Congress
DOJ silent on Epstein files since start of the shutdown
The congressional probe into the Jeffrey Epstein case now appears to be caught in the crossfires of the government shutdown.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s monthslong investigation into the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier has been largely put on pause as employees across the federal government are put on furloughs.
Two people granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics say that committee investigators have not heard from DOJ around the subpoena since federal funding lapsed Oct. 1, grinding to a halt what had until that point been a modest stream of information flowing between the agency and Capitol Hill thanks to a congressional subpoena.
Oversight Democrats have reached out for more information from DOJ and received no response, according to one of the two people. And now, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the panel’s top, is openly accusing the department of slow-walking.
“Despite multiple requests from Committee staff for an accounting of materials still within DOJ’s possession or plans to produce additional materials, DOJ has failed to provide any substantive or insightful information as to when the Committee may expect further productions of documents,” Garcia wrote in a letter Thursday to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Garcia’s letter made no mention of what effect the shutdown could be having on DOJ operations. A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The delays are, in any event, the latest chapter in the political quagmire the Epstein case has created on Capitol Hill.
Democrats have for months tried to leverage President Donald Trump’s relationship with Epstein to stoke divisions among the MAGA base and argue the administration is reneging on its promises of transparency in the matter.
Speaker Mike Johnson has also been working to quell an insurgent effort among lawmakers to force a floor vote that would compel the Justice Department to oversee a wholesale release of materials in the Epstein case. Democrats say a desire among GOP leadership to avoid such an outcome is the reason Johnson refuses to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who would be the 218th signer on the discharge petition to bring up the bill.
House GOP leaders have repeatedly brandished the Oversight probe as the appropriate vehicle to obtain information related to the Epstein case, and DOJ has been somewhat responsive since being slapped with the subpoena. But Democrats — along with rank-and-file Republicans — have complained that the department is transmitting information too slowly, and in piecemeal fashion, and that much of the material that has been sent to Hill investigators so far represents information that has previously been made public.
Garcia argued in his letter Thursday that the administration had refused “for nearly two months to provide substantive information regarding progress producing files relating to Jeffrey Epstein,” adding, “the only production of documents by DOJ consisted almost entirely of documents that were either already public or in the Committee’s possession.”
The Justice Department has not handed over any information to the Oversight Committee since Aug. 22. Republican leadership says lawmakers must give the agency time to responsibly release materials without jeopardizing the privacy of Epstein’s victims. But the Justice Department has not provided any insight into when the committee can expect more information, Garcia said.
Garcia also questioned Bondi on why her department had not responded to questions over why Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was given what he called “preferential treatment” by the Bureau of Prisons. Maxwell was relocated from a federal prison in Florida to a minimum security prison camp in Texas shortly after she sat for an interview with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, where she said she had no recollection of Trump’s involvement in inappropriate situations with Epstein.
A Democratic trio attempted to pass an artificial intelligence bill via a unanimous consent request on Tuesday but were blocked on the Senate floor.
Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) sought to pass their Artificial Intelligence Risk Management and Security Act using the procedural mechanism, which allows expedited consideration of legislation but fails if one senator opposes it.
“The whole world has recognized that we’ve got to do something,” Warner said in a speech on the floor. “We should not miss the moment to put a safety protocol in place now.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected to the bill, preventing any chance of passage.
“Congress must not legislate on the issue of artificial intelligence hastily or in a closed manner,” he said on the floor, adding that it gave some in the government too much power to dictate the technology that could be permitted to be released.
As some lawmakers grow concerned over dire warnings from AI labs’ top executives about the technology’s risk to humanity, Congress’ attempts to legislate AI guardrails have largely stalled.
In the past few weeks, two other AI-related bills, the Ratepayer Protection Act and AI Emergency Button Act, were also nixed in an attempt to pass them unanimously.
Warner, Schatz and Kim’s new bill would have established a new safety board within the Commerce Department to vet models before they are deployed and set safety standards for the industry. It would also have created a reporting process for safety and security incidents.
Sen. Darline Graham sought to take up her brother’s mantle Tuesday, going after former special counsel Jack Smith for obtaining the late-Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone data.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the South Carolina Republican told Smith as he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that the anguish the prosecutor caused her brother “makes me sick.”
Lindsey Graham, until his unexpected death in July, was among the most vocal in his outrage over revelations that Smith secretly collected electronic data from GOP lawmakers as part of the Biden-era investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The late senator was also unapologetic in his support for a provision tucked into a government funding package, which was later repealed, allowing senators to sue the federal government for $500,000 or more if they discover their electronic records were seized without notification — language specifically designed to compensate Smith’s targets.
But Smith replied that Lindsey Graham was not a target of his investigation and was not suspected of wrongdoing — in fact, he considered Darline Graham’s brother “a patriotic public servant” who likely would have been a “witness” in his case against Trump for attempted election subversion.
“Your brother investigated the claims that Donald Trump was making,” Smith told Darline Graham. “He found them to be false.”
The federal government’s internal watchdog told Congress Tuesday that it has concluded President Donald Trump acted unlawfully in unilaterally canceling $810 million in federal funding.
In a letter to congressional leaders obtained by Blue Light News, the Government Accountability Office’s top lawyer panned Trump’s declaration Friday that he is nixing money Congress appropriated through a controversial budget maneuver called a “pocket rescission.”
“The Constitution vests in Congress the power of the purse,” GAO General Counsel Edda Emmanuelli Perez wrote,
adding that “Congress did not cede this important power” by enacting the 1970s impoundment law intended to stop presidents from withholding money Congress approves.
“Any withholding of appropriated funds beyond their date of expiration, regardless of size, subverts both the constitutional process for enacting federal law and Congress’s constitutional power of the purse,” Perez added. “The President may not force the expiration of budget authority Congress has already enacted and did not rescind.”
It is unclear what practical effect, if any, the letter will have on the interbranch funding fight. Outside groups sued the administration last year over a prior pocket rescission, but the Supreme Court issued a preliminary ruling that they did not have standing to challenge the matter. The Trump administration has argued that only the head of the GAO is able to sue under the 52-year-old law governing rescissions.
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