The day so far
Deputy US attorney general Todd Blanche announced the latest – and final – release of the justice department’s files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including 3m pages, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos.
Blanche insisted that no men, including Donald Trump, were protected in the release of the files, and that the White House “had no oversight” over the DoJ’s review. Blanche explained what material had not been included, and that every woman’s face had been redacted. Epstein’s victims had been thorough “unspeakable pain”, Blanche said, adding that he shared frustration “with the entire process”. He also defended the DoJ’s missing its congressionally set deadline (which expired in December), comparing the amount of material to “two Eiffel towers of pages” and citing a need to protect victims.
We’re launching a separate live blog on the Epstein files now, which you can continue to follow here.
Also today:
Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, was arrested late last night on charges that he violated federal law during a protest at a church in Minnesota earlier this month. His arrest sparked outrage from former colleagues, first amendment advocates and members of Congress. “This is outrageous and cannot stand. The First Amendment is under attack in America!” Lemon’s former CNN colleague Jim Acosta wrote in a post on X. Read our report here.
Iran said it’s ready to negotiate with the US, but only if talks are not under duress and do not extend to Iran’s missile programme, as diplomats scramble to head off the threat of a regional conflict. More here.
The US Senate is scrambling to find agreement on a government funding package as a partial shutdown looms at midnight, after the killings of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis upended spending talks and has given Democrats rare leverage over Trump’s mass deportation campaign. The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, has outlined a series of reforms to federal agents he wanted codified in the DHS’s funding measure, including the requirement that officers wear body cameras, abide by a code of conduct and cease wearing masks and conducting “roving patrols” aimed at people they suspect of being illegally in the US. More on that here.
And Trump announced Kevin Warsh as his nomination for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, selecting a candidate who has been an outspoken critic of the US central bank and ending months of speculation about who the president would pick to replace Jerome Powell. Trump has waged an extraordinary campaign to influence policymaking at the Fed by repeatedly calling for interest rate cuts. Powell’s second term as chair is due to end in May. More here.
Updated
Also in the files is Ghislaine Maxwell’s US naturalization certificate, which lists her home address at Little St James Island, one of Epstein’s two private islands in the US Virgin Islands.
