration operations in Minnesota while attacking Venezuela, threatening to bomb Iran and maintaining that the United States will annex Greenland.
Trump’s campaign promised “that the files would be released, all of the files. Now, that’s not happened,” says legal expert Michele Goodwin, calling it a “travesty.”
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Michele, I wanted to ask you about another topic. One month has now passed since Congress’s deadline for the Justice Department to release all files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the DOJ says it’s made available less than 1% of those files. And you see many people are saying, “Is he going after Minneapolis, saying he’s going to take Greenland, you know, taking the president of Venezuela, and possibly threatening to bomb Iran to take attention away?” Could that be it? You see his sensitivity at the Dearborn auto plant, when a worker yelled “Pedophile protector! Pedophile protector!” and he turned around and gave him the finger and mouthed the words “F— you,” but said the curse.
MICHELE GOODWIN: Well, it’s certainly inconsistent with what were the campaign promises. The campaign promises to those who supported Trump, and those who didn’t, was that the files would be released, all of the files. Now, that’s not happened, so — and that’s critically important.
Now, you’ve raised: Is this all a distraction, so that the — because the files are not being released? Well, it certainly does raise those very important questions, and even more so the fact that there are victims and survivors out there, and including those who’ve committed suicide, who are no longer with us, such as Virginia Giuffre. And it’s a neglect of what was promised. It raises some very serious questions about what remains in the Epstein files. And Americans want to know and deserve to know.
And what has been released, and some of which people have been able to undo the redactions of those, it’s incredibly alarming. It very much is. And it’s a travesty, because behind it all, what it suggests is that the federal government is unwilling to do what is necessary in order to protect young people from sexual violence. And that’s — at the end of day, that’s what this truly is about.
AMY GOODMAN: Michele Goodwin, I want to thank you for being with us, professor of constitutional law and global health policy at Georgetown University.
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