Republican lawmakers have warned President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi that withholding any documents relating to the Jeffrey Epstein case “would add fuel to the fire.”
The warning comes as Trump caved to pressure and signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act Wednesday evening, while Bondi fumbled her way through questions on how the Justice Department would proceed now that it has 30 days to release the files.
Bondi has changed her stance on the matter a number of times this year, prompting fierce criticism from the MAGA base and beyond.
There are concerns from both sides of the aisle that she could cite the ongoing investigation into Epstein’s ties to Democratic associates, ordered by Trump last week, as a reason to withhold the files.
“You can adjust for whatever investigations are going on but if you do a blanket hold, I think that they’re going to have a lot of people angry,” GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told The Hill.
So in other words, they’re STILL not serious about transparency, knowing full well that those investigations are political theater to distract the base.
Turns out that in the bill there is apparently a part that specifies any material withheld for investigative purposes needs a non redacted summary delivered in its place. So the authors seem to have some checks in place for shenanigans
That’s nonsense. By virtue of being a summary, it’s going to exclude things at the discretion of the summarizer.
Bill Barr’s proclamation that the Mueller report exonerated Trump was a summary. I’m not expecting any summary by Bondi or her underlings to be any more accurate or transparent.