Senate minority leader Schumer announces legal action for Epstein files
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer announced Monday morning he is introducing a resolution to force the Senate to initiate legal action against the justice department for refusing to release the complete Epstein files.
“I am introducing a resolution directing the Senate to initiate legal action against the DOJ for its blatant disregard of the law in its refusal to release the complete Epstein files,” Schumer posted on social media. “The American people deserve full transparency, and Senate Democrats will use every tool at our disposal to ensure they get it. This Administration cannot be allowed to hide the truth.”
Key events
House Democrat Eric Swalwell was quick to criticize Kash Patel’s armored BMW use, as reported by MS Now.
The California congressman, who announced his bid governor last month, said in a post on X:
It’s time to KASH OUT. Director Patel has lost the confidence of the team he must lead. Their leaks are desperate pleas to give them a director who can keep us safe. PATEL MUST RESIGN.
Kash Patel reportedly using armored BMW as transport, raising questions
Trump’s FBI director Kash Patel is using a fleet of armoured luxury BMW X5s that he requested the agency purchase for his travel, MS Now reports, in Patel’s latest questionable use of taxpayers dollars.
Patel, who is already facing a House investigation for his alleged misuse of taxpayer funds, pressed for the vehicles so he could be less “conspicuous” on his outings, four sources familiar with his transportation told the outlet.
FBI directors, who are protected by a security detail, typically travel in Chevrolet Suburbans, though the US government does use the same class of BMWs to protect state department officials and diplomats in high-risk international areas around the world.
Former justice department official Stacey Young, told MS Now that the BMW request was another example of Patel putting his public image ahead of concern for taxpayer resources, calling it “an embarrassment”. She added:
He needs a field jacket that fits just right, a ‘Punisher’-inspired challenge coin and a new fleet of foreign cars to drive around in.
Defending the choice to MS Now, FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson said the BMWs were chosen because they were more cost-effective than other upgraded vehicles the agency could’ve purchased. Without disclosing how much they cost, he said the move was “evaluated partly as a way to save taxpayers millions by picking cheaper selections or making cost structures more efficient”.
Patel has come under fire for his taxpayer expenses, including taking personal trips on the FBI’s Gulfstream private jet for a date night his girlfriend Alexis Wilkins and reportedly hiring a FBI security detail for her.
Trump and Hegseth to make announcement, reportedly about ‘shipbuilding’
Donald Trump, defense secretary Pete Hegseth and Navy secretary John Phelan are scheduled to make an announcement at 4:30pm ET from Palm Beach, Florida.
The White House hasn’t provided details, and Reuters is reporting that it’ll be a “shipbuilding announcement”. When we get further clarity, we’ll let you know here.
It follows Trump’s signing of a $900bn defense policy bill last week and against a backdrop of escalating tensions between the United States and Venezuela. The US is currently in active pursuit of a third oil tanker accused of carrying Venezuelan oil, NBC News reported last night. “It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order,” an official told the outlet.
In an interview with NBC News last week, Trump left the possibility of war with Venezuela on the table. The US military has killed more than 100 people in strikes on alleged drug boats in the region and seized two oil tankers off Venezuela’s coast, as part of Trump’s campaign to isolate and pressurize Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
CNN reports that some CBS staffers are “threatening to quit” over the controversial cancellation of a 60 Minutes investigation into the brutal CECOT prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants.
Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’s decision to pull the story – taken last night three hours before broadcast – has been blasted by members of Congress and the veteran correspondent involved, Sharyn Alfonsi, who had interviewed people deported by the Trump administration to the notorious mega-prison about the “brutal and torturous conditions” they faced.
The New York Times reported that Weiss had seen the segment on Thursday and raised questions about it to its producers, asked for new material to be added, and suggested a new interview with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the rightwing architect of Trump’s anti-immigration policy.
The NYT also reported that Weiss questioned the use of the term “migrants” to describe the approximately 252 Venezuelan men who were deported on flights to El Salvador’s Cecot in March and April this year.
CBS said in a statement that the story “needed additional reporting” and will air at a later date.
Alfonsi said in a private note to her CBS colleagues yesterday that the episode “was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Elsewhere in the note, Alfonsi said her team had requested comment from the White House, the state department, and the Department of Homeland Security. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” she said.
“We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”
“I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight,” she wrote.
Weiss, whose appointment sparked controversy among some CBS journalists who feared its owners were taking the network in a more conservative direction, said in a statement: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason – that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices – happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”
Victoria Bekiempis
Furthermore, RADAR online, which filed suit eight years ago after the FBI failed to disclose Epstein investigative files under an April 2017 public records request, noted that the Epstein Files Transparency Act didn’t spell out what happens if DOJ officials don’t follow the law.
“There is no mechanism for non-compliance in the Act. Some members of Congress have suggested impeachment is the appropriate remedy,” the spokesperson said.
Radar online pointed out that court intervention could help with disclosure in some capacity.
“There remains a possible legal avenue to get withheld files if the DOJ doesn’t act,” the spokesperson said. “To the extent the files overlap with Radar’s FOIA request we will be able to challenge an incomplete or overly redacted production.”
A hearing is scheduled in Radar’s lawsuit on 28 January.
Epstein files chaotic rollout could imperil public record releases, expert warns
Victoria Bekiempis
As Donald Trump’s justice department faces ongoing criticism for its lackluster rollout of the Epstein files – and mysterious removal of some documents – public records experts are weighing in.
Roy Gutterman, director of the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University in New York, said:
This document dump, I believe, does little to clear things up and now that files are disappearing or being so heavily redacted that they are useless.
“It is not too surprising that things might not be fully released or might be withheld, less out of concern for privacy of the victims, but more for political purposes,” he said. Gutterman initially commented before missing documents were re-released, and said later he believes his statements still stand.
Related: US justice department restores photo featuring Trump from Epstein files
Journalists, investigators, and generally concerned citizens have a right to records produced and held by public agencies, with few exceptions, and can seek legal redress if they’re not provided within a specific time period.
This slow trickle of Epstein documents, which is in contravention of the law passed mandating that Trump’s DOJ release all Epstein files by 19 December, also raises questions about these papers’ intersection with the traditional public records laws that protect this right to access.
“These documents are a little outside the normal area for traditional public records reporters seek and uncover through freedom of information laws, which are part of the bedrock of our democracy and an important tool for understanding how government operates,” Gutterman said.
“When I was a reporter, I frequently used public records laws to get documents for stories, and some agencies were a lot more responsive than others. As skeptical as I was … I rarely felt that a records request was being denied for political purposes. But that was a long time ago in a universe far away,” he continued.
The Epstein records are different because they are part of a government investigation and include grand jury documents and some documents with legitimately private information about victims. Plus, the release was compelled by Congress. So, this is a very different type of public records case. But we know that.
If an agency doesn’t follow through, by abusing claims of exceptions, those seeking records can fight it in court “if the requester has the time and resources to litigate”, he said.
Sometimes withholding can be for perfectly legitimate reasons. But sometimes a court will need to make decisions.
You cannot annex other countries, Danish and Greenlandic leaders tell Trump
Jon Henley
The prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland have demanded respect for their borders after Donald Trump appointed a special envoy to the largely self-governing Danish territory, which he has said repeatedly should be under US control.
“We have said it very clearly before. Now we say it again. National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law … You cannot annex other countries,” Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement.
The two leaders added that “fundamental principles” were at stake. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, and the US should not take over Greenland,” they said. “We expect respect for our common territorial integrity.”
Trump on Sunday appointed the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, as US special envoy to the vast, mineral-rich Arctic island. The US president has on several occasions said the US needs to acquire Greenland for security reasons, while refusing to rule out the use of force. The US president wrote on social media:
Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security, and will strongly advance our Country’s Interests for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Allies, and indeed, the World.
Landry, a former state attorney general who took office as Louisiana governor in January 2024, thanked Trump, saying it was “an honour to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US”.
Denmark’s foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, told Danish television today that he would summon Washington’s ambassador to Copenhagen, Ken Howery, to the ministry in the coming days “to get an explanation”.
Rasmussen said he was “deeply upset by this appointment of a special envoy”, and “particularly upset” by Landry’s statement, which he said Denmark had found “completely unacceptable”.
Members of Congress slammed CBS’s eleventh-hour decision to kill a fully reported 60 Minutes investigation into Trump deportees sent to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot prison.
Senator from Hawaii Brian Schatz called it “a terrible embarrassment,” writing on X that “if executives think they can build shareholder value by avoiding journalism that might offend the Mad King they are about to learn a tough lesson. This is still America and we don’t enjoy bullshit like this.”
Representative from Rhode Island Seth Magaziner said: “Most of the men sent to Cecot had no criminal records. Some never even entered the US illegally (like Andry Hernandez Romero – look him up). If the Trump admin can send these men to a torture prison w no due process they can do it to anyone. That’s the truth they don’t want told.”
Representative from California Doris Matsui connected the cancellation directly to CBS parent company Paramount’s pending merger with Skydance, which requires Trump administration approval:
“This is exactly what happens when broadcasters bend to political pressure,” she said. “CBS pulling a fully reported 60 Minutes segment just 2 hours before airtime – while Paramount pursues a merger requiring Trump administration approval – is a textbook case of self-censorship.”
In the email, Alfonsi wrote:
“If the standard for airing a story becomes ‘the government must agree to be interview,’ then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.
These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”
CBS’ Bari Weiss spikes 60 Minutes story on El Salvador’s CECOT prison
Bari Weiss reportedly killed a CBS 60 Minutes investigation into El Salvador’s CECOT prison just three hours before it was set to air Sunday night because the White House refused to grant an interview.
In an email to colleagues, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi blasted the decision, saying the segment on Trump deportees was fully vetted and “pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.” Alfonsi said that Weiss did not discuss the decision with them to spike the story.
She warned that CBS had effectively given the government a “kill switch” for inconvenient reporting. The story was replaced with another segment on classical musicians.
My colleagues have more on the story here:
Senate minority leader Schumer announces legal action for Epstein files
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer announced Monday morning he is introducing a resolution to force the Senate to initiate legal action against the justice department for refusing to release the complete Epstein files.
“I am introducing a resolution directing the Senate to initiate legal action against the DOJ for its blatant disregard of the law in its refusal to release the complete Epstein files,” Schumer posted on social media. “The American people deserve full transparency, and Senate Democrats will use every tool at our disposal to ensure they get it. This Administration cannot be allowed to hide the truth.”
Other reactions from lawmakers after the document release:
Ahead of the weekend, top democrat on the oversight committee Robert Garcia and top Democrat on the judiciary committee Jamie Raskin announced they are examining all legal options after the heavily redacted document dump, which they say violated federal law.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer accused the administration of deliberately hiding the truth and said Senate Democrats would work with victims’ attorneys to determine what’s being withheld.
Before the deadline, five lawmakers from both parties – including Republican senator Lisa Murkowski and Democrat senator Jeff Merkley – had already written to Bondi requesting a briefing on compliance plans.
And on Friday evening, representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted on social media “Bondi should resign tonight” and “Everyone involved will have to answer for this”.
After slow rolling the Epstein file release, and failing to drop them all on the 19 December deadline, representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie are moving towards penalties that would hold attorney general Pam Bondi in inherent contempt of Congress.
Speaking on CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday, Khanna said the move would fine Bondi for every day she fails to release the documents, and would only require House approval.
“We only need the House for inherent contempt, and we’re building a bipartisan coalition, and it would fine Pam Bondi for every day that she’s not releasing these documents,” he said.
The California Democrat added that he’d spoken with survivors who were outraged that their abusers’ names remain redacted while their own identities were accidentally released – noting there are 1,200 victims still waiting for accountability.
