Congress
Lawmakers don’t rule out exposing redacted names in Epstein files
Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie are challenging the Justice Department for redacting the names of six men in the publicly released materials related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — and they could take matters into their own hands to reveal their identities.
These omissions, the two lawmakers argued Monday evening outside the Justice Department, could go beyond the scope of redactions that are permitted under the legislation they championed — and which President Donald Trump signed into law in November — to compel the full release of Epstein files within DOJ’s possession.
And while they declined to share the names with reporters Monday, Massie, a Kentucky Republican, didn’t rule out taking steps to do so in the coming days. He told reporters he should “probably” broadcast the identity of the shielded individuals “from the floor or in a committee hearing,” where his remarks would be protected from lawsuits through the Speech and Debate Clause.
“What we’re after is the men who Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women to,” said Massie, adding he would give DOJ officials the opportunity to “correct their mistakes” and reverse the redactions on their own before reading the names of the six men on the chamber floor or from a committee dais.
Massie said at least one of the men was a U.S. citizen, another was a foreigner and the nationalities of others were unclear. He suggested authorities were investigating at least one of them.
“There are six men, some of them with their photographs, that have been redacted, and there’s no explanation why those people were redacted,” Khanna, a California Democrat, told reporters. “That’s really concerning.”
Khanna and Massie were at a DOJ office building Monday to peruse the unredacted Epstein files, a privilege being afforded to members of Congress following the files’ public release. The lawmakers scrutinized the unscrubbed materials on closely-held computers — though Massie complained he was unable to view some documents that have since been taken down from the Justice Department website after being posted publicly.
Khanna suggested that some materials may have been redacted before the Justice Department review — potentially by the FBI — complicating the process for complete transparency.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, also viewed the unredacted materials earlier in the day Monday. He said there were about four computers for lawmakers’ use and viewers can only take written notes on what they see.
“We didn’t want to see any redactions of the names of co-conspirators, accomplices, enablers, abusers, rapists, simply to spare them potential embarrassment, political sensitivity or disgrace of some kind,” Raskin told reporters. “And yet nonetheless, the Epstein … documents that were released are filled with redactions of names and information about people who clearly are not victims and may fall into that other category.”
He pointed to the redaction of Les Wexner’s identity as an example. Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, was an Epstein client and has a deposition scheduled before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee later this month.
Raskin also said he saw one redacted document, a message from Epstein’s legal team regarding Trump. He recalled the note mentioned that Trump had identified Epstein as a guest, but not a member, of Mar-a-Lago.
“That was redacted for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason,” he said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is vowing that his party will use control of the chamber next year to try to end the Iran war, launch investigations and act as a legislative stumbling block for President Donald Trump.
Speaking to reporters on the latest stop of his 12-hour victory lap Wednesday, Schumer said that he has not yet spoken to Trump since Democrats won the Senate majority Tuesday night, but warned that “the days of Trump’s supplicant Senate are over.”
“Whenever Trump defies the will of the American people or the law, we will launch investigations, take him to court, and entangle him in legislative razor wire,” said Schumer, who is on track to be majority leader in the next congress.
Asked if he thinks Democrats will be able to work with Trump, Schumer added: “We are going to work hard to drive costs down with the president or without him. Period.”
The New York Democrat sidestepped a question about whether the election results were a mandate to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — he said that “everyone will make their own interpretation of what it meant in terms of Hegseth” — but vowed that Democrats “are going to end the war.”
Democrats have tried to limit Trump’s military actions against Iran through war powers votes, but they’ve also looked at ways of leveraging government funding bills to place restrictions on the president; an annual defense policy bill has also been held in limbo for months over the issue.
Ultimately, Democrats will still need help from Republicans to pass most legislation, and Trump can always veto a bill that gets to his desk that would attempt to hem him in. Schumer, however, was bullish Wednesday about Democrats’ impending power.
“We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war,” he said, “and the founding fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people.”
He also said that while Democrats will launch investigations into the Trump administration because “there was such rampant corruption,” that it wouldn’t be their top focus.
“We’re not going to take our eye off the ball. Number one, reducing costs, ending corruption,” Schumer said.
Democrats’ overwhelming takeover of both the House and Senate will trigger a shot clock on the Republican governing trifecta, setting up a tense post-election session on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers will return to Washington next week for what’s known as the lame-duck session, where they’ll begin sorting through a pile of must-pass legislative business, including funding the government to avoid a pre-holiday shutdown and passing the annual defense authorization bill.
Republicans will have to prioritize what they want to accomplish in their waning days of congressional control, while Democrats have little incentive to help move GOP-led legislation after voters delivered a brutal rebuke of Republicans and the president on Tuesday night
“We are in a stronger negotiating position” when Democrats takeover in January, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar of Texas said in an interview Wednesday morning, adding, “we should not give the Republican majority a huge a chance to influence much more of what happens in this country, because their own Republican voters just told them that they have failed.”
Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was telling a group of aides on election night that “anyone who thinks President Trump or this team is going to take our foot off the gas over the next two years is sorely mistaken.”
“We know exactly what’s at stake, we know what we’re fighting for, and we have no intention of backing down,” she continued, according to a person granted anonymity to share portions of her speech.
But the posturing from both parties could strain lawmakers in the final weeks of the 119th Congress. Lawmakers are currently scheduled to be in session for fewer than 25 days before the end of the year, with the House calendar set at 20 days and the Senate at 22. Even before the midterms, lawmakers were hinting that those numbers could easily tick up given the lengthy to-do list.
The question of attendance, however, remains a serious concern for congressional leadership, with a broad swath of Republicans potentially disinclined to come to work now that they’ll soon be out of a job.
It’s going to be “a real problem for us,” one House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in an interview Wednesday morning, adding that “no-shows” was a topic of conversation even as election results were rolling in.
Republicans share at least two legislative priorities with Democrats: Passing a government funding bill and the National Defense Authorization Act. According to retiring Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) in a Wednesday morning text message, the Trump administration also wants a war spending supplemental, funding for the president’s ballroom and triumphal arch projects and a third party-line package jammed through the budget reconciliation process.
Bacon, however, was less optimistic: “I doubt it will happen,” he said of Congress’ likelihood of approving the supplemental funding request in particular.
Government funding negotiations will take precedence, as lawmakers have until Dec. 11, when the current short-term funding bill expires, to reach a deal. While key appropriators insist they’ll try to enact full-year spending bills, that’s looking like a longshot — especially now that Democrats will have more leverage in the new Congress to force enactment of their top priorities.
The most likely scenario at this point — according to senior congressional aides, granted anonymity to share details of private conversations — is for leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees to advocate for another stopgap to buy themselves more time to come up with a larger agreement on spending levels and negotiate a longer-term funding deal.
Even with the extra time, negotiations are likely to be difficult. With Republicans about to lose their majority in both chambers, there is a standoff over funding levels and policy riders brewing. Republicans will want to lock in an agreement that reflects their priorities, while Democrats could seek to hold off until January when they control all of Congress and can exert more leverage in negotiations.
“[Hakeem] Jeffries will be under immense pressure to force a [continuing resolution] until the New Year, where they think they can negotiate a better deal,” said the House Republican.
Lawmakers are also girding for two divisive policy fights they punted in the September funding stopgap: whether to delay a ban on intoxicating hemp products from going into effect, and whether to allow Trump to finalize a plan that would put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants.
Another wild card could be how hard Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins fights for her own priorities in her final months in office, after the Maine Republican’s stunning loss Tuesday after a 30-year career in Congress.
Work also will continue in pursuit of passing the annual defense policy bill before the year’s end. But lawmakers were at an impasse before the midterms, with Senate Democrats dug in against the Iran war and Trump’s record-breaking $1.5 trillion Pentagon defense proposal. The administration could be prepared to cut that ask by $400 billion to make it more palatable and open up a lane for passage, but the midterm results show an electorate sour on the Iran war, which could complicate any additional funding request related to that effort.
Then there’s the GOP’s possible mad dash to pass a third party-line bill through the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process. House Republicans sought to lay the groundwork over the summer for a package that would unleash military spending and crack down on alleged fraud in social safety net programs. The Senate never touched the proposal.
“As we look at just the weeks ahead of us, we’re going to be ready to build on our record of accomplishment,” Speaker Mike Johnson told event attendees in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana Tuesday night as it was becoming clear that GOP control was slipping away. “Our job is nowhere close to being finished yet, and the outcome of an election on one night doesn’t change that a bit.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) recently told reporters that Republicans need to pack “everything that we could possibly get into a reconciliation bill” during the lame duck, calling it the party’s “Last Supper” before the end of the party’s governing trifecta in Washington.
Republicans could try to work with the House’s budget blueprint to pass even a narrow partisan bill that notches some GOP wins in the final weeks of the 119th Congress, but many doubt there will be enough time to write a party-line bill from scratch.
There’s interest in advancing a bill to overhaul the federal permitting process for energy projects, which has bipartisan support in the Senate and the backing of the White House. Senate GOP leadership have paved the way for procedural votes on that measure as soon as lawmakers return to Washington next week.
While many negotiators feel Congress has never come this close to victory on the thorny energy issue they’ve been working on for years — and should not now let the perfect be the enemy of the good — Democrats’ success in the midterms has some progressives feeling emboldened to reject it out of hand.
“Voters spoke loud and clear, and they don’t want this dirty, fossil-fuel-expanding bill,” Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, said in an interview Tuesday evening. “We need to go back and change some very problematic parts of this bill.”
Republicans may also press a long-shot bid for a major bill to regulate the cryptocurrency industry before the end of the year, fixes to a bipartisan law from 2020 shielding patients from exorbitant medical bills and an overhaul of the multibillion-dollar college sports industry.
Even before the midterms, however, some lawmakers were tempering expectations of a productive lame duck session.
“I’m hearing that we might be in session many, many days between the middle of November and the end of the year,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told reporters last week. “What will get accomplished? I’m not yet sure.”
Megan Messerly, Mia McCarthy, Riley Rogerson, Connor O’Brien, Ari Hawkins, Nico Portuondo, Katherine Hapgood, Jasper Goodman, Simon J. Levien, Kelsey Brugger and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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