justice

NEW YORK — At least 16 files disappeared from the Justice Department’s public webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — including a photograph showing Donald Trump — less than a day after they were posted, with no explanation from the government and no notice to the public.

The missing files, which were available Friday and no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing 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 and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

The Justice Department didn’t answer questions Saturday about why the files disappeared but said in a post on X that “photos and other materials will continue being reviewed and redacted consistent with the law in an abundance of caution as we receive additional information.”

Online, the unexplained missing files fueled speculation about what was taken down and why the public was not notified, compounding long-standing intrigue about Epstein and the powerful figures who surrounded him. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee pointed to the missing image featuring a Trump photo in a post on X, writing: “What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.”

The episode deepened concerns that had already emerged from the Justice Department’s much-anticipated document release. The tens of thousands of pages made public offered little new insight into Epstein’s crimes or the prosecutorial decisions that allowed him to avoid serious federal charges for years, while omitting some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal Justice Department memos on charging decisions.

Scant new insight in the disclosures

Some of the most consequential records expected about Epstein are nowhere to be found in the Justice Department’s initial disclosures, which span tens of thousands of pages.

Missing are FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions — records that could have helped explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.

The gaps go further.

The records, required to be released under a recent law passed by Congress, hardly reference several powerful figures long associated with Epstein, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew, renewing questions about who was scrutinized, who was not and how much the disclosures truly advance public accountability.

Among the fresh nuggets: insight into the Justice Department’s decision to abandon an investigation into Epstein in the 2000s, which enabled him to plead guilty to that state-level charge, and a previously unseen 1996 complaint accusing Epstein of stealing photographs of children.

The releases so far have been heavy on images of Epstein’s homes in New York City and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with some photos of celebrities and politicians.

There was a series of never-before-seen photos of former President Clinton but fleetingly few of Trump. Both have been associated with Epstein but both have since disowned those friendships. Neither has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and there was no indication the photos played a role in the criminal cases brought against him.

Despite a Friday deadline set by Congress to make everything public, the Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring survivors’ names and other identifying information. The department has not given any notice when more records might arrive.

That approach angered some Epstein accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the law forced the department to act. Instead of marking the end of a years-long battle for transparency, the document release Friday was merely the beginning of an indefinite wait for a complete picture of Epstein’s crimes and alleged crimes and the steps taken to investigate them.

“I feel like again, the DOJ, the justice system is failing us,” said Marina Lacerda, who alleges Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York City mansion when she was 14.

Redactions, lack of context

Federal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.

The documents just made public were a sliver of potentially millions of pages of records in the department’s possession. In one example, Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said Manhattan federal prosecutors had more than 3.6 million records from sex trafficking investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, though many duplicated material already turned over by the FBI.

Many of the records released so far had been made public in court filings, congressional releases or freedom of information requests, though, for the first time, they were all in one place and available for the public to search for free.

Ones that were new were often lacking necessary context or heavily blacked out. A 119-page document marked “Grand Jury-NY,” probably from one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021, was entirely blacked out.

Trump’s Republican allies seized on the Clinton images, including photos of the Democrat with singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, and even Epstein with TV newscaster Walter Cronkite. But none of the photos had captions and was no explanation given for why any of them were together.

The meatiest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007 yet never charged him.

Transcripts of grand jury proceedings, released publicly for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 and in ninth grade.

One had told investigators about being sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.

Another, then 21, testified before the grand jury about how Epstein had hired her when she was 16 to perform a sexual massage and how she had gone on to recruit other girls to do the same.

“For every girl that I brought to the table he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them that if they are under age, just lie about it and tell him that you are 18.”

The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers did more than a decade later with the U.S. attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.

Acosta, who was Labor secretary during Trump’s first term, cited concerns about whether a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.

He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal border between sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, something more commonly handled by state prosecutors.

“I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that the public today would probably view the survivors differently.

“There’s been a lot of changes in victim shaming,” Acosta said.

Jennifer Freeman, an attorney representing Epstein accuser Maria Farmer and other survivors, said Saturday that her client feels vindicated after the document release. Farmer sought for years documents backing up her claim that Epstein and Maxwell were in possession of child sexual abuse images.

“It’s a triumph and a tragedy,” she said. “It looks like the government did absolutely nothing. Horrible things have happened and if they investigated in even the smallest way, they could have stopped him.”

Sisak and Caruso write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Ali Swenson, Christopher L. Keller, Kristin M. Hall, Aaron Kessler and Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

Dec. 19 (UPI) — The Justice Department on Friday released records from the Jeffrey Epstein case in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed into law last month by President Donald Trump.

The DOJ has made the files publicly available online on the Justice Department website’s section on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but the names of victims and other identifying information have been redacted. Congress overwhelmingly approved the legislation and it was signed by Trump on Nov. 19 with a 30-day deadline to release files.

“By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, the Trump Administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement shared with NBC News.

Friday’s files release gives the public access to hundreds of thousands of records, with more to be released over the next several weeks, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a letter to members of Congress, as reported by CBS News.

“We are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story to the extent it needs to be protected is completely protected,” Blanche added.

The DOJ had 187 attorneys review the documents ahead of their release and 25 more on a quality control team, he said.

“Protecting victims is of the highest priority for President Trump, the Attorney General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice,” Blanche said in the letter.

He also said Trump has said he wants full transparency on the matter and has supported the release of the Epstein case files for several years.

The president signed the supporting legislation in November to expedite the release of the Epstein case files.

The documents include information that was already made public, along with files that are “very likely to have never seen the light of day before,” CNN crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz said.

The records are in addition to the tens of thousands of files already released regarding the federal case against former financier Epstein.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have also released files and photos from Epstein’s estate.

On Aug. 10, 2019, Epstein hung himself while jailed in Manhattan and awaiting a federal trial that accused him of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.

The release of hundreds of thousands of pages of the case files and other information will keep news outlets busy going through them well into the foreseeable future.

The released files include documents, telephone records, audio recordings and photographs, but many lack context that explains why they are included in the case files.

Several hundred thousand pages still have not been released

Bill Clinton pictured in pool and hot tub

US Department of Justice

US Department of Justice

Epstein allegedly introduced Trump to 14-year-old girl

Photo appears to show Andrew laying across laps

US Department of Justice

Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Chris Tucker and Mick Jagger

US Department of Justice

US Department of Justice

US Department of Justice

US Department of Justice

Epstein threatened to burn down house, accuser says

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department released a library of files on Friday related to Jeffrey Epstein, partially complying with a new federal law compelling their release, while acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of files remain sealed.

The portal, on the department’s website, includes videos, photos and documents from the years-long investigation of the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, who died in federal prison in 2019. But upon an initial survey of the files, several of the documents were heavily redacted, and much of the database was unsearchable, in spite of a provision of the new law requiring a more accessible system.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, unequivocally required the department to release its full trove of files by midnight Friday, marking 30 days since passage.

But a top official said earlier Friday that the department would miss the legal deadline Friday to release all files, protracting a scandal that has come to plague the Trump administration. Hundreds of thousands more were still under review and would take weeks more to release, said Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general.

“I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche told Fox News on Friday.

The delay drew immediate condemnation from Democrats in key oversight roles.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, accused President Trump and his administration in a statement Friday of “violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring,” and said they were “examining all legal options.”

The delay also drew criticism from some Republicans.

“My goodness, what is in the Epstein files?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is leaving Congress next month, wrote on X. “Release all the files. It’s literally the law.”

“Time’s up. Release the files,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wrote on X.

Already, congressional efforts to force the release of documents from the FBI’s investigations into Epstein have produced a trove of the disgraced financier’s emails and other records from his estate.

Some made reference to Trump and added to a long-evolving portrait of the social relationship that Epstein and Trump shared for years, before what Trump has described as a falling out.

In one email in early 2019, during Trump’s first term in the White House, Epstein wrote to author and journalist Michael Wolff that Trump “knew about the girls.”

In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse young girls, Epstein wrote, “I want you to realize that the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”

Maxwell responded: “I have been thinking about that…”

Trump has strongly denied any wrongdoing, and downplayed the importance of the files. He has also intermittently worked to block their release, even while suggesting publicly that he would not be opposed to it.

His administration’s resistance to releasing all of the FBI’s files, and fumbling with their reasons for withholding documents, was overcome only after Republican lawmakers broke off and joined Democrats in passing the transparency measure.

The resistance has also riled many in the president’s base, with their intrigue and anger over the files remaining stickier and harder to shake for Trump than any other political vulnerability.

It remained unclear Friday afternoon what additional revelations would come from the anticipated dump. Among the files that were released, extensive redactions were expected to shield victims, as well as references to individuals and entities that could be the subject of ongoing investigations or matters of national security.

That could include mentions of Trump, experts said, who was a private citizen over the course of his infamous friendship with Epstein through the mid-2000s.

Epstein was convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what was considered a sweetheart plea deal that saved him a potential life sentence. He was charged in 2019 with sex trafficking, and died in federal custody at a Manhattan jail awaiting trial. Epstein was alleged to have abused over 200 women and girls.

Many of his victims argued in support of the release of documents, but administration officials have cited their privacy as a primary excuse for delaying the release — something Blanche reiterated Friday.

“There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim,” Blanche said, noting that Trump had signed the law just 30 days prior.

“And we have been working tirelessly since that day to make sure that we get every single document that we have within the Department of Justice, review it and get it to the American public,” he said.

Trump had lobbied aggressively against the Epstein Files Transparency Act, unsuccessfully pressuring House Republican lawmakers not to join a discharge petition that would force a vote on the matter over the wishes of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). He ultimately signed the bill into law after it passed both chambers with veto-proof majorities.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who introduced the House bill requiring the release of the files, warned that the Justice Department under future administrations could pursue legal action against current officials who work to obstruct the release of any of the files, contravening the letter of the new law.

“Let me be very clear, we need a full release,” Khanna said. “Anyone who tampers with these documents, or conceals documents, or engages in excessive redaction, will be prosecuted because of obstruction of justice.”

Given Democrats’ desire to keep the issue alive politically, and the intense interest in the matter from voters on both ends of the political spectrum, the fact that the Justice Department failed to meet the Friday deadline in full was likely to stoke continued agitation for the documents’ release in coming days.

In their statement Friday, Garcia and Raskin hammered on Trump administration officials — including Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi — for allegedly interfering in the release of records.

“For months, Pam Bondi has denied survivors the transparency and accountability they have demanded and deserve and has defied the Oversight Committee’s subpoena,” they said. “The Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself.”

Among other things, they called out the Justice Department’s decision to move Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, to a minimum security prison after she met with Blanche in July.

“The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ,” Garcia and Raskin said.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), in response to Blanche saying all the files wouldn’t be released Friday, said the transparency act “is clear: while protecting survivors, ALL of these records are required to be released today. Not just some.”

“The Trump administration can’t move the goalposts,” Schiff wrote on X. “They’re cemented in law.”

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department violated the constitutional rights of a close friend of James B. Comey and must return to him computer files that prosecutors had hoped to use for a potential criminal case against the former FBI director, a federal judge said Friday.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly not only represents a stern rebuke of the conduct of Justice Department prosecutors but also imposes a major hurdle to government efforts to seek a new indictment against Comey after an initial one was dismissed last month.

The order concerns computer files and communications that investigators obtained years earlier from Daniel Richman, a friend of Comey’s and Columbia University law professor, as part of a media leak investigation that concluded without charges. The Justice Department continued to hold onto those files and conducted searches of them this fall, without a new warrant, as they prepared a case charging Comey with lying to Congress five years ago.

Richman alleged that the Justice Department violated his 4th Amendment rights by retaining his records and by conducting new warrantless searches of the files, prompting Kollar-Kotelly to issue an order last week temporarily barring prosecutors from accessing the files as part of its investigation.

The Justice Department said the request for the return of the records was merely an attempt to impede a new prosecution of Comey, but the judge again sided with Richman in a 46-page order Friday that directed the Justice Department to give him back his files.

“When the Government violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures by sweeping up a broad swath of a person’s electronic files, retaining those files long after the relevant investigation has ended, and later sifting through those files without a warrant to obtain evidence against someone else, what remedy is available to the victim of the Government’s unlawful intrusion?” the judge wrote.

One answer, she said, is to require the government to return the property to the rightful owner.

The judge did, however, permit the Justice Department to file an electronic copy of Richman’s records under seal with the Eastern District of Virginia, where the Comey investigation has been based, and suggested prosecutors could try to access it later with a lawful search warrant.

The Justice Department alleges that Comey used Richman to share information with the news media about his decision-making during the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Prosecutors charged the former FBI director in September with lying to Congress by denying that he had authorized an associate to serve as an anonymous source for the media.

That indictment was dismissed last month after a federal judge in Virginia ruled that the prosecutor who brought the case, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed by the Trump administration. But the ruling left open the possibility that the government could try again to seek charges against Comey, a longtime foe of President Trump. Comey has pleaded not guilty, denied having made a false statement and accused the Justice Department of a vindictive prosecution.

The Comey saga has a long history.

In June 2017, one month after Trump fired Comey as FBI director — while the agency was investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and its ties to the Trump campaign — he testified that he had given Richman a copy of a memo he had written documenting a conversation he had with Trump and had authorized him to share the contents of the memo with a reporter.

After that testimony, Richman permitted the FBI to create an image, or complete electronic copy, of all files on his computer and a hard drive attached to that computer. He authorized the FBI to conduct a search for limited purposes, the judge noted.

Then, in 2019 and 2020, the FBI and Justice Department obtained search warrants to obtain Richman’s email accounts and computer files as part of a media leak investigation that concluded in 2021 without charges. Those warrants were limited in scope, but Richman has alleged that the government collected more information than the warrants allowed, including personal medical information and sensitive correspondence.

In addition, Richman said the Justice Department violated his rights by searching his files in September, without a new warrant, as part of an entirely separate investigation.

“The Court further concludes that the Government’s retention of Petitioner Richman’s files amounts to an ongoing unreasonable seizure,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote. “Therefore, the Court agrees with Petitioner Richman that the Government has violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

The U.S. Justice Department is suing four more states as part of its effort to collect detailed voting data and other election information across the country.

The department filed federal lawsuits against Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Nevada on Thursday, accusing them of “failing to produce statewide voter registration lists upon request.” So far, 18 states have been sued, including California, along with Fulton County in Georgia, which was sued over records related to the 2020 election, which President Trump continues to falsely claim he won.

The Trump administration has characterized the lawsuits as part of an effort to ensure the security of elections, and the Justice Department says the states are violating federal law by refusing to provide the voter lists and information about ineligible voters.

The lawsuits have raised concerns among some Democratic officials and voting rights advocates who question exactly how the data will be used, and whether the department will follow privacy laws to protect the information. Some of the data sought include names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a press release. “At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said her office declined to provide unredacted voter data.

“We will not hand over Coloradans’ sensitive voting information to Donald Trump. He does not have a legal right to the information,” Griswold said Thursday after the lawsuit was filed. “I will continue to protect our elections and democracy, and look forward to winning this case.”

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, also a Democrat, said the Justice Department hasn’t provided clear answers about how the data will be used, and he has a duty to follow state law and protect voters’ sensitive information and access to the ballot.

“While these requests may seem like normal oversight, the federal government is using its power to try to intimidate states and influence how states administer elections ahead of the 2026 cycle,” Aguilar said in a news release. “The Constitution makes it clear: elections are run by the states.”

In a Sept. 22 letter to the Justice Department, Hawaii Deputy Solicitor Gen. Thomas Hughes said state law requires that all personal information required on a voter registration district other than a voter’s full name, voting district or precinct and voter status must be kept confidential. Hughes also said the federal law cited by the Justice Department doesn’t require states to turn over electronic registration lists, nor does it require states to turn over “uniquely or highly sensitive personal information” about voters.

An Associated Press tally found that the Justice Department has asked at least 26 states for voter registration rolls in recent months, and in many cases asked states for information on how they maintain their voter rolls. In addition to California, other states being sued by the Justice Department include Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Nearly all the states are Democrat-led, and several are crucial swing states.

The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5 to 1 on Thursday against turning over unredacted voter information to the Trump administration. The lone dissenter was Republican commissioner Robert Spindell, who warned that rejecting the request would invite a lawsuit. But other commissioners said it would be illegal under Wisconsin law to provide the voter roll information, which includes the full names, dates of birth, residential addresses and driver’s license numbers of voters.

Boone writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Friday asked an appeals court to block a contempt investigation of the Trump administration for failing to turn around planes carrying Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador in March.

The department also is seeking Chief Judge James Boasberg’s removal from the case, which has become a flashpoint in an escalating fight between the judiciary and the White House over court orders blocking parts of President Trump’s sweeping agenda.

The department wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to rule on its requests before Monday, when Boasberg is scheduled to hear testimony from a former government attorney who filed a whistleblower complaint.

Department officials claim Boasberg is biased and creating “a circus that threatens the separation of powers and the attorney-client privilege alike.”

“The forthcoming hearing has every appearance of an endless fishing expedition aimed at an ever-widening list of witnesses and prolonged testimony. That spectacle is not a genuine effort to uncover any relevant facts,” they wrote.

Boasberg, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Obama, has said that a recent ruling by the appeals court gave him the authority to proceed with the contempt inquiry. The judge is trying to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to refer the matter for prosecution.

Boasberg, who has been chief judge of the district court in Washington since March 2023, has said the Trump administration may have “acted in bad faith” by trying to rush Venezuelan migrants out of the country in defiance of his order blocking their deportations to El Salvador.

The Trump administration has denied any violation, saying the judge’s March 15 directive to return the planes was made verbally in court but not included in his written order.

Boasberg has scheduled a hearing on Monday for testimony by former Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni, whose whistleblower complaint claims a top department official suggested the Trump administration might have to ignore court orders as it prepared to deport Venezuelan migrants.

The judge also scheduled a hearing on Tuesday for testimony by Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Drew Ensign. The Justice Department has said Ensign conveyed Boasberg’s March 15 oral order and a subsequent written order to the Department of Homeland Security.

“This long-running saga never should have begun; should not have continued at all after this Court’s last intervention; and certainly should not be allowed to escalate into the unseemly and unnecessary interbranch conflict that it now imminently portends,” department officials said in Friday’s court filing.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Friday released 19 photographs from Jeffrey Epstein’s private email server showing a collection of powerful men in politics, media and Hollywood in the convicted sex offender’s orbit.

The photographs do not reveal any wrongdoing, but offer more detail about who Epstein associated with.

The images show Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, meeting with Epstein at an office; Bill Gates standing by what appears to be Epstein’s private jet; former President Clinton with Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell; Epstein with American filmmaker Woody Allen on a movie set; and President Trump with six unidentified women.

The images — which were released without information on the timing, location or context of the events portrayed — are the latest records from Epstein’s private estate to be released to the public, adding pressure on the Trump administration to follow through with a congressional mandate to publish all of its Epstein files by next week.

An image released by a House committee shows former president Bill Clinton, center, with Jeffrey Epstein, right, and Ghislaine Maxwell, second from right.

(House Oversight Committee )

Trump has denied any involvement or knowledge of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operations, but thousands of emails released last month have suggested the president may have known more about his abuse than he had acknowledged.

The photographs released on Friday are part of more than 95,000 images that were recently turned over to a House committee in response to a set of subpoenas issued for records related to Epstein’s estate.

Rep. Robert Garcia, of Long Beach, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in a statement Friday said Democrats on the panel are reviewing the full set of photos and will continue to release them to the public in the days and weeks ahead.

“These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world,” Garcia said. “We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all of the files, NOW.”

One of the images released by a House committee shows Steve Bannon, left, with Jeffrey Epstein.

(House Oversight Committee )

Trump had tried to thwart the release of the what have become commonly known as the “Epstein files” for several months, but reversed course in November under growing pressure form his party.

The president then signed legislation that requires the Department of Justice to release its investigative files related to Epstein by Dec. 19. But his past resistance has led to skepticism among some lawmakers on Capitol Hill who question whether the Justice Department may try to conceal information.

“The real test will be, will the Department of Justice release the files or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said last month.

Epstein, a convicted sex offender who is believed to have abused more than 200 women and girls, died by suicide in federal prison in 2019. His longtime associate, Maxwell, is serving a 20-year sentence for her role in a sex-trafficking scheme to groom and sexually abuse underage girls with Epstein.

Fatima Alhassan is twenty years old now, but her voice still carries the weight of a ten-year-old girl who watched her world collapse a decade ago. Her father, Shahid Alhassan, was killed on Dec. 12, 2015, during the infamous ‘Zaria Massacre’.

“Despite our little time with him, we were always happy around him,” she said. “We were very close. Since we lost him, that vacuum has not been filled in our hearts.”

It was a Saturday morning, and Shahid had just returned home from a funeral. He lay on the sofa, with dust still on his palms. After some moments, he rubbed it across his face and said, “I am next”. His wife, Hauwa Muhammad, found those words unsettling. 

Immediately, Hauwa dismissed it, insisting it was not yet time and that they still had years to spend together, but he replied quietly that “my grave would not be dug in Kano, but in Gyallesu [a suburb in Zaria, Kaduna State, in North West, Nigeria].”

Shahid rose from the sofa, bathed, and had breakfast, and together they walked to the door, exchanging pleasantries before he left.

Around noon, news broke that officers of the Nigerian Army opened fire on some members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) in Zaria town.

That Saturday was the first day of Maulud, the birth month of Islam’s Holy Prophet Muhammad. Shahid and other IMN faithful had gone out for the celebrations. 

Founded in the early 1980s, the IMN grew under the leadership of Ibrahim Zakzaky, then a student activist at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria. Inspired by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Zakzaky advocated for an Islamic state governed by Sharia law. What began as a campus-based movement quickly expanded nationwide, attracting millions of followers who aligned with Shi’a Islam.

What really led to the Zaria Massacre?

The military claimed that the convoy of the then Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, was denied access through the road where the members of IMN were preparing for the Maulud celebration. 

However, Mukhtar Bashir, an IMN representative in Kano State, told HumAngle that the group were hoisting a flag when they sighted the convoy and some soldiers stationed near a filling station. Immediately, they felt something was off, and then some members confronted the convoy to enquire what was happening.

Over the decades, IMN’s growing influence and its confrontations with state authority led to heightened tensions with Nigerian security forces. One of the most significant clashes occurred in July 2014, when soldiers killed three of Zakzaky’s sons and 30 IMN members during a Quds Day procession. 

The incident deepened mistrust and left many IMN members expecting hostility whenever the military appeared. As Mukhtar recalled: “We thought it was another attack.”

What began as a “simple confrontation” quickly escalated into a full-scale assault, which continued through the weekend. Mukhtar told HumAngle that the soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on unarmed civilians, including women and children, killing hundreds as the violence stretched across three days. 

By Tuesday and Wednesday, the focus had shifted from gunshots to the evacuation of dead bodies that were buried in mass graves. Mukhtar said the burials were held without religious rites, or “any form of dignity”. Amnesty International confirmed this claim in a report on the incident. 

Based on IMN records, “a thousand members of the organisation” were killed in the massacre. Muktar noted that when the numbers of passersby who were caught in the violence and also lost their lives are added, the death toll will be significantly higher. “We can show the houses of each person killed or missing,” he added.

The aftermath

When the news got to Hauwa, she was at home, anxiously waiting for her husband’s return. During those tense moments, she remembered the words Shahid had said while on the sofa. “What if his prayers had been answered?” She thought. 

Hauwa kept dialling her husband’s phone number, but every call went unanswered. Later in the evening, she began receiving different accounts about Shahid’s whereabouts; some said he was injured, others said he was dead. 

“Initially, I never believed he was killed,” she recounted. “We heard that it was our neighbour who died. Even my husband’s uncle said he was alive. Until Shahid’s friend, Malam Abdulkadir, drove to Zaria and confirmed that he was dead.” 

Hauwa still didn’t believe that testimony until a local newspaper published images of the deceased Shi’a Muslims. That was when she accepted his death. 

What followed was silence, Hauwa said it was unbearable. “Every day, in every aspect of my life, I felt the absence of my husband, the only pillar of our household. He had been a devoted father to our seven children and a loving companion to me,” she said. 

His loss left the family adrift. Twenty-one months after the incident, Hauwa’s youngest son also died. It deepened the tragedy for the family. 

“I miss my husband,” she said. “It was through him that I fell in love with the path I am on as a Muslim. I have nothing to say, only to ask Allah to bless him for all he has done for us, and may his soul continue to rest in peace.” Hauwa believes that Shahid died a martyr—a gift he had long prayed for. 

However, the challenges of raising their children alone, the weight of grief, and the absence of justice have defined the family’s life for the past decade.

“Some days are filled with happiness, while others are filled with pain and hunger. The sad days are more than the happy ones,” said Fatima, staring away from the camera. She attends a secondary school in Kano, where she also lives with her mother and six siblings in a modest three-room apartment. 

Each morning, as she prepares for school, she asks her mother for transport fare. Too often, her mother has nothing to give. Fatima does not feel anger; it is the ache of knowing her father is not there to shoulder the burden. 

While in school, Fatima says she is often silent when conversations come up with friends about their fathers and their life plans. “Living without a father is emotionally disturbing,” she told HumAngle. “We just have to do everything with our mother, and it saddens me.”

The loss has reshaped her dreams. Once, she imagined herself studying commerce, perhaps medicine or journalism. But after her father’s death, affordability dictated her path. She now studies Arabic, hoping to become a teacher—a future she never planned for, but one forced upon her by circumstance.

It is ten years since the massacre, but families, like Shahid’s, said they have not gotten justice. “They even painted it to look like we are the ones who committed an offence,” Fatima said. “The government has not done anything tangible. To them, it might have passed, but to us, it is as fresh as it was ten years ago.”

After the massacre, the former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, set up a judicial commission of inquiry, whose report found evidence of human rights violations by the Nigerian Army and also noted that 347 IMN members were killed in the incident. 

“The commission recommended prosecution of the soldiers who participated in the killings, but that has not been done,” said  Haruna Magashi, legal practitioner and human rights activist.

IMN also accused the soldiers of demolishing their buildings, including the residence of their founding leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky. In November, when HumAngle visited Zakzaky’s house and some of the IMN centres, some had been turned into a refuse dump site, while others were still not in shape.

Some survivors who spoke to HumAngle three years ago recalled scenes of chaos as homes were raided, people shot at close range, and corpses left scattered on the streets.

Zakzaky was arrested by Nigerian authorities after the incident, but he was discharged and acquitted by the court in July 2021. “All the concluded cases against the IMN were in their favour,” said Haruna. 

A Nigerian court has since ruled that the activities of IMN are “acts of terrorism and illegality”, an allegation that it has persistently denied. IMN was banned in July 2019. 

Echoes of grief

While some of the survivors were teenagers and are now young adults, others can’t even remember because they were babies, but they have formed memories through stories. 

Fatima Alhassan was four when her father died in the massacre. The 14-year-old said she only tries to picture her father through the good things her mother has said about him. Through the stories, she knows that his father was a good cook, and he always bathed his children and cared for the household whenever illness struck.

“Honestly, we have all been cheated in our family,” she said. “This is because whenever my mother falls sick and my elder siblings aren’t home, she has to do all the chores by herself. But if my father were around, I am sure he wouldn’t leave her like that. Even if she insists he go to work, he would still stay behind to assist her. Such moments break my heart, and I wish he were still alive.”

Those recollections make her long for the father she never really met. At her former school, she and her siblings were bullied by classmates who mocked them for not having a father, flaunting gifts they received, while they reminded them of what they had lost.

Fatima says her uncles and other close relatives have been supportive, especially during festive seasons, but the longing for her father never fades.

“It hurts me a lot. If I were to see him now, I would tell him that we have missed him a lot and we have suffered without him,” she said as tears rolled down her cheek.

‘To live my father’s dreams’

Amidst an unending grief that aches now and then, Al’haidar Alhassan said he wants to live his father’s dream. He is studying at Basita Darwish Chami Academy, a boarding school in Kano State built for orphans whose parents were killed in the massacre, and he hopes to be a scientist and a researcher someday. 

“Glory be to God Almighty that we have gotten the support we need, and I believe we will achieve what we intend. Nevertheless, I still feel heartbroken. The thought of losing my father and pillar still affects me because I feel demotivated sometimes,” he said. 

After his father’s death, the 19-year-old and his siblings dropped out of school for two years. Al’haidar said that his father’s greatest wish was for his children to be educated. 

“I miss the father-and-son bond we shared. Whenever he was leaving for work, I never wanted to let him go. Whenever I see a child and his father, the more I miss him, and in some cases, I have no choice but to cry,” Al’haidar added.

A father’s loss

While Al’haidar misses the bond with his father, Bashir Muktar sits on the floor in his living room, in between the portraits of his two sons who were killed in the massacre. The bond with his children was one of deep affection and shared ambition.

Shahid Abba, his eldest son, had just completed his remedial studies at the College of Arts and Islamic Studies a few days before the incident. The 20-year-old was brimming with plans to pursue chemical engineering at the university. Meanwhile, Bashir’s younger son, Hujjatullahi, was still in secondary school at Fudiya Science in Kano. The 18-year-old has dreams of becoming a doctor.

“A child is a flesh of yours,” Bashir said, “and you live your life trying to ensure that you build them up. You have certain ambitions towards your children. In every household, every father tries to build his children to greatness because they are your successors.”

Even though he kept a smiling face, it broke his heart as he recounted some of his sons’ youthful curiosity. He speaks about a day in 2014 when he found the younger son under the staircase, carving something for a school experiment. 

He teased him for “still behaving childishly”, but Hujjatullahi replied that: “It is an assignment. I am going to conduct an experiment on meiosis and mitosis.” That was the day his son revealed to him his dream of becoming a doctor. These memories, Bashir said, are etched in his heart.

He was on a trip in Abuja, North Central Nigeria, when his children called to ask if they could attend the Maulud programme in Zaria. He suggested they meet there at the event, but he was caught up in a late meeting, and his sons kept reaching out to confirm what was happening.

“They sent a text message enquiring what was happening in Zaria. I replied with, ‘Nothing is happening.’ They asked if they could proceed, and I said yes, not knowing soldiers had attacked and opened fire at the venue earlier that day,” Bashir recounted. 

By the time he tried reaching them again, their phones were no longer connecting. Bashir attempted to travel to Zaria the following day, but the roads were sealed off as news spread quickly that soldiers had blocked the entrance to the city.

Two days later, while having breakfast, he got a call: “I extended salutations, then I heard, ‘Father! Father!!’ It was the voice of Hujjatullahi. I confirmed by calling his name, then I started recording and put the call on speaker. I asked, ‘What’s happening, Hujjatullahi?’ He said, ‘Please forgive us, Father.’ I asked again, ‘What is happening?’ He responded, ‘Forgive us for whatever we have done to you until we meet at Darul Salam [referring to the final abode of the deceased righteous in Islam].’”

The words that followed were devastating.

“My elder brother has been shot in the stomach, and I have been shot in the stomach and my arm,” Hujjatullahi told him.

Bashir said that how his sons were buried worsened his grief.

“If they had travelled or fallen sick and died, it would have been different. But the manner in which they lost their lives is painful,” he said. “After killing them, they took their corpses, both men, women, children, pregnant mothers, and the elderly, then dug a massive hole and buried them all together like animals. No religious ritual was performed. With these, there are a lot of things to remember, and we can’t forget them.”

When asked what justice looks like for him and other grieving families, Bashir said that the fight for justice is not only about acknowledging the massacre but also about reclaiming the dignity of those who were killed.

“The most important thing for us in this fight for justice is the corpse of our loved ones,” he told HumAngle. “Where are the dead bodies of the people they killed and buried without prayer, spiritual bath, no shroud, no graves, nothing at all?”

“I believe even if someone is sentenced to death, after the life is taken, the body belongs to the family. So, where are the bodies? Despite killing them without any valid reason, they are still depriving us of their dead bodies.”

The last witness

In the same incident, Zainab Isa lost nearly everything.

Her husband, Abdullahi Abbas, and six of their children—Abdulrazaq, Muhammad, Abbas, Ahmad, Ibrahim, and Jawwad—were all killed in the Zaria massacre.

A decade later, at her home in the Rimin Danza community in Zaria, she imagines what her youngest son, Jawwad, who was only 18 when he died, might have become at 28. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he were a doctor by now,” she said.

She said Jawwad was quiet, intelligent, and reserved and carried the kind of promise that only time could have revealed. Instead, his life ended before it even began.

Her eldest, Abdulrazaq, was over thirty when he was killed, four years after graduating from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

He had plans to further his education once he secured a job. She remembers his brilliance in school, his demur anytime he was announced first in class, and his humility in admitting that his younger brother Jawwad was even smarter.

Jawwad contributed to scholarship by writing an Islamic book, the Forty Hadiths, which was published and shared at his graduation, before his death. 

Zainab can go over and over again about the stories of each of them. She told HumAngle that even other people in her community remember her children not only for their achievements but also for their kindness. 

Neighbours told her of small acts of generosity—paying transport fares for strangers, helping to fetch water for a neighbour, and offering support without being asked. “Wherever they went, they were loved,” she said. “I am not saying it to prove anything. It was God Almighty that blessed me and made them upright.”

Since that incident happened, her husband’s words about the frailty of life have stayed with her: “Only God knows who would be the first to leave this world between us. I just pray God accepts my worship before He takes my life.” 

“The scar will never heal,” she said. “Even if they would bring a truckload of dollars to my house, with the intention of making me happy, honestly, it won’t make me happy. If times could change, I would ask them to stay behind and go there myself to die instead, because they were still young and had dreams and were loved by everyone.”

Zainab is one of the few surviving witnesses to her family’s tragedy. 

Between grief and discrimination

Sadiya Muhammad, another widow of Abdullahi Abbas, was left between the pain of losing her husband and the discrimination her daughter endured in its aftermath.

Sadiya’s daughter, Radiya, was only two years old in 2015. Too young to remember her father, she grew up knowing his face only through photographs. “Whenever you hand her a picture, she would be able to point out her father,” Sadiya said.

But at school, where students and teachers came from different Islamic sects, her daughter faced painful words that deepened her grief. One day, a teacher openly told the class, “Do not be carried away by the prayers and fasting of any person who is a member of the Shi’a sect; they are worse than unbelievers, and they are all going to hell.”

The little girl returned home troubled, asking her mother, “Since my teacher said those who are Shi’a are all going to hellfire, is my father also going to hellfire?”

Sadiya’s response was firm yet tender: “I told her that her father is not going to hell; rather, he was martyred, and by Allah’s mercy, he is going to paradise.”

In the years after the massacre, her family’s mourning was made heavier by the sectarian prejudice of others, forcing her to constantly remind her children of their father’s honour and the value of their faith.

Human rights activists like Magashi believe the massacre carries a broader warning about minority rights in Nigeria. “You are in danger of extinction once you are a minority in the country,” he said. “This is dangerous as far as human rights are concerned. The Shi’ites are the minority Muslims in Nigeria, but they share the same human rights as the majority.”

WASHINGTON — Justice Department leadership has directed the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism” by the start of next year, and to establish a “cash reward system” that incentivizes individuals to report on their fellow Americans, according to a memo reviewed by The Times.

Law enforcement agencies are directed in the memo, dated Dec. 4, to identify “domestic terrorists” who use violence, or the threat of violence, to advance political and social agendas, including “adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity.”

Although the memo does not mention protests against President Trump’s immigration crackdown directly, it says that problematic “political and social agendas” could include “opposition to law and immigration enforcement, extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders.”

The memo, sent by Atty, Gen. Pam Bondi to federal prosecutors and law enforcement agencies, follows on a presidential memorandum signed by Trump in the immediate aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative figure, that gave civil rights groups pause over the potential targeting of political activists, donors and nonprofits opposed to the president.

The memo also outlines what it says are causes of domestic terrorist activity, including “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”

“Federal law enforcement will prioritize this threat. Where federal crime is encountered, federal agents will act,” the memo states.

Some national security experts said the memo represents a dramatic operational shift, by directing federal prosecutors and agents to approach domestic terrorism in a way that is “ideologically one-sided.” At worst, critics said, the memo provides legal justification for criminalizing free speech.

“I think this causes a chilling impact, because it definitely seems to be directing enforcement toward particular points of view,” Mary McCord, a former acting assistant attorney general for national security, said in an interview.

The memo, for example, primarily focuses on antifa-aligned extremism, but omits other trends that in recent years have been identified as rising domestic threats, such as violent white supremacy. Since Trump resumed office, the FBI has cut its office designated to focus on domestic extremism, withdrawing resources from investigations into white supremacists and right-wing antigovernment groups.

The memo’s push to collect intelligence on antifa through internal lists and public tip lines also raised questions over the scope of the investigative mission, and how wide a net investigators might cast.

“Whether you’re going to a protest, whether you’re considering a piece of legislation, whether you’re considering undertaking a particular business activity, the ambiguity will affect your risk profile,” Thomas Brzozowski, a former counsel for domestic terrorism at the Justice Department, said in an interview.

“It is the unknown that people will fear,” he added.

Protesters in 1980s style aerobic outfits work out during a demonstration dubbed “Sweatin’ Out the Fascists” on Sunday in Portland, Ore.

(Natalie Behring / Getty Images)

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have expressed alarm over the new policy, which could be used by the Justice Department to target civil society groups and Democratic individuals and entities with burdensome investigations.

But the White House argues that Democratic appointees under the Biden administration targeted conservative extremists in similar ways.

Members of Trump’s team have embraced political retribution as a policy course. Ed Martin, the president’s pardon attorney, has openly advocated for Justice Department investigations that would burden who Trump perceives as his enemies, alongside leniency for his friends and allies.

“No MAGA left behind,” Martin wrote on social media in May.

Law enforcement agencies are directed in the memo to “zealously” investigate those involved in what it calls potential domestic terrorist actions, including “doxing” law enforcement. Authorities are also directed to “map the full network of culpable actors” potentially tied to crime.

Domestic terrorism is not an official designation in U.S. law. But the directive cites over two dozen existing laws that could substantiate charges against domestic extremists and their supporters, such as conspiracy to injure an officer, seditious conspiracy and mail and wire fraud.

Only in a footnote of the memo does the Justice Department acknowledge that the U.S. government cannot “investigate, collect, or maintain information on U.S. persons solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment.”

“No investigation may be opened based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment or the lawful exercise of rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States,” the footnote says.

Some tension could arise when citizens report what they believe to be suspected domestic terrorism to the FBI.

The memo directs the FBI online tip line to allow “witnesses and citizen journalists” to report videos, recordings and photos of what they believe to be suspected acts of domestic violence, and establish a “cash reward system” for information that leads to an arrest.

“People will inform because they want to get paid,” Brzozowski said. He added that some information could end up being unreliable and likely be related to other Americans exercising their constitutional rights.

State and local law enforcement agencies that adhere to the Justice Department directive will be prioritized for federal grant funding.

A man dressed as a bee participates in the No Kings Day of Peaceful Action in downtown Los Angeles on Oct. 18.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

One of the directives in the memo would require the FBI to disseminate an “intelligence bulletin on Antifa and Antifa-aligned anarchist violent extremist groups” early next year.

“The bulletin should describe the relevant organizations structures, funding sources, and tactics so that law enforcement partners can effectively investigate and policy makers can effectively understand the nature and gravity of the threat posed by these extremist groups,” the memo states.

The mission will cross several agencies, with the FBI working alongside joint terrorism task forces nationwide, as well as the Counterterrorism Division and the National Threat Operations Center, among others, to provide updates to Justice Department leadership every 30 days.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A grand jury declined for a second time in a week to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday in another major blow to the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute the president’s political opponents.

The repeated failures amounted to a stunning rebuke of prosecutors’ bid to resurrect a criminal case President Trump pressured them to bring, and hinted at a growing public leeriness of the administration’s retribution campaign.

A grand jury rejection is an unusual circumstance in any case, but is especially stinging for a Justice Department that has been steadfast in its determination to seek revenge against Trump foes such as James and former FBI Director James Comey. On separate occasions, citizens have heard the government’s evidence against James and have come away underwhelmed, unwilling to rubber-stamp what prosecutors have attempted to portray as a clear-cut criminal case.

A judge threw out the original indictments against James and Comey in November, ruling that the prosecutor who presented to the grand jury, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Justice Department asked a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., to return an indictment Thursday after a different grand jury in Norfolk last week refused to do so. The failure to secure an indictment was confirmed by a person who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear Thursday whether prosecutors would try for a third time to seek a new indictment. A lawyer for James, who has denied any wrongdoing, said the “unprecedented rejection makes even clearer that this case should never have seen the light of day.”

“This case already has been a stain on this Department’s reputation and raises troubling questions about its integrity,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement. “Any further attempt to revive these discredited charges would be a mockery of our system of justice.”

James, a Democrat who infuriated Trump after his first term with a lawsuit alleging that he built his business empire on lies about his wealth, was initially charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a home purchase in 2020.

During the sale, she signed a standard document called a “second home rider” in which she agreed to keep the property primarily for her “personal use and enjoyment for at least one year,” unless the lender agreed otherwise. Rather than using the home as a second residence, prosecutors say James rented it out to a family of three, allowing her to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties.

Both the James and Comey cases were brought shortly after the administration installed Halligan, a former Trump lawyer with no previous prosecutorial experience, as U.S. attorney amid public calls from the president to take action against his political opponents.

But U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie threw out the cases last month over the unconventional mechanism that the Trump administration employed to appoint Halligan. The judge dismissed them without prejudice, allowing the Justice Department to try to file the charges again.

Halligan had been named as a replacement for Erik Siebert, a veteran prosecutor in the office and interim U.S. attorney who resigned in September amid Trump administration pressure to file charges against both Comey and James. He stepped aside after Trump told reporters he wanted Siebert “out.”

James’ lawyers separately argued the case was a vindictive prosecution brought to punish the Trump critic who spent years investigating and suing the Republican president and won a staggering judgment in a lawsuit alleging he defrauded banks by overstating the value of his real estate holdings on financial statements. The fine was later tossed out by a higher court, but both sides are appealing.

Comey was separately charged with lying to Congress in 2020. Another federal judge has complicated the Justice Department’s efforts to seek a new indictment against Comey, temporarily barring prosecutors from accessing computer files belonging to Daniel Richman, a close Comey friend and Columbia University law professor whom prosecutors see as a central player in any potential case against the former FBI director.

Prosecutors moved Tuesday to quash that order, calling Richman’s request for the return of his files a “strategic tool to obstruct the investigation and potential prosecution.” They said the judge had overstepped her bounds by ordering Richman’s property returned to him and said the ruling had impeded their ability to proceed with a case against Comey.

Richer and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press. Richer reported from Washington. AP reporter Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

Washington, DC – American journalist Dylan Collins wants to know “who pulled the trigger” in the 2023 Israeli double-tap strike in south Lebanon that injured him and killed Reuters video reporter Issam Abdallah.

Collins and his supporters are also seeking information about the military orders that led to the deadly attack. But more than two years later, Israel has not provided adequate answers on why it targeted the clearly identifiable reporters.

Press freedom advocates and three United States legislators joined Collins, an AFP and former Al Jazeera journalist, outside the US Capitol on Thursday to renew calls for accountability in this case and for the more than 250 other killings of journalists by Israel.

“I want to know who pulled the trigger; I want to know what command structure approved it, and I want to know why it’s gone unaddressed until today – on our strike and all the others targeted,” Collins said.

Senator Peter Welch and Congresswoman Becca Balint, who represent Collins’s home state of Vermont, and Senator Chris Van Hollen stressed on Thursday that they will continue to push for accountability in the strike, which wounded six journalists.

“We’re not letting it go. It doesn’t matter how long they stonewall us. We’re not letting it go,” Balint told reporters.

The attack

Welch said he was sending his seventh letter to the US Department of State demanding answers, accusing Israel of obfuscation.

Israeli authorities, he said, claim they investigated the attack and ruled the shooting unintentional, but they provided no evidence that they questioned soldiers. Israel also never contacted the key witnesses – namely, Colins and other survivors of the strike.

In October, the Israeli army told the AFP news agency that the attack was still “under review” in an apparent contradiction of what Welch had been told.

“The investigation, non-investigation – there’s nothing there,” Welch said. “You’re basically getting the run-around, and you’re getting stonewalled. That’s the bottom line.”

Israel received more than $21bn in US military aid during the two years of its genocidal war on Gaza.

Throughout the war, Israel has stepped up its attacks on the press. But the country has a long history of killing journalists without accountability.

The October 13, 2023, strike, which wounded Al Jazeera’s Carmen Joukhadar and Elie Brakhia and left AFP’s Christina Assi with life-altering injuries, was well-documented in part because the journalists were livestreaming their reporting.

The correspondents, who had set up their equipment on a hilltop near the Lebanese-Israeli border to cover the escalation on the front, were in clearly marked press gear and vehicles.

Israeli drones had also circled above the journalists before the attack.

“We thought the fact that we could be seen was a good thing, that it would protect us. But after a little less than an hour at the site, we were hit twice by tank fire, two shells on the same target, 37 seconds apart,” Collins said at a news conference on Thursday.

“The first strike killed Issam instantly and nearly blew Christina’s legs off her body. As I rushed to put a tourniquet on her, we were hit the second time, and I sustained multiple shrapnel wounds.”

The AFP journalist added that the attack seemed “unfathomable in its brutality” at that time, but “we have since seen the same type of attack repeated dozens of times.”

Israel has been regularly employing such double-tap attacks, including in other strikes on journalists in Gaza.

“This is not an incident in the fog of war. It was a war crime carried out in broad daylight and broadcast on live television,” Collins said.

Earlier this year, UN rapporteur Morris Tidball-Binz called the 2023 strike “a premeditated, targeted and double-tapped attack from the Israeli forces, a clear violation, in my opinion, of IHL (international humanitarian law), a war crime”.

US response

Despite the wounding of a US citizen in the strike, the administration of then-President Joe Biden – which claimed to champion freedom of the press and the “rules-based order” – did next to nothing to hold Israel to account.

Biden’s successor, Donald Trump, also pushed on with unconditional US support for Israel.

On Thursday, Collins decried the lack of action from the US government, saying that he reached out to officials in Washington, DC, and showed them footage of the strike.

“I thought that when an American citizen is wounded in an attack carried out by the US’s greatest ally in the Middle East that we would be able to get some answers. But for two years, I’ve been met by deafening silence,” he told reporters.

“In fact, neither the Biden nor the Trump administrations have ever publicly acknowledged that a US citizen was wounded in this attack.”

Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 10 US citizens, including Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, over the past decade.

Senator Van Hollen said accountability in the October 13, 2023, attack is important for journalists and US citizens across the world.

“We have not seen accountability or justice in this case, and the State Department – our own government – has not done much of anything really to pursue justice in this case,” Van Hollen told reporters.

“It is part of a broader pattern of impunity for attacks on Americans and on journalists by the government of Israel.”

He called the US approach a “dereliction of duty” by the Trump and Biden administrations.

Israeli ‘investigation’

Amelia Evans, advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said Senator Welch’s description of the Israeli probe shows that the country’s “purported investigative bodies are not functioning to deliver justice but to shield Israeli forces from accountability”.

Evans urged the Trump administration to “take action” and demand the completion of probes into the killing of Abu Akleh in 2022 and the 2023 attack on journalists in Lebanon.

“It must demand Israel name all the military officials throughout the command chain who were involved in both cases,” she said.

“But as Israel’s key strategic ally, the United States must do much more than that. It must publicly recognise Israel’s failure to properly investigate the war crimes committed by its military.”

Israel often uses claims of investigation in response to abuses.

Former State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, who spent almost two years defending Israeli war crimes and justifying Washington’s unflinching support for its Middle East ally, acknowledged that tactic recently.

“We do know that Israel has opened investigations,” Miller, who incessantly invoked alleged Israeli probes from the State Department podium, said in June.

“But, look, we are many months into those investigations. And we’re not seeing Israeli soldiers held accountable.”

‘Chilling effect’

Amid the push for justice, Collins paid tribute to his colleague Abdallah, who was killed in the 2023 Israeli attack.

“Losing Issam was tough on everyone,” he told Al Jazeera. “He was like the dynamo of the press scene in Lebanon. He knew everyone. He was always the first person to help you out if you’re in a jam. He had a larger-than-life personality.”

The killing of Abdullah, Collins added, had a “chilling effect” on the coverage of that conflict, which escalated into a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah in September 2024.

The violence saw Israel all but wipe out nearly all the border towns in Lebanon.

Even after a ceasefire was reached in November of last year, the Israeli military continues to prevent reconstruction in the devastated villages as it carries out near-daily attacks across the country.

“If the intention was to stop people from covering the war, then it has worked to some degree,” said Collins.

NEW YORK — Secret grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case can be made public, a judge ruled on Wednesday, joining two other judges in granting the Justice Department’s requests to unseal material from investigations into the late financier’s sexual abuse.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman reversed his earlier decision to keep the material under wraps, citing a new law that requires the government to open its files on Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell. The judge previously cautioned that the 70 or so pages of grand jury materials slated for release are hardly revelatory and “merely a hearsay snippet” of Epstein’s conduct.

On Tuesday, another Manhattan federal judge ordered the release of records from Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking case. Last week, a judge in Florida approved the unsealing of transcripts from an abandoned Epstein federal grand jury investigation in the 2000s.

The Justice Department asked the judges to lift secrecy orders in the cases after the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump last month, created a narrow exception to rules that normally keep grand jury proceedings confidential. The law requires that the Justice Department disclose Epstein-related material to the public by Dec. 19.

The court records cleared for release are just a sliver of the government’s trove — a collection of potentially tens of thousands of pages of documents including FBI notes and reports; transcripts of witness interviews, photographs, videos and other evidence; Epstein’s autopsy report; flight logs and travel records.

While lawyers for Epstein’s estate told Berman in a letter last week that the estate took no position on the Justice Department’s unsealing request, some Epstein victims backed it.

“Release to the public of Epstein-related materials is good, so long as the victims are protected in the process,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for some victims. “With that said, the grand jury receives only the most basic information, so, relatively speaking, these particular materials are insignificant.”

Questions about the government’s Epstein files have dominated the first year of Trump’s second term, with pressure on the Republican intensifying after he reneged on a campaign promise to release the files. His administration released some material, most of it already public, disappointing critics and some allies.

Berman was matter of fact in his ruling on Wednesday, writing that the transparency law “unequivocally intends to make public Epstein grand jury materials and discovery materials” that had previously been covered by secrecy orders. The law “supersedes the otherwise secret grand jury materials,” he wrote.

The judge, who was appointed by President Clinton, a Democrat, implored the Justice Department to carefully follow the law’s privacy provisions to ensure that victims’ names and other identifying information are blacked out. Victim safety and privacy “are paramount,” he wrote.

In court filings, the Justice Department informed Berman that the only witness to testify before the Epstein grand jury was an FBI agent who, the judge noted, “had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay.”

The agent testified over two days, on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019. The rest of the grand jury presentation consisted of a PowerPoint slideshow and four pages of call logs. The July 2 session ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein.

Epstein, a millionaire money manager known for socializing with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and the academic elite, killed himself in jail a month after his 2019 arrest. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 by a federal jury of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of Epstein’s underage victims and participating in some of the abuse. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Maxwell’s lawyer told a judge last week that unsealing records from her case “would create undue prejudice” and could spoil her plans to file a habeas petition, a legal filing seeking to overturn her conviction. The Supreme Court in October declined to hear Maxwell’s appeal.

Maxwell’s grand jury records include testimony from the FBI agent and a New York Police Department detective.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer sought to temper expectations as he approved their release on Tuesday, writing that the materials “do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor.”

“They do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s,” wrote Engelmayer, an appointee of President Obama, a Democrat. “They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes.”

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

Many Americans think badly of the government because of “gridlock” in Washington. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is not one of them.

Americans “should learn to love gridlock,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. “The framers (of the Constitution) would say, yes, ‘That’s exactly the way we set it up. We wanted power contradicting power (to prevent) an excess of legislation.’ ”

And that was in 1787, he added. They “didn’t know what an excess of legislation was.”

Scalia, the longest-serving justice, contrasted the American system to those of governments in Europe, and he said this country’s Constitution is better because it provides for an independent president, an independent judiciary and two independent branches of Congress.

“I hear Americans nowadays … talk about dysfunctional government because there’s disagreement,” he said. If they understood the Constitution, he continued, they can “learn to love the separation of powers, which means learning to love gridlock, which the framers believed would be the main protection of minorities.”

Scalia discounted the importance of the Bill of Rights and its protection for freedom of speech and the press. “Every banana republic has a Bill of Rights,” he said. Those are “just words on paper.” It depends on the “structure of government,” including independent courts, to enforce the rights of individuals.

The Senate committee invited Scalia and Justice Stephen G. Breyer to talk about the role of judges, and the two carried on a two-hour conversation about their views of the Constitution and the law.

In recent years, they have conducted their own debate over whether the justices should rely on the original meaning of the Constitution in deciding cases. Breyer said judges needed to start with the “values” set in the Constitution, but need to update them to take account of modern times.

Scalia said he wanted no part of it. “I’m hoping the living Constitution will die,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington sued Monday to get their jobs back, saying their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile situation and was not meant as a political gesture.

The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired in September by Director Kash Patel because they were perceived as not being politically affiliated with President Trump. But they say their decision to take a knee on June 4, 2020, days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as political expression.

The lawsuit says the agents were assigned to patrol the nation’s capital during a period of civil unrest prompted by Floyd’s death. Lacking protective gear or extensive training in crowd control, the agents became outnumbered by hostile crowds they encountered and decided to kneel to the ground in hopes of defusing the tension, the lawsuit said. The tactic worked, the lawsuit asserts — the crowds dispersed, no shots were fired and the agents “saved American lives” that day.

“Plaintiffs were performing their duties as FBI Special Agents, employing reasonable de-escalation to prevent a potentially deadly confrontation with American citizens: a Washington Massacre that could have rivaled the Boston Massacre in 1770,” the lawsuit says.

The FBI declined to comment Monday.

The lawsuit in federal court in Washington represents the latest court challenge to a personnel purge that has roiled the FBI, targeting both top-ranking supervisors and line agents, as Patel has worked to reshape the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. Besides the kneeling agents, other employees pushed out in recent months have worked on investigations involving Trump or his allies and in one case displayed an LGBTQ+ flag in his workspace.

After photographs emerged of the agents taking a knee, the FBI conducted an internal review, with the then-deputy director determining that the agents had no political motive and should not be punished. The Justice Department inspector general reached a similar conclusion and faulted the department for having put the agents in a precarious situation that day, the lawsuit says.

It was only after Patel took over the bureau in February that the FBI took a different posture.

Multiple kneeling agents were removed from supervisory positions last spring and a fresh disciplinary inquiry was launched that resulted in the agents being interviewed about their actions. That internal process was still pending when the agents in September received terse letters telling them they were being terminated because of “unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government.”

“Defendants dismissed Plaintiffs in a partisan effort to retaliate against FBI employees that they perceived to be sympathetic to President Trump’s political opponents,” the lawsuit states. “And Defendants acted summarily to avoid creating any further administrative record that would reveal their actions as vindictive and unjustified.”

The plaintiffs are among 22 agents from different squads across Washington who were deployed to downtown D.C. on June 4, 2020, to demonstrate a visible law enforcement process during a time of protests in the nation’s capital and across the country.

The lawsuit asserts that the agents were thrust into a chaotic scene, saying that a crowd recognized them as being from the FBI and “intentionally” pushed toward them, becoming “increasingly agitated” and shouting and gesturing toward them. Some in the crowd began chanting “take a knee,” a gesture that at that point was widely recognized as a sign of solidarity with Floyd, who was pinned to the pavement by police with a knee on his neck.

The agents closest to the crowd were the first to kneel. After the crowd’s attention turned to the other agents who remained standing, the other FBI employees followed suit, taking a knee in recognition that it was the “most tactically sound means to prevent violence and to maintain order.” The crowd moved on.

“Plaintiffs demonstrated tactical intelligence in choosing between deadly force — the only force available to them as a practical matter, given their lack of adequate crowd control equipment — and a less-than-lethal response that would save lives and keep order,” the lawsuit says. “The Special Agents selected the option that prevented casualties while maintaining their law enforcement mission. Each Plaintiff kneeled for apolitical tactical reasons to defuse a volatile situation, not as an expressive political act.”

In addition to seeking reinstatement, the lawsuit also asks for a court judgment declaring the firings as unconstitutional, backpay and other monetary damages and an expungement of personnel files related to the terminations.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

After the US government placed sanctions on the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, her life turned upside down.

Credit cards stopped working, she told Al Jazeera. A hotel reservation booked by the European Parliament was cancelled. Medical insurance was denied. For Albanese, the consequences of her work on Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza were not just professional — they were personal, too.

“We are turned into non-persons,” she said at the Doha Forum, calling the sanctions imposed against her “unlawful” under international law.

“But again, for me, it’s important that people understand the extent … the United States, Israel and others would go to silence the voice of justice, the voice of human rights,” Albanese said.

As leaders, diplomats, and legal experts gathered in Qatar’s capital for the Doha Forum this weekend under the theme “Justice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress”, the crisis in Gaza dominated discussions.

Allegations of genocide against Israel, repeated vetoes blocking UN ceasefire resolutions, and growing pressure on international justice mechanisms have made Gaza a test case for the rules-based international order, raising questions about whether international law is capable of providing justice.

‘Sense of insecurity around me’

According to Albanese’s legal assessments, Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza constitutes a genocide, a term that prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s B’Tselem have also used.

When announcing the sanctions on Albanese, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused her of waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel”. She says the allegation is baseless.

“I have been subjected to smear campaigns,” she said, adding that US officials have accused her of being an anti-Semite, of supporting violence, and of failing to condemn the crimes committed on October 7 against Israeli civilians.

“It has created a sense of insecurity around me. I have received threats from all corners,” Albanese said.

In addition to targeting Albanese, the US imposed sanctions in August on nine judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including two European citizens, after the court began investigating alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

“This is mafia-style intimidation that we are subjected to, just for doing our job,” Albanese noted, warning that sanctions and intimidation of legal experts set a dangerous precedent.

“There will be that pressure [on ICC judges and legal experts] that, if I go on this route, this is going to be scrutinised. This is the idea, to make it impossible for the organisation, for the ICC to work,” she cautioned.

“Imagine that every US person interacting with us, someone who works in the US or is a citizen, could go to jail for up to 20 years. It creates a chilling effect.”

Western hesitance

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “war crimes”.

The US called the move “outrageous”, and while the United Kingdom and Canada said they would adhere to international law, they did not make clear if they would uphold the warrant.

Many Western countries have not described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and have continued to send the country arms, despite growing allegations of war crimes occurring in Gaza.

Albanese emphasised that nations continuing to transfer arms are failing in their legal obligations.

“They have the obligation to prevent a genocide that has already been recognised as plausible in January 2024 by the International Court of Justice,” she said.

Janine Di Giovanni, co-founder of the Reckoning Project, which documents war crimes in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, said the position of many Western states reeked of a glaring “double standard”.

“There is one set of laws and rules that pertain to Ukraine … and another set for brown and Black people,” she said, pointing to the ICC’s historical focus on African leaders and the failure of Western powers to hold Israel accountable.

Di Giovanni directed her criticism at European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, saying the former Estonian prime minister had been “negligent” when it came to Gaza.

“She points out over and over again what [Russian President] Putin has done in Ukraine, but not a word about Gaza,” she added.

“She’s the EU foreign policy chief. She has a responsibility to point out Israel’s criminality.”

Is international law still relevant?

With multilateral institutions and the international law system coming under growing pressure from nation-states, Albanese said that international law does work and that “we need to make it work”.

“I often make the example, if a cure doesn’t work, would you trash all medicine? No,” she asserted.

“This is the first genocide in history that has awakened a conscience, a global conscience, and has the potential to be stopped.”

Meanwhile, Reckoning Project’s Di Giovanni said the UN General Assembly could be “activated to work at a higher level and a more effective level than what they’re doing, while the Security Council is blocked”.

“But maybe this shows us that we need to have a greater reform for how the Security Council works,” she said.

Di Giovanni added that it was crucial to address the “extraordinary heinous crimes that Netanyahu and others” have committed, or else it would send a message that “impunity is rampant”.

“Without accountability, there is no global security,” she said.