Politics

Victims of Jeffrey Epstein have criticised the United States government after it released a partial trove of documents from cases against the late convicted sex offender with heavily redacted pages and blacked-out photos.

The growing outcry on Saturday came as US media reported that at least 16 files from the tranche, which were published online, had disappeared from the public webpage.

The deleted files included a photograph showing President Donald Trump.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) began releasing the trove on Friday to comply with a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress in November that ⁠mandated the disclosure of all Epstein files, despite Trump’s months-long effort to keep them sealed.

It said it plans to release more records on a rolling basis, blaming the delay on what it said was a time-consuming process of obscuring survivors’ names and other identifying information.

But 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. They also omitted some of the most closely watched materials, including FBI interviews with victims and internal DOJ memos on charging decisions.

Meanwhile, a 119-page document titled “Grand Jury-NY”, likely from one of the federal sex trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019, was entirely blacked out.

One of Epstein’s victims, Marina Lacerda, reacted angrily to the large number of redactions and unreleased documents.

“All of us are infuriated by this,” she told the news outlet MS NOW on Saturday. “It’s another slap in the face. We expected way more.”

Lacerda, who said Epstein abused her when she was 14 years of age, was a crucial witness in the 2019 investigation that led to the filing of sex trafficking charges against the late financier.

Epstein killed himself in jail that year shortly after his arrest.

Lacerda told The New York Times in a separate interview that she felt let down.

“So many of the photos are irrelevant,” she said.

Another survivor, Jess Michaels, told the news outlet CNN that she spent hours searching through the released files for her victim’s statement and records of her call to an FBI tipline, but found neither.

“I can’t find any of those,” she said. “Is this the best that the government can do? Even an act of Congress isn’t getting us justice.”

Marijke Chartouni, who said she was abused by Epstein when she was 20 years old, decried a lack of openness.

“If everything is redacted, where is the transparency?” she said on Friday in an interview with The New York Times.

Some lawmakers also expressed frustration.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who helped spearhead the legislative push, accused the White House of failing to comply “with both the spirit and the letter of the law that Donald Trump signed just 30 days ago” in a social media post on Friday.

That law required the government’s case file to be posted publicly by Friday, constrained only by legal and victim privacy concerns.

Meanwhile, the unexplained 16 missing files led to speculation online about what was taken down and why the public was not notified, compounding longstanding 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.”

“If they’re taking this down, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide,” said senior Democrat Chuck Schumer. “This could be one of the biggest cover-ups in American history.”

The Trump administration, however, denied that it was not being forthcoming with the released materials. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a TV interview with ABC that there was no attempt “to hold anything back” to protect Trump.

The DOJ also issued a statement on X late on Saturday. “Photos and other materials will continue being reviewed and redacted consistent with the law in an abundance of caution as we receive additional information,” it said.

Separately, celebrities who appeared in photos made available as part of Friday’s release include former President Bill Clinton, late news anchor Walter Cronkite, singers Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, British entrepreneur Richard Branson and the ⁠former Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson.

There were also photos of Epstein with actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey.

Many of the photos were undated and provided without context, and none of those figures has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor also appears in one photo lying across the laps of several women. The former duke of York, who was stripped of his royal title over his ties to Epstein, has denied any wrongdoing.

Notably missing were references to Trump himself, despite his frequent inclusion in previous releases of Epstein-related documents. Trump and Epstein were friends in the 1990s and early 2000s and had a falling out before Epstein’s first conviction in 2008.

Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowing about Epstein’s crimes.

Amid the outcry, the DOJ sought to draw attention to Clinton, with two agency spokespeople posting on social media images that they said showed him with Epstein victims.

Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Angel Urena, said in a statement that the White House was attempting to “shield themselves” from scrutiny by focusing on the former president.

“They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they ‌want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” he wrote.

Dec. 20 (UPI) — The former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, and his wife have been sentenced to 17 additional years in jail over charges of corruption and grifting.

Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, received the sentence in the Toshakhana-2 case, which charged them with fraud for intentionally undervaluing a Bulgari jewelry set that had been gifted to them by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon in 2021, The BBC and Bloomberg reported.

The verdict, handed down late Friday during a hearing at the jail Khan is at, also includes a roughly $54,000 fine, is just the latest in a series of charges and trials he has faced since leaving office.

Khan and Bibi may be permitted to serve the new sentences concurrent to their previous sentences, according to reports.

“This court, while passing sentences, has considered the old age of Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, as well as the fact that Bushra Imran Khan is a female,” Pakistani news organization Dawn reported Special Judge Central Shahrukh Arjumand said in a court order. “It is in considering of both said factors that a lenient view has been taken awarding a lesser punishment.”

Imran has been imprisoned since August 2023 on a 14-year sentence related to another corruption case, the same case that landed Bibi a seven-year jail sentence.

Khan also awaits trial on charges under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act because of riots in 2023 linked to his arrest for the litany of charges he faces, which include illegally receiving land worth $6.5 million and allegations that he “deliberately concealed” the details and value of gifts from foreign officials.

In Pakistan, politicians are required to return state gifts to the country’s treasury, but are permitted to buy them back. In the case of the Bulgari jewelry set, Khan and Bibi allegedly had the jewels undervalued to avoid paying what they are truly worth.

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers unhappy with Justice Department decisions to heavily redact or withhold documents from a legally mandated release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein threatened Saturday to launch impeachment proceedings against those responsible, including Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.

Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the omissions, while Democrats also accused the Justice Department of intentionally scrubbing the release of at least one image of President Trump, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggesting it could portend “one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

Trump administration officials have said the release fully complied with the law, and that its redactions were crafted only to protect victims of Epstein, a disgraced financier and convicted sex offender accused of abusing hundreds of women and girls before his death in 2019.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), an author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of the investigative trove, blasted Bondi in a social media video, accusing her of denying the existence of many of the records for months, only to push out “an incomplete release with too many redactions” in response to — and in violation of — the new law.

Khanna said he and the bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), were “exploring all options” for responding and forcing more disclosures, including by pursuing “the impeachment of people at Justice,” asking courts to hold officials blocking the release in contempt, and “referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice.”

“We will work with the survivors to demand the full release of these files,” Khanna said.

He later added in a CNN interview that he and Massie were drafting articles of impeachment against Bondi, though they had not decided whether to bring them forward.

Massie, in his own social media post, said Khanna was correct in rejecting the Friday release as insufficient, saying it “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.”

The lawmakers’ view that the Justice Department’s document dump failed to comply with the law echoed similar complaints across the political spectrum Saturday, as the full scope of redactions and other withholdings came into focus.

The frustration had already sharply escalated late Friday, after Fox News Digital reported that the names and identifiers of not just victims but of “politically exposed individuals and government officials” had been redacted from the records — which would violate the law, and which Justice Department officials denied.

Among the critics was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who cited the Fox reporting in an exasperated post late Friday to X.

“The whole point was NOT to protect the ‘politically exposed individuals and government officials.’ That’s exactly what MAGA has always wanted, that’s what drain the swamp actually means. It means expose them all, the rich powerful elites who are corrupt and commit crimes, NOT redact their names and protect them,” Greene wrote.

Senior Justice Department officials later called in to Fox News to dispute the report. But the removal of a file published in the Friday evening release, capturing a desk in Epstein’s home with a drawer filled of photos of Trump, reinforced bipartisan concerns that references to the president had been illegally withheld.

In a release of documents from the Epstein family estate by the House Oversight Committee this fall, Trump’s name was featured over 1,000 times — more than any other public figure.

“If they’re taking this down, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide,” Schumer wrote on X. “This could be one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

Several victims also said the release was insufficient. “It’s really kind of another slap in the face,” Alicia Arden, who went to the police to report that Epstein had abused her in 1997, told CNN. “I wanted all the files to come out, like they said that they were going to.”

Trump, who signed the act into law after having worked to block it from getting a vote, was conspicuously quiet on the matter. In a long speech in North Carolina on Friday night, he did not mention it.

However, White House officials and Justice Department leaders strongly pushed back against the notion that the release was somehow incomplete or out of compliance with the law, or that the names of politicians had been redacted.

“The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law — full stop,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche. “Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim.”

Other Republicans defended the administration. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, said the administration “is delivering unprecedented transparency in the Epstein case and will continue releasing documents.”

Epstein died in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He’d been convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what many condemned as a sweetheart plea deal for a well-connected and rich defendant.

Epstein’s crimes have attracted massive attention, including among many within Trump’s own political base, in part because of unanswered questions surrounding which of his many powerful friends may have also been implicated in crimes against children. Some of those questions have swirled around Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had what the president has described as a falling out.

Evidence has emerged in recent months that suggests Trump may have had knowledge of Epstein’s crimes during their friendship.

Epstein wrote in a 2019 email, released by the House Oversight Committee, that Trump “knew about the girls.” In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse girls, Epstein wrote that “the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”

Trump has ardently denied any wrongdoing.

The records released Friday contained few if any major new revelations, but did include a complaint against Epstein filed with the FBI back in 1996 — which the FBI did little with, substantiating longstanding fears among Epstein’s victims that his crimes could have been stopped years earlier.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the president’s most consistent critics, wrote on X that Bondi should appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain under oath the extensive redactions and omissions, which he called a “willful violation of the law.”

“The Trump Justice Department has had months to keep their promise to release all of the Epstein Files,” Schiff wrote. “Epstein’s survivors and the American people need answers now.”

In 2017, a reckoning over sexual violence called “#MeToo” swept the globe. Eight years later, has the movement done enough for survivors? And what will it take for some of the world’s most powerful men accused of sexual misconduct to face consequences?

This week on UpFront Marc Lamont Hill speaks to founder of the Me Too movement, Tarana Burke.

The Department of Justice has released files related to the late convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein after mounting pressure led President Donald Trump to sign the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month. Trump, who himself has been accused dozens of times of sexual assault and misconduct, has already appeared in photos, emails and other documents in connection with Epstein, causing a rift in his base. Other business elites, academics, politicians and world leaders have also been named in connection to Epstein. While some have faced minor consequences, only Ghislaine Maxwell has been criminally convicted as part of Epstein’s sex trafficking of minors. Will newly released documents lead to new convictions and genuine accountability for survivors?

Journalist and author Lou Cannon, who was widely considered the nation’s leading authority on the life and career of President Reagan, died Friday in a Santa Barbara hospice. He was 92.

His death was caused by complications from a stroke, his son Carl M. Cannon told the Washington Post, where his father served for years as a White House correspondent.

The elder Cannon covered Reagan’s two-term presidency in the 1980s, but his relationship with the enigmatic Republican leader went back to the 1960s, when Reagan moved from acting to politics.

Cannon interviewed Reagan more than 50 times and wrote five books about him, but still struggled to understand what made Reagan who he was.

“The more I wrote,” Cannon told the Reno Gazette-Journal in 2001, “the more I felt I didn’t know.”

Cannon was born in New York City and raised in Reno, Nev., where he attended the University of Nevada in Reno and later San Francisco State College.

After service in the U.S. Army, he became a reporter covering Reagan’s first years as governor of California for the San Jose Mercury News. In 1972, Cannon began working for the Washington Post as a political reporter.

Cannon recalled first encountering Reagan in 1965 while assigned to cover a lunch event for reporters and lobbyists and being surprised by Reagan’s command of the room when he spoke.

Reagan was beginning his campaign for governor by proving he could answer questions and “was not just an actor reading a script.” At the time, the word actor was “a synonym for airhead. Well, Reagan was no airhead,” Cannon said in a 2008 interview at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.

To Cannon’s surprise, the reporters and lobbyists mobbed Reagan after the event was over to get his autograph. Cannon introduced himself.

“I remember those steely eyes of his. I thought he had this great face, but his eyes are tough,” Cannon said. “His eyes are really something.”

On the phone later, Cannon’s editor asked him what he thought of Reagan. He replied, “I don’t know anything, but if I were running this thing, why would anybody want to run against somebody that everybody knows and everybody likes? Why would you want him to be your opponent?

“I predicted that Reagan was going to be president, but I didn’t have any idea he was going to be governor,” Cannon said. “I was just so struck by the fact that he impacted on people as, not like he was a politician, but like he was this celebrity, force of nature that people wanted to rub up against. It was like seeing Kennedy again. They wanted the aura, the sun.”

In 1966, Reagan was elected governor by a margin of nearly 1 million votes and Cannon found himself “writing about Ronald Reagan every day.”

Reagan’s political opponents in California and Washington consistently underestimated him, assuming the former actor could be easily beaten at the ballot box, Cannon said. Reagan ran for president unsuccessfully twice, but had the will to keep trying until he won — twice.

“Reagan was tough, and he was determined, and you couldn’t talk him out of doing what he wanted to do,” Cannon said. “Nancy couldn’t talk him out of what he wanted to do, for god’s sakes. And certainly no advisor could or no other candidate. Ronald Reagan wanted to be president of the United States.”

Cannon’s first book on the president, “Reagan,” was published in 1982. In 1991 he published “President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime,” which is regarded as a comprehensive biography of the 40th president.

Cannon also authored a book about the LAPD and the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, in addition to chronicling a range of tales over the years, including the federal bust of a 1970s heroin kingpin in Las Vegas.

Mr. Cannon’s first marriage, to Virginia Oprian, who helped him research his early books, ended in divorce. In 1985, he wed Mary Shinkwin, the Washington Post said. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children.

For months after the Palisades fire, many who had lost their homes eagerly awaited the Los Angeles Fire Department’s after-action report, which was expected to provide a frank evaluation of the agency’s handling of the disaster.

A first draft was completed by August, possibly earlier.

And then the deletions and other changes began — behind closed doors — in what amounted to an effort to downplay the failures of city and LAFD leadership in preparing for and fighting the Jan. 7 fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes, records obtained by The Times show.

In one instance, LAFD officials removed language saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast “did not align” with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days.

Instead, the final report said that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”

Another deleted passage in the report said that some crews waited more than an hour for an assignment the day of the fire. A section on “failures” was renamed “primary challenges,” and an item saying that crews and leaders had violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries was scratched.

Other changes in the report, which was overseen by then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva, seemed similarly intended to soften its impact and burnish the Fire Department’s image. Two drafts contain notes written in the margins, including a suggestion to replace the image on the cover page — which showed palm trees on fire against an orange sky — with a “positive” one, such as “firefighters on the frontline,” the note said. The final report’s cover displays the LAFD seal.

The Times obtained seven drafts of the report through the state Public Records Act. Only three of those drafts are marked with dates: Two versions are dated Aug. 25, and there is a draft from Oct. 6, two days before the LAFD released the final report to the public.

No names are attached to the edits. It is unclear if names were in the original documents and had been removed in the drafts given to The Times.

The deletions and revisions are likely to deepen concerns over the LAFD’s ability to acknowledge its mistakes before and during the blaze — and to avoid repeating them in the future. Already, Palisades fire victims have expressed outrage over unanswered questions and contradictory information about the LAFD’s preparations after the dangerous weather forecast, including how fire officials handled a smaller New Year’s Day blaze, called the Lachman fire, that rekindled into the massive Palisades fire six days later.

Some drafts described an on-duty LAFD captain calling Fire Station 23 in the Palisades on Jan. 7 to report that “the Lachman fire started up again,” indicating the captain’s belief that the Palisades fire was caused by a reignition of the earlier blaze.

The reference was deleted in one draft, then restored in the public version, which otherwise contains only a brief mention of the previous fire. Some have said that the after-action report’s failure to thoroughly examine the Lachman fire reignition was designed to shield LAFD leadership and Mayor Karen Bass’ administration from criticism and accountability.

Weeks after the report’s release, The Times reported that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area on Jan. 2, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. Another battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management section knew about the complaints for months, but the department kept that information out of the after-action report.

After The Times report, Bass asked Villanueva to “thoroughly investigate” the LAFD’s missteps in putting out the Lachman fire, which federal authorities say was intentionally set.

“A full understanding of the Lachman fire response is essential to an accurate accounting of what occurred during the January wildfires,” Bass wrote.

Fire Chief Jaime Moore, who started in the job last month, has been tasked with commissioning the independent investigation that Bass requested.

The LAFD did not answer detailed questions from The Times about the altered drafts, including queries about why the material about the reignition was removed, then brought back. Villanueva did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Bass said her office did not demand changes to the drafts and only asked the LAFD to confirm the accuracy of items such as how the weather and the department’s budget factored into the disaster.

“The report was written and edited by the Fire Department,” the spokesperson, Clara Karger, said in an email. “We did not red-line, review every page or review every draft of the report. We did not discuss the Lachman Fire because it was not part of the report.”

Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, told The Times that she reviewed a paper copy of a “working document” about a week before the final report was made public. She said she raised concerns with Villanueva and the city attorney’s office over the possibility that “material findings” were or would be changed. She also said she consulted a private attorney about her “obligations” as a commissioner overseeing the LAFD’s operations, though that conversation “had nothing to do with the after-action” report.

Hudley Hayes said she noticed only small differences between the final report and the draft she reviewed. For example, she said, “mistakes” had been changed to “challenges,” and names of firefighters had been removed.

“I was completely OK with it,” she said. “All the things I read in the final report did not in any way obfuscate anything, as far as I’m concerned.”

She reiterated her position that an examination of missteps during the Lachman fire did not belong in the after-action report, a view not shared by former LAFD chief officers interviewed by The Times.

“The after-action report should have gone back all the way to Dec. 31,” said former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford, who retired from the agency last year and is now emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol. “There are major gaps in this after-action report.”

Former LAFD Asst. Chief Patrick Butler, who is now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, agreed that the Lachman fire should have been addressed in the report and said the deletions were “a deliberate effort to hide the truth and cover up the facts.”

He said the removal of the reference to the LAFD’s violations of the national Standard Firefighting Orders and Watchouts was a “serious issue” because they were “written in the blood” of firefighters killed in the line of duty. Without citing the national guidelines, the final report said that the Palisades fire’s extraordinary nature “occasionally caused officers and firefighters to think and operate beyond standard safety protocols.”

The final after-action report does not mention that a person called authorities to report seeing smoke in the area on Jan. 3. The LAFD has since provided conflicting information about how it responded to that call.

Villanueva told The Times in October that firefighters returned to the burn area and “cold-trailed” an additional time, meaning they used their hands to feel for heat and dug out hot spots. But records showed they cleared the call within 34 minutes.

Fire officials did not answer questions from The Times about the discrepancy. In an emailed statement this week, the LAFD said crews had used remote cameras, walked around the burn site and used a 20-foot extension ladder to access a fenced-off area but did not see any smoke or fire.

“After an extensive investigation, the incident was determined to be a false alarm,” the statement said.

The most significant changes in the various iterations of the after-action report involved the LAFD’s deployment decisions before the fire, as the wind warnings became increasingly dire.

In a series of reports earlier this year, The Times found that top LAFD officials decided not to staff dozens of available engines that could have been pre-deployed to the Palisades and other areas flagged as high risk, as it had done in the past.

One draft contained a passage in the “failures” section on what the LAFD could have done: “If the Department had adequately augmented all available resources as done in years past in preparation for the weather event, the Department would have been required to recall members for all available positions unfilled by voluntary overtime, which would have allowed for all remaining resources to be staffed and available for augmentation, pre-deployment, and pre-positioning.” The draft said the decision was an attempt to be “fiscally responsible” that went against the department’s policy and procedures.

That language was absent in the final report, which said that the LAFD “balanced fiscal responsibility with proper preparation for predicted weather and fire behavior by following the LAFD predeployment matrix.”

Even with the deletions, the published report delivered a harsh critique of the LAFD’s performance during the Palisades fire, pointing to a disorganized response, failures in communication and chiefs who didn’t understand their roles. The report found that top commanders lacked a fundamental knowledge of wildland firefighting tactics, including “basic suppression techniques.”

A paperwork error resulted in the use of only a third of the state-funded resources that were available for pre-positioning in high-risk areas, the report said. And when the fire broke out on the morning of Jan. 7, the initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27.

There was confusion among firefighters over which radio channel to use. The report said that three L.A. County engines showed up within the first hour, requesting an assignment and receiving no reply. Four other LAFD engines waited 20 minutes without an assignment.

In the early afternoon, the staging area — where engines were checking in — was overrun by fire.

The report made 42 recommendations, ranging from establishing better communication channels to more training. In a television interview this month, Moore said the LAFD has adopted about three-quarters of them.

Dec. 19 (UPI) — House Democrats said they’re looking into legal options after U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department would release some but not all of the files related to its investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, missing a congressional deadline.

Blanche, in an appearance on Fox News Friday morning, said the department will release the remaining files “over the next couple of weeks,” citing the length of time it has taken for officials to go through each document and redact the names of victims.

“I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today,” he said.

“There’s a lot of eyes looking at these, and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials that we’re producing, that we’re protecting every single victim.”

President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed by Congress in November. The law gave the Justice Department 30 days to make the records “publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democratic on the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the Justice Department was in violation of federal law by not releasing all documents Friday. In a statement, they accused the Trump administration of covering up facts about the case.

“Courts around the country have repeatedly intervened when this administration has broken the law,” they said in a joint statement.

“We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law. The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ.”

Both chambers of Congress were nearly unanimous in supporting the bill — all but Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., voted in favor of it and five didn’t vote. The bill allowed for the Justice Department to redact the names of victims or information that would hinder active federal investigations. A summary of redactions, including the legal basis, must be provided to Congress.

Earlier in November, Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released some documents, which included emails between Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who helped Epstein sex traffic girls.

While at least one of the references is somewhat cryptic in its reference to Trump, others more openly appear to discuss what the president knew about Epstein’s scheme to bring women and underage girls to his private island for his friends to sexually abuse.

The committee released more documents Thursday evening, this time 68 photos from Epstein’s private island estate.

Among the high-profile people seen in photos with Epstein were Trump, Republican strategist Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and filmmaker Woody Allen. All have denied wrongdoing and none has been charged.

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan prison while awaiting trial.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government.

At her official campaign launch Dec. 13, Mayor Karen Bass told Angelenos that they face a simple decision.

After speaking about the Palisades fire, federal immigration raids and the homelessness and affordability crises, she turned to the primary election next June.

“This election will be a choice between working people and the billionaire class who treat public office as their next vanity project,” Bass told a crowd of a few hundred people at Los Angeles Trade Technical-College.

Attendees take their picture against a “photo booth” wall at Mayor Karen Bass’ reelection campaign kickoff rally.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

In one sentence, without uttering a single name, the mayor appeared to be taking a shot at three different men. Was she talking about President Trump? Mayoral hopeful Austin Beutner? Her previous opponent, the billionaire developer Rick Caruso?

Or how about all of the above, suggested Bass’ campaign spokesperson, Doug Herman.

The billionaire class certainly includes Caruso, who self-funded his 2022 campaign to the tune of more than $100 million. It also includes Trump, who the New York Times estimated could be worth more than $10 billion. Though the mayor is not running against Trump, she likes to cast herself in opposition him. And Beutner, a former Los Angeles schools superintendent, was once an investment banker, Herman pointed out.

Beutner confirmed to The Times that he is not a billionaire. To the contrary, Beutner said, he drives a 10-year-old Volkswagen Golf.

Herman said Angelenos don’t care if Beutner has billions or just a lot of millions.

“Whether you’re a billionaire or multimillionaire is not really important to someone having trouble getting by and playing by the rules,” Herman told The Times.

“I’m trying to find the polite words,” Beutner said when asked about Bass’ comments. “Frankly, I think it’s an attempt to distract people from her record or lack thereof.”

Caruso declined to comment.

In a speech at Bass’ campaign launch, City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez hammered the same point as the mayor.

City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez shows his support during Mayor Karen Bass’ reelection campaign kickoff rally at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“We’re always going to have rich old white men, the millionaires and billionaires — they think they can do it better,” he said. “They didn’t get it last time, and they’re not going to get it this time.”

Then, Soto-Martínez seemed to reference Beutner.

“Do you want a healthcare worker over a hedge fund manager?” he asked the crowd, to roaring applause (Bass used to work as a physician’s assistant, while Beutner founded the investment banking advisory group Evercore Partners).

With Bass’ reelection campaign underway, Beutner challenging her as a moderate and community organizer Rae Huang running to her left, Caruso could be the last major domino left to fall.

The Grove and Americana at Brand developer, who has been mulling a run for either governor or mayor (or neither), still has not revealed his plans for 2026.

Karen Bass supporters created signs for her reelection campaign kickoff rally.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn., was among the diverse array of Bass supporters gathered on stage at Trade-Tech to voice their endorsements.

Waldman told The Times that he is supporting the mayor in his personal capacity, though VICA has not yet endorsed.

In 2022, Waldman and VICA supported Caruso, and Waldman spoke at some Caruso events.

He said he switched to Bass this time partly because of his unhappiness with the $30-minimum wage for airport and hotel workers passed by the City Council earlier this year. Businesses cannot move quickly enough to raise worker wages without laying off other workers, he said.

Waldman said that Bass arranged for him to meet with Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who then introduced a motion that would phase in the minimum wage increase over a longer period. The current law brings the wage up to $30 by 2028, while Harris-Dawson wants the $30 minimum to start in 2030.

“Bass was instrumental in making that happen, and we appreciate that,” Waldman said.

Harris-Dawson, a Bass ally, was at the campaign kickoff but did not make a speech.

Some were not pleased with his minimum wage proposal. Yvonne Wheeler, who is president of the Los Angeles County Federal of Labor and was at the Bass event, called it “shameful.” Soto-Martínez, who co-sponsored the minimum wage ordinance, also opposes Harris-Dawson’s proposal.

Waldman said that Soto-Martínez refused to take a meeting with him during the minimum wage fight.

“Hugo and I come from two different worlds and see the world differently,” Waldman said. “Unfortunately, I am willing to talk to everybody, and he is not.”

But at the Bass campaign launch, the two men delivered speeches one right after the other. Waldman said the diversity of opinion among the mayor’s supporters is a good sign for her.

“It’s a broad coalition,” he said.

State of play

— AFTER THE FIRES: The Times posted a project called “After the Fires” online Wednesday, nearly a year after the Palisades and Eaton fires. The stories, which document mayoral missteps, changes at the LAFD, failed emergency alerts and more, will be published as a special section in Sunday’s print edition.

— VEGAS, BABY: Councilmember John Lee is facing a steep fine for his notorious 2017 trip to Las Vegas, with the city’s Ethics Commission saying he must pay $138,424 in a case involving pricey meals, casino chips and expensive nightclub “bottle service.” The commission doled out a punishment much harsher than that recommended by an administrative law judge. Lee vowed to keep fighting, calling the case “wasteful and political.”

— EX-MAYOR FOR GOVERNOR: Four Los Angeles City Council members — Harris-Dawson, Heather Hutt, Bob Blumenfield and Curren Price — threw their support behind former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to be the next California governor.

— POOLS OUT FOR WINTER: City swimming pools will be closed on Fridays “until further notice,” the Department of Recreation and Parks announced Monday. “These adjustments were necessary to continue operating within our available resources,” the department said on Instagram.

— HOT MIC: Bass was caught on a hot mic ripping into the city and county responses to the January wildfires. “Both sides botched it,” she said on “The Fifth Column” podcast, after she shook hands with the host and they continued chatting. The final minutes of the podcast were later deleted from YouTube, with Bass’ team confirming that her office had asked for the segment to be removed.

— HOMELESSNESS FUNDING: The Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency on Wednesday approved nearly $11.5 million in homeless prevention funds, the largest single allocation yet for the new agency.

— A YEAR OF JIM: After more than a year as the LAPD’s top cop, Chief Jim McDonnell is receiving mixed reviews. While violent crime is at historic lows, some say the LAPD is sliding back into its defiant culture of years past.

— “CALM AMIDST CHAOS”: LAFD spokesperson Erik Scott announced this week that he has written a “frontline memoir” about the January wildfires. The book is set to be released on the one-year anniversary of the Palisades fire.

— “THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING”: Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath got into a tiff on X over homelessness. After Bass published an op-ed in the Daily News saying that the county’s new Department of Homelessness is a bad idea, the supervisor shot back, calling the mayor’s track record on homelessness “indefensible.” Following the spat, City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado posted on X, “I fear the girls are fighting.” And Austin Beutner, who is running against Bass, responded with a nearly six-minute video criticizing the mayor’s record on homelessness.

— OVERSIGHT OVER?: Experts worry that effective civilian oversight of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department could be in jeopardy following a recent leadership exodus. A succession of legal challenges and funding cuts, coupled with what some say is resistance from county officials, raised concerns that long-fought gains in transparency are slipping away.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program did not conduct any new operations this week. The team “returned to previous Inside Safe operation locations, building relationships with unhoused Angelenos in the area to offer resources when available,” the mayor’s office said.
• On the docket next week: Mayoral candidate Rae Huang will host a text bank and volunteer meetup at Lawless Brewing on Monday, Dec. 22. The City Council remains in recess until Jan. 7.

Stay in touch

That’s it for now! We’ll be dark next week for the holidays. Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Footage shows a massive crowd filling streets to honour Sharif Osman Hadi, a leader of the 2024 student-led uprising, who was shot dead by a masked gunman while leaving a Dhaka mosque. Bangladesh’s interim leader Mohammad Yunus joined mourners days after Hadi died in a Singapore hospital.

When he was plucked by fate and his friend Pete Wilson from the political minor leagues to be a U.S. senator in January, 1991, John Seymour vowed to go back to Washington, shake up the congressional Establishment, make his mark for California and win election on his own.

After 22 months, the 54-year-old former Anaheim mayor is still struggling to forge a senatorial image of himself and his vision for California in the minds of voters.

His 59-year-old Democratic opponent, Dianne Feinstein, has coasted into the final week of the campaign with a commanding 54%-to-40% lead among likely voters surveyed by the Los Angeles Times Poll. Political experts credit her with building on her strong image from the 1990 contest for governor and conducting an error-free campaign that more often resembled that of a secure incumbent than the challenger.

The race for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Wilson had shaped up as a classic California contest featuring a scrappy appointed incumbent and a strong challenger known to many voters as the tough officeholder “forged from tragedy” when she was thrust into the leadership of San Francisco by the shooting death of Mayor George Moscone in 1978.

Some experts thought it would be a close rerun of Feinstein’s 1990 battle with Wilson, which she lost by only 3.5%.

But so far the race hasn’t gotten that close.

Feinstein has demonstrated the immense benefits of having run an earlier campaign for major statewide office: Building an image among voters in a state of 30 million residents and the financial base needed to field such a campaign.

In analyzing the contest Tuesday, political experts credited Feinstein with running a consummate professional effort, if not a spectacular one. But even more emphatically, they characterized the Republican campaign as a missed opportunity that failed to follow a basic rule of politics: A candidate must define himself or herself to the voters before waging a negative campaign on the opponent.

Going into the last week of the campaign, one-fourth of California’s voters still did not know who John Seymour was, according to statewide opinion polls. Even more didn’t know much about him or why they should vote for him.

What’s more, Feinstein has demonstrated a Teflon resistance to attack. When Seymour attacked her, he often appeared strident or petty as Feinstein reacted indignantly and emerged all the stronger.

For 22 months, Seymour has been dogged and tireless, commuting regularly to Washington and campaigning throughout California with the tough can-do talk of a former Marine and a successful Orange County Realtor–the sort of man who’s not worried about the threat of Mexican competition under a free trade agreement because “we’ll kick their butts.”

He hounded Feinstein to hold more debates and pounded her with tough, largely negative television commercials.

His ads attacked her on all the perceived weaknesses of the tough 1990 campaign for governor: Her 1990 campaign’s legal problems, the potential conflict of interest of her banker-husband’s investments and her former position against the death penalty, which changed nearly 20 years ago.

Seymour added the hidden bomb of his opposition research: the fact that the five-member state women’s parole board on which Feinstein served from 1960 to 1966 paroled 21 convicted murderers out of more than 5,000 cases considered. By last week, Seymour even tried to link those 30-year-old decisions to the prospect that a convicted murderer like Robert Alton Harris, who was executed at San Quentin in April, might be set loose.

Essentially, Seymour duplicated the 1990 Wilson campaign playbook, Feinstein media adviser Bill Carrick said.

“But it’s 1992 not 1990,” Carrick said. “And in 1990, we never saw that crime as an issue made much difference. It’s less important in a Senate race.”

While Seymour tried to portray himself as an outsider, Feinstein attacked him as just another incumbent and, going to the heart of his failure to define himself to voters, asked: “How much do you know about Sen. John Seymour?”

Seymour, the ad said, was “a Washington big spender” who also had voted to raise his own pay four times. In fact, he had voted to raise his pay as a state senator, but not in the U.S. Senate, where he denounced the congressional pay raise and refused to accept it.

While Feinstein seemed relatively impervious to his ads, hers seemed to be finding the mark. The Times Poll found that in the last month, the number of respondents who had an unfavorable impression of Seymour had soared to 39%, an increase of 18 points.

“One has to infer they haven’t run a very good campaign,” Times Poll Director John Brennan said.

Veteran California pollster and analyst Mervin Field said: “He was unknown. He got appointed. He is unelected. He hasn’t distinguished himself in the Senate.”

UC Berkeley political science professor Bruce Cain said Seymour has been “invisible” as a senator and suffers “grayness” as a candidate.

Seymour insists he’s closing the gap. And on Tuesday, campaign manager Richard McBride said: “We’re fine, right where we are. Our tracking shows a lot of volatility among voters out there.”

But other polls point to a Feinstein victory Tuesday that would gain her some measure of revenge for her narrow loss of the governorship to Republican Wilson two years ago.

It was that loss that provided Feinstein her Senate opportunity. Before Wilson could take office as governor in January, 1991, he had to resign the Senate seat to which he was reelected for a six-year term in 1988. As governor, Wilson appointed a successor until the next general election. The winner Tuesday will serve the final two years of Wilson’s term and the seat will come up again in 1994 for a regular six-year stint.

Wilson angered GOP conservatives and puzzled nearly everyone else when he turned to Seymour, who had served eight years as a state senator but was not well known statewide. He had lost the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 1990 to a fellow Orange County senator.

Seymour bounded off to Washington, saying that to win the 1992 election, “John Seymour has got to perform and he’s got to make his mark very quickly.”

Seymour’s best opportunity to make a name for himself was to resolve two major California issues that had long simmered in Congress: the California desert wilderness bill and legislation to reform the federal Central Valley water project.

But Seymour presided over the death of the desert bill in 1991 because, Democratic critics contend, of his loyalty to ranching and mining interests.

In 1992, Seymour seized on Central Valley Project reform as his key issue. He bragged about muscling a water bill favorable to California agribusiness through the Senate over the objections of Senate giants like Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and Bennett Johnston (D-La.). But Seymour’s measure was ignored in the House and Seymour was shut out of Senate-House conference sessions where the final version of the bill was drafted by others.

Seymour denounced the deal as being unfair to California farmers while he repeatedly misstated the dire effect it would have on California water supplies. With Wilson’s backing, Seymour implored President Bush to veto the measure. A final ignominy for Seymour would be Bush’s signature on the bill just a few days before the election.

Feinstein used her primary to reinforce the positive image and message of change she carried over from the 1990 race. She went after Seymour in the fall as an insider incumbent and capitalized on the “year of the woman,” but also was careful to avoid damaging mistakes.

Cain summed it up: “Dianne Feinstein has a formula which is well suited to California, which is a moderate to conservative Democrat who is pro-choice and pro-environment but also pro-business, for fiscal responsibility and the death penalty.”

“That formula has served her well,” Cain added. “She consolidated that image in 1990 and carried it into this campaign.”

WASHINGTON — The idea of requiring new state and local workers to participate in the federal Social Security program, a provision of the new House budget offer, is likely to ignite strong opposition in California, Rep. Bobbi Fiedler (R-Northridge) said Tuesday.

Only a third of the state’s 1.5 million public employees are covered by Social Security and those who are see their pensions reduced by up to $133 a month, according to state figures provided to Fiedler.

Public employees in California already are pressing a legal challenge to a federal law saying they cannot pull out of the system.

The idea of including newly hired state and local workers in Social Security is drawing increasing support on Capitol Hill as Congress looks for new ways to cut the deficit. Already endorsed in the Senate by Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), it would reduce the deficit by $200 million next year.

Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Noam Chomsky and Woody Allen were among the familiar faces in the latest batch of photographs released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee in connection to the late Jeffrey Epstein. With the Justice Department preparing to make additional files public, the images underscore an uncomfortable truth for us all: The convicted sex offender moved comfortably among some of the most intelligent men in the world. Rhodes scholars, technology leaders and artists.

Also in the release was a photograph of a woman’s lower leg and foot on what appears to be a bed, with a paperback copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” visible in the background. The 1955 novel centers on a middle-aged man’s sexual obsession with a 12-year-old girl. Epstein, a serial sexual abuser, famously nicknamed one of his private planes “The Lolita Express.” And we are to believe that some of the globe’s brightest minds could not put the dots together?

Donald Trump, who once described himself as “a very stable genius,” included.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Later, the two had a public falling out, and Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Great. But denial after the fact is only one side of this story. The other is harder to digest: Either the self-proclaimed “very stable genius” spent nearly two decades around Epstein without recognizing what was happening in plain sight — or he recognized it and chose silence. Neither explanation reflects on intelligence as much as it does on character. No wonder Trump’s defenders keep raising the most overused word in American politics today: hoax.

“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “Here’s the reality: Democrats like Stacey Plaskett and Hakeem Jeffries were soliciting money and meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender. The Democrat hoax against President Trump has been repeatedly debunked, and the Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends.”

Jackson has a point.

Democrats were cherry-picking which photos to release, even if many of the men pictured were aligned with progressives. That includes the president, who was a Democrat when he and Epstein were running together in New York in the 2000s. Trump didn’t register as a Republican until 2009. Now whether the choice of photos and timing was designed to shield political friends or weaponize against perceived enemies isn’t clear. What is clear is that it doesn’t take a genius to see that none of this is a hoax.

The victims are real. The flight logs are real. The millions that flowed into Epstein’s bank account have wire transfer confirmation numbers that can be traced. What Democrats are doing with the information is politics as usual. And you don’t want politics to dictate who gets justice and who gets vilified.

Whatever the politicians’ intentions, Americans can decide how to react to the disclosures. And what the men around Epstein did with the information they gathered on his jet or his island fits squarely at the heart of the national conversation about masculinity. What kind of men could allow such abuse to continue?

I’m not saying the intelligent men in Epstein’s ecosystem did something criminal, but the lack of whistleblowing before his arrest raises questions about their fortitude for right and wrong. And the Trump White House trying to characterize this conversation as a partisan witch hunt — a hoax — is an ineffective strategy because the pattern with their use of that word is so clear.

We saw what happened on Jan. 6, and Trump tells us the investigation is a hoax. We hear the recording of him pressuring Georgia officials to find votes, and he tells us the investigation is a hoax. Trump campaigned on affordability issues — the cost of bacon, no taxes on tips — but now that he’s in office such talk is a hoax by Democrats. As if we don’t know the price of groceries in real time. Ten years ago, Trump told us he had proof that President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. We’re still waiting.

In his book, “Art of the Deal,” Trump framed his lies as “truthful hyperbole” but by now we should understand for him hyperbole matters more than truth — and his felony convictions confirm that some of his claims were indeed simply false.

So if there is a hoax, it is the notion that none of the brilliant men whom Epstein kept in his orbit had any idea what was going on.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

The United States is reviving a policy first set out in the 1800s that treats Latin America as its strategic sphere of influence. As Washington expands maritime operations in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, critics warn of legal violations and rising regional instability.

Uruguay’s Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin joins Talk to Al Jazeera to discuss US strikes, Venezuela, migration pressures, and China’s growing role in the region — and whether diplomacy can still prevent escalation in a hemisphere shaped once again by power politics.

Dec. 19 (UPI) — Attorneys for former special counsel Jack Smith again asked for a public hearing after he testified behind closed doors about his efforts to prosecute President Donald Trump.

The House Judiciary Committee deposed Smith on Wednesday during a closed hearing that lasted for about nine hours, and his attorneys wrote committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Thursday to ask for a public hearing, CBS News reported.

“Mr. Smith welcomed this opportunity and hopes that it will serve to correct the many mischaracterizations about the work of the Special Counsel’s Office,” said Smith’s attorneys, Peter Koski and Lanny Breuer.

“During the investigation of President Trump, Mr. Smith steadfastly followed Justice Department policies, observed all legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law,” they wrote in their joint letter to Jordan.

“He stands by his decisions,” they said, adding that an open hearing would enable the public to hear Smith directly and not through third-party accounts, according to Politico.

Koski and Breuer also asked Jordan and the committee to release a full recording of Smith’s deposition, during which he said evidence showed Trump illegally mishandled classified documents and tried to overturn the 2020 election results.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Smith told the committee that he would charge Trump again based on the same evidence if given the chance to do so.

Jordan and other House Republicans accused Smith of “prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional abuses” while investigating Trump on behalf of the Biden administration.

They claim Smith tried to silence the president by manipulating evidence against him and raiding his Mar-A-Lago estate without cause after other federal prosecutors said there was no justification to do so, Axios reported.

Neither the classified documents case nor the alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results case reached the trial stage.

Relatives of the late President John F Kennedy slammed the centre’s board, saying the name cannot be changed under law.

Donald Trump’s name has been added to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, just one day after his hand-picked board members controversially voted to rename the arts venue, the first time a national institution has been named after a sitting US president.

Workmen added metal lettering to the building’s exterior on Friday that declared, “The Donald J Trump and the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

“Today, we proudly unveil the updated exterior designation – honoring the leadership of President Donald J Trump and the enduring legacy of John F Kennedy,” the centre said on social media.

Family members of former President Kennedy, who was killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1963, as well as historians and Democratic lawmakers, have criticised the move, saying only an act of Congress could alter the name of the centre, which was designated as a living memorial to Kennedy a year after his assassination.

“The Kennedy Center was named by law. To change the name would require a revision of that 1964 law,” Ray Smock, a former House of Representatives historian, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency. “The Kennedy Center board is not a lawmaking entity. Congress makes laws,” Smock said.

The AP reports that the law naming the centre explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the centre into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

Kerry Kennedy, a niece of former President Kennedy, said in a post on social media that she will remove Trump’s name herself when his term as president ends.

“Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building, but I’m going to need help holding the ladder. Are you in?” she wrote on X.

Naming a national institution after a sitting president is unprecedented in US history. Landmarks such as the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and indeed, the Kennedy Center were all named after the deaths of the renowned US leaders.

Kennedy’s grandnephew, former Congressman Joe Kennedy III, also said the Kennedy Center, like the Lincoln Memorial, was a “living memorial to a fallen president” and cannot be renamed, “no matter what anyone says”.

Trump claimed on Thursday that he was “surprised” by the renaming of the Kennedy Center, even though he personally purged the centre’s previous board after calling it “too woke”.

He has also previously spoken about having his name added to the centre and appointed himself chairman of the centre’s board earlier this year.

Trump has sought to rein in the Kennedy Center since the start of his second term as part of an assault on cultural institutions that his administration has accused of being too left-wing.

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.”

The administration of President Donald Trump has announced it will halt the visa lottery programme that allowed the suspect in the Brown University shooting to enter the United States.

The lottery awards approximately 50,000 immigrant visas each year, according to the US government.

But Trump has long opposed the Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme, sometimes known as the DV Programme. On Friday, his Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem revealed that he had directed her to end the lottery immediately.

She also identified the suspect as Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who received his green card — a certificate for permanent residency — through the lottery in 2017.

“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem wrote in her social media statement.

“At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS [US Citizenship and Immigration Services] to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.”

Campaign to end visa lottery

Friday’s announcement is not the first time Trump has sought to wind down the diversity visa lottery.

Trump has long sought to narrow the country’s pathways to legal immigration, and he has used crime as a pretext for doing so.

Noem herself pointed out that, in 2017, Trump “fought” to shut down the diversity visa lottery in the wake of an attack in New York City that saw a truck ram into a crowd of people, killing eight.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in December 2017, Trump — then in his first term as president — called on Congress to “end the visa lottery system”.

“They have a lottery. You pick people. Do you think the country is giving us their best people? No,” Trump said.

“What kind of a system is that? They come in by lottery. They give us their worst people.”

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme was established in 1990 to ensure applicants from underrepresented countries had access to the US immigration system.

Immigration rights advocates have long argued that pathways to permanent residency are narrow for those who do not already have a spouse, relatives or some other kind of sponsor in the country.

The visa lottery helps to answer that need, by creating an alternative route to residency.

The lottery system selects visa recipients randomly, but critics argue it remains a long-shot avenue to gain US residency, and even successful applicants must still pass a rigorous screening process after the lottery.

While the Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme used to accept 55,000 applicants each year, in 2000 that number was lowered to its current level, according to the American Immigration Council.

A suspect identified

Friday’s decision to immediately suspend the lottery comes as new details emerge about Neves Valente, a physics scholar found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire after a nationwide manhunt.

The search began on December 13, when gunfire erupted on the campus of Brown University, a prestigious Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island.

The school’s fall semester was at its conclusion, and the exam period had begun. Students in the Barus and Holley physics laboratory were taking their end-of-course exams when a suspect, clad in black, entered the building and opened fire, killing two students and injuring nine others.

The physics lab was close to the edge of campus, and the suspect was able to escape on foot undetected.

The manhunt included several false starts, as authorities said they quickly detained a person of interest, only to release the individual without charges.

Then, on November 15, law enforcement officials announced that a plasma physics scholar named Nuno Loureiro had been found dead at his home, after suffering multiple gunshot wounds.

Loureiro was also a Portuguese immigrant, and he served as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a highly regarded science institution.

It was not immediately clear that the two shooting incidents were related, and authorities faced pressure to bring the Brown University shooter to justice, as the manhunt dragged on.

But on Thursday night, officials announced they had discovered Neves Valente dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and that they believed him to be responsible for both attacks.

Neves Valente had previously studied in a PhD programme at Brown, though he did not complete his degree, and he had been Loureiro’s classmate in Portugal.

Visa revocations

The administration of President Trump has a track record of revoking visas and terminating immigration programmes after high-profile attacks.

On November 26, for example, two National Guard members from West Virginia were shot while on patrol in Washington, DC, as part of Trump’s crime crackdown in the capital.

The suspect in that case was identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who had previously worked with allied forces during the US-led war in Afghanistan.

One of the National Guard soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, ultimately died from her wounds.

Trump responded to the incident by announcing he was halting all visa applications and asylum requests from Afghan nationals, despite outcry from human rights and veterans groups.

The Republican leader also said he would pursue a “permanent pause” on entry for immigrants from “all third-world countries”.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the Trump White House tightened entry for 19 countries it had identified in June as “high risk” and expanded the list of restrictions to include 20 more countries.

Trump has also taken targeted actions to strip individuals of their immigration status following shootings.

After the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in September, the Trump administration announced it was yanking visas from six foreign nationals who posted disrespectful comments or memes online about the attack. They hailed from countries ranging from Argentina to Brazil, Germany to Paraguay.

Free-speech advocates said the decision was a clear violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the freedom of expression.

But the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to boot foreign nationals that do not align with its policy priorities.

“Aliens who take advantage of America’s hospitality while celebrating the assassination of our citizens will be removed,” the US State Department wrote in response.

The suspect in the Kirk shooting is a 22-year-old US citizen named Tyler James Robinson from Utah.

Studies have repeatedly shown that US-born citizens are more likely to commit violent crimes than immigrants.

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for President Trump urged a federal judge on Friday to rule that Trump is entitled to presidential immunity from civil claims that he instigated a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta didn’t rule from the bench after hearing arguments from Trump attorneys and lawyers for Democratic members of Congress who sued the Republican president and allies over the Jan. 6. 2021, attack.

Trump spoke to a crowd of his supporters at the “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House before the mob’s attack disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Trump’s attorneys argue that his conduct leading up to Jan. 6 and on the day of the riot is protected by presidential immunity because he was acting in his official capacity.

“The entire point of immunity is to give the president clarity to speak in the moment as the commander-in-chief,” Trump attorney Joshua Halpern told the judge.

The lawmakers’ lawyers argue Trump can’t prove he was acting entirely in his official capacity rather than as an office-seeking private individual. And the U.S. Supreme Court has held that office-seeking conduct falls outside the scope of presidential immunity, they contend.

“President Trump has the burden of proof here,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Joseph Sellers. “We submit that he hasn’t come anywhere close to satisfying that burden.”

At the end of Friday’s hearing, Mehta said the arguments gave him “a lot to think about” and he would rule “as soon as we can.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chaired the House Homeland Security Committee, sued Trump, his personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani and members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers extremist groups over the Jan. 6 riot. Other Democratic members of Congress later joined the litigation.

The civil claims survived Trump’s sweeping act of clemency on the first day of his second term, when he pardoned, commuted prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of all 1,500-plus criminal cases stemming from the Capitol siege. Over 100 police officers were injured while defending the Capitol from rioters.

Halpern said immunity enables the president to act “boldly and fearlessly.”

“Immunity exists to protect the president’s prerogatives,” he said.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argue that the context and circumstances of the president’s remarks on Jan. 6 — not just the content of his words — are key to establishing whether he is immune from liability.

“You have to look at what happened leading up to January 6th,” Sellers said.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

Dec. 19 (UPI) — enRepublican U.S. House Rep. Elise Stefanik on Friday announced she was ending her run for New York governor after 1 1/2 months and won’t seek another term in Congress.

On Nov. 7, On Nov. 7, Stefanik launched a campaign bid in an effort to challenge Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in November 2026.

“While spending precious time with my family this Christmas season, I have made the decision to suspend my campaign for Governor and will not seek re-election to Congress,” Stefanik, 41, wrote on X. “I did not come to this decision lightly for our family.

“I am truly humbled and grateful for the historic and overwhelming support from Republicans, Conservatives, Independents, and Democrats all across the state for our campaign to Save New York.”

Stefanik is married to Matthew Manda, who works in marketing and communication, and they have a 4-year-old son.

“And while many know me as Congresswoman, my most important title is Mom,” she wrote. “I believe that being a parent is life’s greatest gift and greatest responsibility. I have thought deeply about this and I know that as a mother, I will feel profound regret if I don’t further focus on my young son’s safety, growth, and happiness – particularly at his tender age.”

Her main primary opposition was Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who announced his run 10 days ago.

“However, as we have seen in past elections, while we would have overwhelmingly won this primary, it is not an effective use of our time or your generous resources to spend the first half of next year in an unnecessary and protracted Republican primary, especially in a challenging state like New York,” Stefanik wrote.

The last Republican governor in New York was George Pataki, who served three terms from 1995 to 2006.

The last time a Republican presidential candidate won New York was in 1984, when incumbent Ronald Reagan defeated Democrat Walter Mondale.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the state by 13 points, down from former President Joe Biden‘s 23-point victory in 2000.

“Elise Stefanik has finally acknowledged reality: If you run against Governor Kathy Hochul, you are going to lose,” Hochul spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki told Politico. “As Donald Trump raises costs on New Yorkers and targets this state relentlessly, Governor Hochul has cut middle-class taxes, put money back in New Yorkers’ pockets, and fought this administration and won when New York has come under attack.”

Stefanik has represented the rural conservative upstate New York district since 2014, becoming the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at that time.

The 21st Congressional District covers the northernmost part of the state, bordering Canada to the north and Vermont to the east. Major cities include Plattsburgh, Watertown, Glens Falls, Ogdensburg and Rome.

In November 2024, she was overwhelmingly re-elected by 24 percentage points as Trump carried the conservative region by more than 20 points.

When President Trump was elected president last November, he nominated her to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. But the nomination was pulled because of the narrow Republican edge in the House, with Trump saying it was “essential that we maintain EVERY Republican seat in Congress.”

Hochul would have called for a special election.

Republicans now have a 220-213 advantage with two vacancies in seats by Democrats who have died.

Stefanik rose in House leadership, serving as the fourth-ranking House Republican, a position she first attained in May 2021 by replacing Liz Cheney. She was succeeded in this specific role by Lisa McClain for the 119th Congress.

After her nomination was pulled, Speaker Mike Johnson named her chairwoman of House Republican Leadership.

She originally was a critic of Trump but became one of his most vocal allies.

Stefanik fell a little out of favor with the president after she called New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani a “jihadist.”

During a meeting with Mamdan in the White House, the president reduced to label the Democratic socialist that description. He is a Muslim and South Asian.

Trump hadn’t endorsed either candidate, including when Stefanik was in the White House’s Oval Office when he signed legislation awarding the 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team the Congressional Gold Medal. The teams won the gold medal in Lake Place, which includes Stefdanik’s district.

Ed Cox, chairman of the New York Republican Party, endorsed Blackman after Stefanik’s decision. In a statement, he also said Stefanik would “remain a leader in our party and a powerful voice for our principles. We respect her decision and thank her for her efforts.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt served as Stefanik’s communications director from 2020-23.

“Elise Stefanik has been an incredible advocate for the people of her district in Upstate New York, and she will always be a true friend to President Trump,” she posted on X. “On a personal note, Elise is my former boss. She is a great leader, and an even better person. We love you, posted.

MILWAUKEE — A jury found a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal authorities guilty of obstruction Thursday, marking a victory for President Trump as he continues his sweeping immigration crackdown across the country.

Federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction, a felony, and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, in April. The jury acquitted her on the concealment count, but she still faces up to five years in prison on the obstruction count.

The jury returned the verdicts after deliberating for six hours. Dugan faces up to five years in prison when she’s sentenced, but no date had been set as of late Thursday evening.

The case inflamed tensions over Trump’s immigration crackdown, with his administration branding Dugan an activist judge and Democrats countering that the administration was trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to the operation.

Dugan and her attorneys left the courtroom, ducked into a side conference room and closed the door without speaking to reporters. Steve Biskupic, her lead attorney, later told reporters that he was disappointed with the ruling and didn’t understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were virtually the same.

U.S. Atty. Brad Schimel denied the case was political and urged people to accept the verdict peacefully. He said courthouse arrests are safer because people are screened for weapons and it isn’t unfair for law enforcement to arrest wanted people in courthouses.

“Some have sought to make this about a larger political battle,” Schimel said. “While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day, a single bad day, in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil. Nor is she a martyr for some greater cause.”

U.S. Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche praised the verdict on X, saying nobody is above the law, even judges.

According to court filings that include an FBI affidavit and a federal grand jury indictment, immigration authorities traveled to the Milwaukee County courthouse on April 18 after learning 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case.

Dugan learned that agents were in the corridor outside her courtroom waiting for Flores-Ruiz. She left the courtroom to confront them, falsely telling them their administrative warrant for Flores-Ruiz wasn’t sufficient grounds to arrest him and directing them to go to the chief judge’s office.

While the agents were gone, she addressed Flores-Ruiz’s case off the record, told his attorney that he could attend his next hearing via Zoom and led Flores-Ruiz and the attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November he had been deported.

Prosecutors worked during Dugan’s trial to show that she directed agents to the chief judge’s office to create an opening for Flores-Ruiz to escape.

An FBI agent who led the investigation testified that after agents left the corridor, she immediately moved Flores-Ruiz’s case to the top of her docket, told him that he could appear for his next hearing via Zoom and led him out the private door.

Prosecutors also played audio recordings from her courtroom in which she can be heard telling her court reporter that she’d take “the heat” for leading Flores-Ruiz out the back.

Her attorneys countered that she was trying to follow courthouse protocols that called for court employees to report any immigration agents to their supervisors and she didn’t intentionally try to obstruct the arrest team.

Richmond writes for the Associated Press.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Rep. Elise Stefanik announced Friday that she is suspending her campaign for New York governor and will not seek reelection to Congress, bowing out of the race in a surprise statement that said “it is not an effective use of our time” to stay in what was expected to be a bruising Republican primary.

Stefanik, a Republican ally of President Trump, said in a post on X that she was confident of her chances in the primary against Bruce Blakeman, a Republican county official in New York City’s suburbs. But she said she wanted to spend more time with her young son and family.

“I have thought deeply about this and I know that as a mother, I will feel profound regret if I don’t further focus on my young son’s safety, growth, and happiness — particularly at his tender age,” she said.

Stefanik has been an intense critic of incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is also seeking reelection but faces a primary challenge from her own lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado.

The announcement marks an abrupt end, at least for now, for a once-promising career for Stefanik. She was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress when she won her first campaign in 2014 at just 30 years old, representing a new generation of Republicans making inroads in Washington. She ultimately rose to her party’s leadership in the House when she became the chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021.

First viewed as a moderate when she came to Washington, Stefanik became far more conservative as Trump began to dominate the party. Once someone who refused to say Trump’s name, she became one of his top defenders during his first impeachment inquiry. She would go on to vote against certifying the 2020 election results, even after a violent mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Stefanik was expected to have a bitter Republican primary against Blakeman, who also counts himself as an ally of Trump. The president had so far seemed keen on avoiding picking a side in the race, telling reporters recently: “He’s great, and she’s great. They’re both great people.”

Stefanik’s decision follows a clash with Speaker Mike Johnson, whom she accused of lying before embarking on a series of media interviews criticizing him. In one with the Wall Street Journal, she called Johnson a “political novice” and said he wouldn’t be reelected speaker if the vote were held today.

The tumultuous early December episode appeared to cool when Johnson said he and Stefanik had a “great talk.”

“I called her and I said, ‘Why wouldn’t you just come to me, you know?’” Johnson said. “So we had some intense fellowship about that.”

Still, Stefanik, the chairwoman of the House Republican leadership, has not fully walked back her criticisms. A Dec. 2 social media post remains online in which, after a provision she championed was omitted from a defense authorization bill, Stefanik accused Johnson of falsely claiming he was unaware of it, calling it “more lies from the Speaker.”

State Republican Chairman Ed Cox said the party respected Stefanik’s decision and thanked her for her efforts.

“Bruce Blakeman has my endorsement and I urge our State Committee and party leaders to join me,” Cox said in a prepared statement. “Bruce is a fighter who has proven he knows how to win in difficult political terrain.”

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Steven Sloan and Joey Cappelletti contributed from Washington.

Dec. 19 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that U.S. negotiators have made “progress” attempting to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, but ultimately “it’s not our war.”

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was one of several global issues Rubio addressed during his 2-hour year-end news conference with reporters. He said despite the progress in negotiations, “we have a ways to go” to end the nearly four-year war in eastern Europe.

“And obviously, the hardest issues are always the last issues,” he said during the briefing.

“Maybe that happens this week, maybe that happens next month, maybe that’s not ready for a few months,” Rubio said of a deal.

His comments came ahead of a weekend meeting in Miami between U.S. and Russian negotiators. He said that while the United States is trying to work on a deal that would make both parties happy, he’s not willing to force a plan.

“It’s not our war. It’s a war on another continent.

“We can’t force Ukraine to make a deal. We can’t force Russia to make a deal. They have to want to make a deal.”

White House officials said they were optimistic this weekend’s meeting would result in an agreement. Previous talks resulted in about “90%” consensus on terms, the officials told The Hill.

Those terms included a multi-national force deployed to Ukraine to respond to acts of aggression against the country in the future. Earlier this week, European leaders pledged to provide military support to Ukraine in protection against Russia, however Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky conceded over the weekend his country may have to give up its dream of joining NATO to end the war.

As peace talks have gone on, U.S. negotiators have put pressure on Ukraine to make more concessions to Russia, which has remained staunch in its demands, which including giving up land. Politico reported that the Trump administration believes Russia will accept EU membership for Ukraine as well as offers of mutual defense from the United States and European countries.