Free food boxes are distributed to those in need at a large-scale drive-through food distribution at Exposition Park, in response to the federal government shutdown and SNAP/CalFresh food benefits delays, on Nov. 11, 2025, in Los Angeles. Mario Tama/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration’s claim that states were “unauthorized” to begin issuing full SNAP benefits over the weekend is “untethered to the factual record,” a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits the Trump administration from trying to force states to “undo” benefits that they began disbursing over the weekend.
She also ordered the administration to ensure that the emergency funds for SNAP — which cover about 65% of November benefits — are made available to states by Thursday.
With the government shutdown nearing an end, the ruling appears unlikely to immediately change the status of the benefits, though it supports the Democratic state officials who began dispensing benefits.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that full SNAP benefits will be paid out once the shutdown is resolved.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, notified states that it was “working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances” to comply with an order from U.S. District Judge McConnell that the Trump administration fully fund SNAP with emergency funds.
But the USDA backtracked the next day, telling states they must “immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025,” with the administration saying the full SNAP payments by states were “unauthorized.”
Judge Talwani, in her ruling Wednesday, said the Trump administration “confused the record” by offering contradictory guidance.
“In light of this record, the court finds that USDA’s assertion — that the States took ‘unauthorized’ action when they were complying with a court order that had not yet been stayed and with the USDA’s own directive — untethered to the factual record,” she wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — Top administration officials met with Rep. Lauren Boebert Wednesday morning about the effort to force a House vote on the release of Justice Department’s Epstein files, multiple sources told ABC News.
The meeting, with top White House and Justice Department officials, was part of an effort to get Boebert to remove her name from the petition to release the files, the sources said.
It came just hours before House Speaker Mike Johnson was to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who has said she intends to add the final signature to that petition to force a vote on the release of the files.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy AG Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel were among those present for the meeting, which occurred at the White House, the sources said.
It wasn’t immediately clear following the meeting whether Boebert had decided to remove her name, the sources said. Boebert is among four Republicans who have signed onto the petition. The others are Reps. Thomas Massie, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The White House and Boebert’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
CNN was first to report that a meeting was planned for Wednesday.
The Trump administration has been dealing with the fallout from its decision not to release materials related to the investigation into Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in jail in 2019, following the blowback it received from MAGA supporters after it announced in July that no additional files would be released.
Travelers walk through Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Nov. 11, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — At least 893 flights were canceled in the United States on Wednesday morning, with departures from the busy hubs of Chicago, Denver and Atlanta leading the list of the most cancellations, according to FlightAware.
Another 1,117 flights had been delayed as of about 1 p.m. ET, according to FlightAware.
Chicago O’Hare International topped the tracker’s list of cancellations, with 45 as of about 1 p.m. local time. Next was Denver with 43 and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson with 37.
Wednesday’s flight cancellations appeared set to continue a dayslong streak of headaches at American airports, which were operating under duress amid a federal government shutdown.
The cancellations and delays have slowly crept down throughout the week, however, as Congress appeared ready to end the shutdown. The House of Representatives was set to vote on the bill Wednesday night.
As of 8:30 a.m. ET, there were no staffing issues with the exception of the ongoing shortage unrelated to the shutdown at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company.
More than 1,200 flights in the U.S. were canceled on Tuesday, while another 2,600 were delayed. Winter weather that caused headaches in the Midwest and East on Monday and Tuesday were also no longer a factor for airports on Wednesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration continues to limit capacity at 40 major U.S. airports. Many federal employees, including Transportation Security Administration staffers, were working without pay as the partisan impasse dragged on in Washington.
And while things have improved, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned the cancellations could cause major issues this weekend if the shutdown does not come to an end.
“If the government doesn’t open, it’s going to radically slow down,” Duffy said during a press conference on Tuesday. “If this doesn’t open, you might have airlines that say, ‘We’re going to ground our planes.’ That’s how serious this is.”
Airlines have not received any guidance on whether flight reductions will be adjusted once the shutdown ends, according to Chris Sununu, the president and CEO of Airlines for America, a trade association representing U.S. carriers.
Unless another directive is issued by the FAA, airlines plan to implement an 8% flight reduction on Thursday and a 10% reduction on Friday, Sununu said.
Once the government shutdown ends, it will take about a week before air travel operations return to normal, Sununu said. If the shutdown ends this week, smooth travel is expected over the Thanksgiving holiday, he said.
“There’s still plenty of time to make sure that everything over the Thanksgiving week goes off as originally planned,” Sununu said during a press conference on Wednesday.
(SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif.) — Authorities said they are searching for an at-risk woman who was last seen at a bonfire on a California beach.
Danielle Staley, 35, of Utah, went missing while visiting the California Central Coast with a friend, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office.
She was last seen with a group of people at a bonfire on Rio Del Mar State Beach in Aptos shortly before midnight on Nov. 6, according to the sheriff’s office.
She was reported missing the following day, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators have not ruled out foul play, and Staley is considered at-risk due to the circumstances of her disappearance, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Staley’s personal belongings were found on the beach, and she has not been in contact with her family — behavior that is uncharacteristic and has raised additional concern,” the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “At this time, investigators are not ruling out foul play; however, the case is being treated as a missing person at risk due to the circumstances.”
Staley has been visiting the area with a friend, and they had been staying in a camper van near Rio Del Mar State Beach, according to the sheriff’s office.
The friend is cooperating with authorities, the sheriff’s office said.
Residents and businesses with surveillance video in the areas of Rio Del Mar Beach, Beach Drive, Treasure Island and Spreckels Drive have been asked to contact the sheriff’s office so deputies can review the footage.
“Detectives have been diligently working to track down any information and continue to do so,” the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities described Staley as 5’6″ and 120 pounds with blonde hair. She was last seen wearing a dark, hooded sweatshirt and leopard print leggings.
Anyone with information on Staley is urged to contact the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office at 831-471-1121.
In this July 23, 2025, file photo, Rep. Robert Garcia gestures as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement meets in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. Members of the subcommittee passed a motion to subpoena the so-called “Epstein files.” Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — Reactions are pouring in from Capitol Hill after House Democrats released correspondence from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in which he wrote that President Donald Trump “spent hours at my house” with an alleged victim.
The emails, written in 2011 to Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell but made public on Wednesday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, have added to a renewed push by some lawmakers to compel the administration to release all files related to Epstein.
“We won’t stop until we end this White House cover-up. Release the files, NOW,” Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member on the Oversight panel, wrote on X.
Many Democrats issued similar calls.
“It’s clear as day: Trump is in the Epstein files,” New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler wrote on X. “The American people deserve the full truth.”
“The public deserves to know who enabled Epstein, who looked the other way, and who’s still being protected. Survivors have waited long enough. Release the Epstein files NOW,” wrote Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee accused Democrats of “trying to create a fake narrative to slander President Trump.”
In a social media post, Republicans on the panel claimed in the 2011 email between Epstein and Maxwell, Democrats redacted the name “Virginia” — a likely reference to prominent Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who had made extensive public comments about her exploitation by Epstein, but had never accused Trump of any wrongdoing.
“Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate click-bait that is not grounded in the facts,” a House Oversight Majority spokesperson said in a statement. “The Epstein Estate has produced over 20,000 pages of documents on Thursday, yet Democrats are once again intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials.”
After the release by House Democrats, House Republicans on the Oversight panel released an additional 20,000 pages of documents they received from the Epstein estate.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, one of a handful of Republican women backing the effort to compel the release of all Epstein files, defended Trump and said focus should be on the victims.
“How pathetic that Democrats are using Epstein’s victims to bury headlines on their vote against reopening the government,” Mace wrote on X.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also accused Democrats of “selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative.”
“The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and ‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited interactions. The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” Leavitt said in a statement to ABC News.
“These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again,” Leavitt added.
In other messages released by House Democrats, Epstein appeared to touch on his relationship with Trump and whether he’d been banned from membership at Mar-a-Lago years earlier.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote in a message to author Michael Wolff, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Trump, who hasn’t yet directly weighed in on the latest development, previously blamed Democrats for creating a “hoax” surrounding the Epstein files.
After Epstein was arrested in 2019, Trump said he hadn’t spoken with him since 2015 because of a falling out. This summer, as momentum picked up in Congress to release all the Epstein files, Trump said Epstein “stole” young women (including Guiffre) from his Mar-a-Lago club, but that he didn’t know why.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna are leading a discharge petition to force a vote on compelling the Justice Department to release all the Epstein files.
Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, set to be sworn in on Wednesday, is expected to become the decisive 218th signature needed for the petition.
“Why did Justice or the FBI not get & release these?” Khanna wrote on X about the Epstein emails made public by House Democrats. “Today, [Massie] & my petition gets 218!”
The Aurora Borealis lights up the night sky over Monroe, Wisconsin, on November 11, 2025. (Ross Harried/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Dazzling waves of color are lighting up the skies this week.
After green and pink displays of auroras lit up the sky Tuesday night, another Northern Light array is expected to bring a gleaming light show to the northern part of the U.S. Wednesday night.
The auroras are being caused by one of the strongest geomagnetic storms of the year, which occurs when electrons from the sun collide with Earth’s magnetic field to produce colored lights, according to NOAA.
“Aurora is the name given to the glow or light produced when electrons from space flow down Earth’s magnetic field and collide with atoms and molecules of the upper atmosphere in a ring or oval centered on the magnetic pole of Earth. The collisions produce light much like how electrons flowing through gas in a neon light collide with neon and other gasses to produce different colored light bulbs,” NOAA’s website reads.
Two dozen states could see the Northern Lights Wednesday night per NOAA’s aurora viewline map that includes Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Mike Bettwy, a meteorologist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, told ABC News that the auroras on Wednesday could be as clear as the ones on Tuesday.
“We had three coronal mass ejections leave the Sun since late last week. The third and final one is expected to impact our atmosphere later today and tonight. It is difficult to predict with a high degree of certainty or precision, but it is possible this will be as impactful as last night’s event. There were reports of aurora as far south as Tampa, Florida, overnight,” Bettwy said.
“While not unprecedented, it is quite unusual for the aurora to be visible at these low latitudes; probably only occurring once or twice per solar cycle,” he added.
The best time to see the aurora is between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., according to NOAA.
NASA recommends going to the darkest area and using a long exposure to get the best photos of the light show, per their guidance.
NASA did not immediately reply to requests for comment from ABC News.
Lindsey Halligan, attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, looks on during an executive order signing in the Oval Office of the White House, on March 31, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Al Drago/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department prosecutor handpicked by President Donald Trump to lead the criminal cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey is now the subject of a bar complaint that alleges she is unfit to be an attorney and that her actions constitute an “abuse of power.”
The progressive watchdog group Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint against Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan on Tuesday and requested that the state bars in Florida and Virginia initiate investigations into her conduct.
The complaint alleges that Halligan repeatedly violated the professional and ethical rules that govern the legal profession, including by making false statements and by bringing cases that are unsupported by probable cause.
“Weaponizing the DOJ to prosecute the president’s enemies could destroy the democratic principles at the foundation of our Constitution,” the complaint said. “Ms. Halligan’s active participation in this course of action is an abuse of her governmental authority and is prejudicial to the administration of justice, adversely reflecting on her fitness as a lawyer.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which Trump named Halligan to lead on Sept. 20, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump tapped Halligan — a White House aide and former insurance lawyer with no prosecutorial experience — to the high-profile legal post after he forced out Trump-appointed U.S. attorney Erik Siebert who sources said had resisted bringing cases against Comey and James. Career prosecutors who investigated Comey and James recommending against bringing charges, ABC News previously reported.
The indictments came after Trump, in a social media post, called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to act “NOW!!!” to prosecute James and Comey in what critics call a campaign of retribution against Trump’s perceived political foes. Vice President JD Vance has said any such prosecutions are “driven by law and not by politics.”
“Ms. Halligan was well aware President Trump had installed her as Interim U.S. Attorney specifically to indict Mr. Comey and Ms. James and, within just a few days of joining the office, she did just that — despite career officials having found the cases insupportable,” the complaint said.
“Halligan’s actions appear to constitute an abuse of power and serve to undermine the integrity of the Department of Justice and erode public confidence in the legal profession and the fair administration of justice,” said the complaint.
Comey pleaded not guilty in October to one count of false statements and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding related to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020, while James, who successfully brought a civil fraud case against Trump last year, pleaded not guilty to charges of mortgage fraud.
A federal judge is already examining Halligan’s conduct after defense attorneys raised concerns with the legality of her appointment.
Most complaints to state bars result in no action or discipline being taken, although state bar investigations — which can take years — can result in suspension or disbarment.
Pedestrians walk past Purdue Pharma LP headquarters stands in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2019. Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Purdue Pharma begins several days of hearings Wednesday to finalize a $7.4 billion bankruptcy restricting plan that no longer fully protects the company’s owners, members of the Sackler families, from opioid litigation.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year blocked an earlier version of Purdue’s bankruptcy settlement because it gave the Sacklers immunity from lawsuits over the misleading marketing of OxyContin, the painkiller that Purdue began marketing in 1996.
Under the new plan, the Sacklers and Purdue boost their settlement contribution to $7.4 billion. The revised agreement settles all civil claims against Purdue, but individual creditors can choose to litigate claims against the Sacklers, who have long argued that although they regret their company’s role in the nation’s opioid epidemic, they are not directly or personally responsible for it.
Purdue said the new plan received support from more than 99% of voting creditors.
“The high level of support for this Plan is gratifying after years of intense work with our creditors to craft a settlement that maximizes value for victims and communities and puts billions of dollars to work for the public good,” Purdue Chairman Steve Miller said in a statement last month. “Following the outcome of this vote, we are focused on preparing for the confirmation hearing and ultimately the emergence of a new company with a public-minded mission.”
In addition to paying billions to creditors, the plan “will generate substantial further value” by creating a new company, Knoa Pharma, that “will provide millions of doses of lifesaving opioid use disorder treatments and overdose reversal medicines at no profit,” according to the Purdue statement.
Stock image of police lights. Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
(DELAWARE COUNTY, Ind.) — A semitruck fatally struck a sheriff’s deputy in Indiana while he was assisting a stranded motorist along an interstate, according to local officials.
“This is a heartbreaking loss for our law enforcement family and for the entire Delaware County community,” Jeff Stanley, the chief deputy for the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office, said in a statement on Wednesday.
The tragedy occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning, after officials received calls at approximately 3:30 a.m. of a disabled vehicle along Interstate 69, officials said.
The Delaware County sheriff’s deputy, who was identified as Corporal Blake Reynolds, responded to the scene and found a semitruck partially in the roadway, officials said.
The deputy stopped behind the disabled vehicle to “provide protection for the driver” and activated his emergency lights, Indiana State Police Sgt. Scott Keegan said during a press conference on Wednesday.
While Reynolds was outside his vehicle, another semitruck traveling northbound “lost control and collided with the deputy’s vehicle and the disabled semi that was on the side of the road,” Keegan said, calling the crash a “tragic event.”
“Despite immediate emergency response efforts, the deputy did not survive his injuries,” Stanley said.
The driver who struck Reynolds was transported to a local hospital and was undergoing surgery, but Keegan said his medical condition is not known at this time.
The sheriff’s officials said no further details on the crash will be provided at this time “out of respect for the ongoing investigation and the family’s privacy.”
Reynolds joined the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office in 2022 and “quickly distinguished himself through his hard work, professionalism and leadership,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
“His passing is an immeasurable loss to his family, his brothers and sisters in uniform and the entire community he served with pride,” Stanley said.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising, with a Performance by Rod Stewart at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005 in New York City. (Patrick Mcmullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein referred to Donald Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked” and told his former companion Ghislaine Maxwell that an alleged victim had “spent hours at my house” with Trump, according to email correspondence released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote in a typo-riddled message to Maxwell in April 2011. “[Victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
“I have been thinking about that … ” Maxwell replied.
That email exchange — which came just weeks after a British newspaper published a series of stories about Epstein, Maxwell and their powerful associates — was one of three released by the Democrats from a batch of more than 23,000 documents the committee recently received from the Epstein Estate in response to a subpoena.
The names of alleged victims and other personally identifying information were redacted from the messages.
The other newly released email exchanges are between Epstein and author Michael Wolff, who has written four books chronicling the Trump presidency. Wolff has said he spoke to Epstein at length about Trump during his reporting for the books.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you–either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote to Epstein in December 2015, six months after Trump had officially entered the race for the White House.
“If we were to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?” Epstein replied.
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff replied the next day. “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.”
The third message — exchanged between Epstein and Wolff while Trump was well into his first presidential term in January 2019 — appears to touch on the topic of whether Trump had banned Epstein from membership at Mar-a-Lago years earlier.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop”
The full context of these email exchanges is not clear from the portions released by the committee Democrats.
Wolff in a phone interview on Wednesday said of the 2015 exchange that he couldn’t remember “the specific emails or the context, but I was in an in-depth conversation with Epstein at that time about his relationship with Donald Trump. So I think this reflects that.”
“I was trying at that time to get Epstein to talk about his relationship with Trump, and actually, he proved to be an enormously valuable source to me,” Wolff said. “Part of the context of this is that I was pushing Epstein at that point to go public with what he knew about Trump.”
None of the documents previously made public as part of civil lawsuits or Maxwell’s trial contain allegations of wrongdoing by Trump.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump in July posted a lengthy social media post that in part blamed Democrats for creating a controversy about files related to Epstein, which he called a “scam” and “hoax.”
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘b——–,’ hook, line, and sinker,” he wrote at the time.
Republicans on Wednesday claimed Democrats were selectively choosing documents to “generate click-bait” and that they’re withholding other documents that name Democrat officials. Republicans said they’re still reviewing the documents related to Epstein to protect potential victims. They called on Democrats to stop politicizing the investigation.
“Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate click-bait that is not grounded in the facts,” a House Oversight Majority spokesperson told ABC News.
The spokesperson added, “The Epstein Estate has produced over 20,000 pages of documents on Thursday, yet Democrats are once again intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials. The Committee is actively reviewing the documents and will release them publicly once all victim-identifying information has been appropriately redacted. Democrats should stop politicizing this investigation and focus on delivering transparency, accountability, and justice for the survivors.”
Republicans on the Oversight Committee accused their Democratic counterparts of “trying to create a fake narrative to slander President Trump.”
In a social media post, the Republicans claim that in the 2011 email between Epstein and Maxwell, the Democrats redacted the name “Virginia,” a likely reference to prominent Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who had made extensive public comments about her exploitation by Epstein, but had never accused Trump of any wrong-doing. The Republicans said that the Epstein Estate had not redacted Virginia’s name when providing the records to the committee.
“Why did Democrats cover up the name when the Estate didn’t redact it in the redacted documents provided to the committee?” the Republicans’ posted on X. “It’s because this victim, Virginia Giuffre, publicly said that she never witnessed wrongdoing by President Trump. Democrats are trying to create a fake narrative to slander President Trump. Shame on them.”
Giuffre died by apparent suicide earlier this year. Her memoir, “Nobody’s Girl,” was published posthumously last month.
The email with Virginia’s name unredacted was provided to ABC News by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee.
The publication of the emails comes on the same day that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is scheduled to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who won a special election last month.
Once sworn in, Grijalva is expected to provide the final signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on a House bill that would compel the Department of Justice to release the government’s full investigative files on Epstein.
The earliest that vote could happen is the first week of December, after the Thanksgiving recess.
“The Department of Justice must fully release the Epstein files to the public immediately,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the Oversight committee, which is conducting an investigation into the federal government’s handling of investigations into Epstein.
“The more Donald Trump tries to cover-up the Epstein files, the more we uncover. These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President,” Garcia said.
The Trump administration has been dogged by controversy over the Epstein files since the DOJ — in an unsigned statement earlier this year — announced that the department would not be making its files public, despite earlier promises by members of the Trump administration for transparency.
The statement said that the government had not turned up evidence of a “client list” or credible evidence that “Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.”
The DOJ has so far produced only a small fraction of the documents and other evidence gathered by federal investigators over the course of multiple investigations into Epstein’s alleged international sex-trafficking operation.
It’s not clear if the email messages the estate provided to the committee are also in the possession of the DOJ.
After Epstein’s arrest in 2019, President Trump said he hadn’t spoken to him in 15 years. Earlier this year, Trump claimed he ended his association with Epstein in the early 2000s after discovering that Epstein and Maxwell were allegedly poaching employees from Mar-a-Lago.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking young girls and women.
Maxwell, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing, is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in Texas for child sex trafficking and other offenses in connection with Epstein.
