What’s next now that Pres. Trump has signed bill releasing the Epstein files

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed a bill to compel the Justice Department to make public its case files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a potentially far-reaching development in a yearslong push by survivors of Epstein’s abuse for a public reckoning.

Both the House and Senate passed the bill this week with overwhelming margins after Trump reversed course on his monthslong opposition to the bill and indicated he would sign it. Now that the bill has been signed by the president, there’s a 30-day countdown for the Justice Department to produce what’s commonly known as the Epstein files.

“This bill is a command for the president to be fully transparent, to come fully clean, and to provide full honesty to the American people,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Wednesday.

Schumer added that Democrats were ready to push back if they perceive that the president is doing anything but adhering to “full transparency.”

In a social media post Wednesday as he announced he had signed the bill, Trump wrote, “Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories.”

The swift, bipartisan work in Congress this week was a response to the growing public demand that the Epstein files be released, especially as attention focuses on his connections to global leaders including Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, who has already been stripped of his royal title as Prince Andrew over the matter, and many others.

There is plenty of public anticipation about what more the files could reveal. Yet the bill will most likely trigger a rarely seen baring of a sprawling federal investigation, also creating the potential for unintended consequences.

What does the bill do?

The bill compels Attorney General Pam Bondi to release essentially everything the Justice Department has collected over multiple federal investigations into Epstein, as well as his longtime confidante and girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for luring teenage girls for the disgraced financier. Those records total around 100,000 pages, according to a federal judge who has reviewed the case.

It will also compel the Justice Department to produce all its internal communications on Epstein and his associates and his 2019 death in a Manhattan jail cell as he awaited charges for sexually abusing and trafficking dozens of teenage girls.

The legislation, however, exempts some parts of the case files. The bill’s authors made sure to include that the Justice Department could withhold personally identifiable information of victims, child sexual abuse materials and information deemed by the administration to be classified for national defense or foreign policy.

“We will continue to follow the law with maximum transparency while protecting victims,” Bondi told a news conference Wednesday when asked about releasing the files.

The bill also allows the Justice Department to withhold information that would jeopardize active investigations or prosecutions. That’s created some worry among the bill’s proponents that the department would open active investigations into people named in the Epstein files in order to shield that material from public view.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump loyalist who has had a prominent split with Trump over the bill, said Tuesday that she saw the administration’s compliance with the bill as its “real test.”

“Will the Department of Justice release the files, or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” she asked.

In July, the FBI said in a memo regarding the Epstein investigation that, “we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” But Bondi last week complied with Trump’s demands and ordered a federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s ties to the president’s political foes, including Clinton.

Still, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the bill, said “there’s no way they can have enough investigations to cover” all of the people he believes are implicated in Epstein’s abuse.

“And if they do, then good,” he added.

The bill also requires the Justice Department to produce reports on what materials it withheld, as well as redactions made, within 15 days of the release of the files. It stipulates that officials can’t withhold or redact anything “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

Who could be named?

There’s a widely held expectation that many people could be named in case files for investigations that spanned over a decade — and some concern that just because someone is named, that person would be assumed guilty or complicit.

Epstein was a luminary who kept company with heads of state, influential political figures, academics and billionaires. The release of his emails and messages by a House Oversight Committee investigation last week has already shown his connections with — and private conversations about — Trump and many other high-powered figures.

Yet federal prosecutors follow carefully constructed guidelines about what information they produce publicly and at trial, both to protect victims and to uphold the fairness of the legal system. House Speaker Mike Johnson raised objections to the bill on those grounds this week, arguing that it could reveal unwanted information on victims as well as others who were in contact with investigators.

Still, Johnson did not actually try to make changes to the bill and voted for it on the House floor.

For the bill’s proponents, a public reckoning over the investigation is precisely the point. Some of the survivors of trafficking from Epstein and Maxwell have sought ways to name people they accuse of being complicit or involved, but fear they will face lawsuits from the men they accuse.

Massie said that he wants the FBI to release the reports from its interviews with the victims.

Those reports typically contain unvetted information, but Massie said he is determined to name those who are accused. He and Greene have offered to read the names of those accused on the House floor, which would shield their speech from legal consequences.

“We need names,” Massie said.

Former Treasury Secretary steps back

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers abruptly went on leave Wednesday from teaching at Harvard University, where he once served as president, over recently released emails showing he maintained a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Summers’ spokesperson said.

Summers had been retreating from his public commitments amid the fallout of the emails revelation, but he had maintained that he would continue teaching economics classes at Harvard.

Yet by Wednesday evening, Summers had not only retreated from his teaching classes but also as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government with the Kennedy Harvard School.

“Mr. Summers has decided it’s in the best interest of the Center for him to go on leave from his role as Director as Harvard undertakes its review. His co-teachers will complete the remaining three class sessions of the courses he has been teaching with them this semester, and he is not scheduled to teach next semester,” Summers spokesperson Steven Goldberg said.

It was not immediately clear if Summers would return to teaching in the upcoming semester. Summers decision to go on leave was first reported by The Harvard Crimson.

Harvard did not mention Summers by name in its decision to restart an investigation, but the move follows the release of emails showing that he was friendly with Epstein long after the financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008.

By Wednesday, the once highly regarded economics expert had been facing increased scrutiny over choosing to stay in the teaching role. Some students even filmed his appearance in shock as he appeared before a class of undergraduates on Tuesday while stressing he thought it was important to continue teaching.

Earlier Wednesday, Summers severed ties with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.

Messages appear to seek advice about romantic relationship

The emails include messages in which Summers appeared to be getting advice from Epstein about pursuing a romantic relationship with someone who viewed him as an “economic mentor.”

“im a pretty good wing man , no?” Epstein wrote on Nov. 30, 2018.

The next day, Summers told Epstein he had texted the woman, telling her he “had something brief to say to her.”

“Am I thanking her or being sorry re my being married. I think the former,” he wrote.

Summers’ wife, Elisa New, also e-mailed Epstein multiple times, including a 2015 message in which she thanked him for arranging financial support for a poetry project she directs. The gift he arranged “changed everything for me,” she wrote.

“It really means a lot to me, all financial help aside, Jeffrey, that you are rooting for me and thinking about me,” she wrote.

New, an English professor emerita at Harvard, did not respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday.

An earlier review completed in 2020 found that Epstein visited Harvard’s campus more than 40 times after his 2008 sex-crimes conviction and was given his own office and unfettered access to a research center he helped establish. The professor who provided the office was later barred from starting new research or advising students for at least two years.

Summers appears before Harvard class

On Tuesday, Summers appeared before his class at Harvard, where he teaches “The Political Economy of Globalization” to undergraduates with Robert Lawrence, a professor with the Harvard Kennedy School.

“Some of you will have seen my statement of regret expressing my shame with respect to what I did in communication with Mr. Epstein and that I’ve said that I’m going to step back from public activities for a while. But I think it’s very important to fulfill my teaching obligations,” he said.

Summers’ remarks were captured on video by several students, but no one appeared to publicly respond to his comments.

Epstein, who authorities said died by suicide in 2019, was a convicted sex offender infamous for his connections to wealthy and powerful people, making him a fixture of outrage and conspiracy theories about wrongdoing among American elites.

Summers served as treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He was Harvard’s president for five years from 2001 to 2006. When asked about the emails last week, Summers issued a statement saying he has “great regrets in my life” and that his association with Epstein was a “major error in judgement.”

Other organizations that confirmed the end of their affiliations with Summers included the Center for American Progress, the Center for Global Development and the Budget Lab at Yale University. Bloomberg TV said Summers’ withdrawal from public commitments included his role as a paid contributor, and the New York Times said it will not renew his contract as a contributing opinion writer.