Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arrives to speak with reporters as Republicans work to pass an interim spending bill that would avoid a partial government shutdown and keep federal agencies funded through September, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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**Schumer Urges Legal Action Over Justice Department’s Release of Epstein Records**
**NEW YORK —** The Senate’s top Democrat urged his colleagues Monday to take legal action over the Justice Department’s incremental and heavily redacted release of records pertaining to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a resolution that, if passed, would direct the Senate to file or join lawsuits aimed at forcing the Justice Department to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. This law, enacted last month, required the disclosure of records by last Friday.
“Instead of transparency, the Trump administration released a tiny fraction of the files and blacked out massive portions of what little they provided,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “This is a blatant cover-up.”
In the absence of Republican support, Schumer’s resolution is largely symbolic. The Senate is off until January 5, more than two weeks after the deadline. Even when it returns, the resolution is expected to face an uphill battle for passage. However, it allows Democrats to continue their pressure campaign for disclosure, a move Republicans had hoped to put behind them.
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**Justice Department’s Response and Ongoing Release Plans**
The Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis by the end of the year, blaming the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring victims’ names and other identifying information. So far, the department has not provided any notice when new records become available.
This approach has angered some accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the transparency act. Records that were released, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, court records, and other documents, were either already public or heavily blacked out, and many lacked necessary context.
There have been few revelations in the tens of thousands of pages of records released so far. Some of the most eagerly awaited documents, such as FBI victim interviews and internal memos shedding light on charging decisions, were missing. Nor were there any mentions of some powerful figures who had been in Epstein’s orbit, such as Britain’s former Prince Andrew.
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**Deputy Attorney General Defends Justice Department’s Handling**
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the Justice Department’s decision to release just a fraction of the files by the deadline, calling it necessary to protect survivors of sexual abuse by the disgraced financier. Blanche pledged that the Trump administration would meet its obligations as required by law.
However, he stressed that the department must act with caution when making public thousands of documents that contain sensitive information.
Blanche also defended the Justice Department’s decision to remove several files related to the case from its public webpage, including a photograph showing former President Trump, less than a day after they were posted. The missing files, which were available Friday but were no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showed a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump alongside Epstein, Melania Trump, and Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Blanche said the documents were removed because they also showed victims of Epstein. He added that the Trump photo and other documents will be reposted once redactions are made to protect survivors.
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**Addressing Allegations and Political Narratives**
“We are not redacting information around President Trump, around any other individual involved with Mr. Epstein, and that narrative, which is not based on fact at all, is completely false,” Blanche told NBC’s *Meet the Press.*
Blanche said Trump, a Republican, has labeled the Epstein matter “a hoax” because “there’s this narrative out there that the Department of Justice is hiding and protecting information about him, which is completely false.”
Blanche added, “The Epstein files existed for years and years and years and you did not hear a peep out of a single Democrat for the past four years and yet … lo and behold, all of a sudden, out of the blue, Senator Schumer suddenly cares about the Epstein files. That’s the hoax.”
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**Additional Note: Health Equity and Funding Concerns**
Dr. Chris T. Pernell, Director of the NAACP’s Center for Health Equity, explains how recent cutbacks to funding and research dedicated to Black maternal healthcare have led to a reluctance to address an issue that, unfortunately, has not improved.
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*Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite*
https://www.phillytrib.com/news/schumer-urges-senate-to-take-legal-action-over-justice-departments-staggered-epstein-files-release/article_148ec25d-0248-4f6e-a382-e44f95cc6692.html