The Epstein coverup Trump can't stop

It’s been more than a year since Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the attorney general to make Epstein records publicly available within 30 days, subject to specified exceptions and protections for victims.

Yet so far, only about half the files have been released. Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie, California Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, and other sponsors of the act accuse the Justice Department of withholding millions of Epstein-related records and maintaining redactions they say violate the original transparency law.

Attorney General Todd Blanche says the Justice Department has complied with the law and that material withheld from public release includes only duplicate records, privileged information, statutory exceptions, and material unrelated to the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases.

Meanwhile, Trump has spent much of the last year trying to deflect attention from the Epstein files — “flooding the zone,” in Steve Bannon’s infamous words — by distracting the public with so many initiatives and outrages that the media and public can barely keep up.

Yet the potential cover-up continues to generate bipartisan political action.

Earlier this week, Massie read off more than a dozen names of people he said were “Epstein coconspirators who should be investigated and prosecuted.” They include Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew; billionaire retail mogul Les Wexner; Leon Black, co-founder of Apollo Global Management; Jes Staley; David Copperfield; Lapo Elkann; Tom Pritzker; Glenn Dubin; Frédéric Fekkai; Eduardo Teodorani; Ramsey Elkholy; and Lesley Groff.

(Two others on Massie’s list are no longer alive. Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent accused of helping procure girls for Epstein, died in a French jail in 2022 while awaiting trial on sexual assault charges. Daniel Siad, another modeling industry figure, was found dead near Paris in July.)

Leon Black, who was scheduled to appear before the House panel for a second round of questioning on Thursday, now refuses to appear, arguing the panel and its chair have overstepped their authority. The committee may hold him in contempt of Congress.

Massie also announced that he’s collecting the 218 House signatures required for a discharge petition to force a vote on H.R. 9694 — the Epstein Files Transparency Act II — which Massie introduced in July along with California’s Khanna and Democratic Representative Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico. Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico have introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

Under the proposed legislation, survivors, state attorneys general, district attorneys, other authorized state officials and members of Congress could sue the U.S. attorney general over records they argue were unlawfully withheld, redacted, delayed, concealed or left unpublished.

Survivors could seek full federal records concerning themselves and the harm they suffered, while identifying information about other victims would remain protected. State and local prosecutors could seek unredacted records needed for criminal investigations or court proceedings, including qualifying classified material under secure procedures.

Members of Congress could request full, unredacted access to covered records. The attorney general would have seven days to comply with a written request, and lawmakers could challenge the department in court if it failed to meet the law’s requirements.

The bill would also limit the Justice Department’s ability to rely on certain legal privileges to withhold records covered by the disclosure law.

***

As much as Trump would prefer that questions hanging over Jeffrey Epstein go away, they won’t. Whenever the American public senses a cover-up, it demands to know more. As you recall from Nixon’s Watergate scandal, it’s not just the crime, it’s the cover-up that keeps the public enthralled.

Presumably most worrisome for Trump is that the demand to know what’s being covered up about Epstein continues to bubble up from Trump’s own base. And it seems as if there’s nothing Trump can do to permanently deflect attention from it.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.