One of the oddest occurrences in the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein imbroglio was the trip that Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, took in July to Tallahassee, Florida, to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year sentence for procuring underage girls, some as young as 14, for Epstein to sexually abuse. Prior to being nominated by Trump to the No. 2 position in the Justice Department, Blanche was Trump’s criminal attorney in the porn-star-hush-money-forged-business-records case in New York, in which Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts. Blanche never provided a compelling explanation for this unprecedented act. Why was Trump’s former personal lawyer and a top Justice Department official meeting with a sex offender whom the US government had previously assailed for her “willingness to lie brazenly under oath about her conduct”? Legal observers scratched their heads over this. Months later, Blanche said, “The point of the interview was to allow her to speak, which nobody had done before.” That didn’t make much sense. How often does the deputy attorney general fly 900 miles to afford a convicted sex offender a chance to chat? It was as if Blanche was trying to create fodder for conspiracy theorists. What made all this even stranger is that after their tete-a-tete, Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security, women-only, federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, that houses mainly nonviolent offenders and white collar crooks. This facility—home to disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star and fraduster Jen Shah—is a much cushier facility than the co-ed Tallahassee prison. When the transfer was first reported in August, the Bureau of Prisons refused to explain the reason for the move, which Epstein abuse survivors protested. So I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the BOP asking for information related to this relocation. Specifically: > all records mentioning or referencing Maxwell’s transfer to Federal Prison > Camp Byran. This includes emails, memoranda, transfer orders, phone messages, > texts, electronic chats, and any other communications, whether internal to BOP > or between BOP personnel and any other governmental or nongovernmental > personnel Guess what? The BOP did not jump to and provide the information. After a months-long delay, the agency noted it would take up to nine months to fulfill this request. We are suing. That is, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit that provides pro bono legal assistance to journalists, today filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington, DC, on behalf of the Center for Investigative Reporting (which publishes Mother Jones), to compel the BOP to provide the relevant records. The filing notes that the BOP violated the Freedom of Information Act by initially failing to respond in a timely manner. We’re not the only ones after this information. In August, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) sent a letter to William Marshall III, the BOP director, requesting similar material. “Against the backdrop of the political scandal arising from President Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Ms.Maxwell’s abrupt transfer raises questions about whether she has been given special treatment in exchange for political favors,” he wrote. Whitehouse asked for a response within three weeks. He received no reply—and, along with Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), filed a FOIA request. In November, a whistleblower notified Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee that at Camp Bryan Maxwell was receiving preferential treatment that included customized meals brought to her cell, private meetings with visitors (who were permitted to bring in computers), email services through the warden’s office, after-hours use of the prison gym, and access to a puppy (that was being trained as a service dog). That month, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the committee, wrote Trump requesting that Blanche appear before the committee to answer questions about Maxwell’s treatment. That has not happened. Given the intense public interest in the Epstein case—and the scrutiny it deserves—there ought to be no need to go to court to obtain this information about Maxwell. But with Trump’s Justice Department brazenly violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which mandated a release of the federal government’s Epstein records by December 19 (by which time only 1 percent of the cache had been made public), it’s no shocker that the Bureau of Prisons has not been more forthcoming regarding Maxwell’s prison upgrade. Our in-house counsel, Victoria Baranetsky, says, “At a time when public trust in institutions is fragile, FOIA remains essential. Our lawsuit seeks to enforce the public’s right to know and to ensure that the government lives up to its obligation of transparency.” And Gunita Singh, a staff attorney for RCFP notes, “We’re proud to represent CIR and look forward to enforcing FOIA’s transparency mandate with respect to the actions of law enforcement in this matter.” When might we get anything out of BOP? No idea. But we’ll keep you posted, and you can keep track of the case at this page.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said that her defense of survivors of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and threat to disclose the identities of some of the men who abused them broke her relationship with President Donald Trump, who said his “friends will get hurt” if she went through with it.  Greene’s claim came in remarks from two long interviews published Monday in the New York Times Magazine. After a closed-door meeting with Epstein victims in September and a subsequent news conference where she made the threat to share the names of some of the men, Greene said Trump rebuked her.  “The Epstein files represent everything wrong with Washington,” the congresswoman told Robert Draper of New York Times Magazine, highlighting how Epstein went unpunished for decades and was allowed to continue to sexually assault girls and young women.  Greene announced in November that she would resign on January 5, 2026, a year before her term ends. “Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked, and used by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States, whom I fought for,” she stated in the video. Greene told the Times that the last conversation she had with Trump was when she requested that he invite some of the survivors to the Oval Office. Trump, she recounted, replied that they did not deserve the opportunity.  The congresswoman committed to opposing Republican leadership in the House and Trump, joining Rep Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in a bill that would force the Justice Department to release all of its documents on Epstein.  Another breaking point was the fallout following Charlie Kirk’s assassination. She was shocked when Trump gave the “worst statement” possible at Kirk’s memorial service. “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them,” Trump said, noting it as the right-wing political activist’s weakness.  This was un-Christian to Greene, and she realized that she was part of a “toxic culture” in Washington.  “Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong,” Greene told the Times earlier this month. “You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what.” This was a stark contrast to many of her fellow public figures on the far right, who blamed the left for Kirk’s assassination. As my colleague Anna Merlan wrote earlier this month, this has led to a MAGA rift, along with conflicts over antisemitism that I reported about last week.  Since the disputes over Epstein and Kirk, Trump contributed to death threats made against her, she claims, including calling her “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green (sic)” in a November Truth Social post.    Greene told the Times that she understood that loyalty to Trump was just “a one-way street” that ends “whenever it suits him.”  All of this calls into question whether Greene’s departure from Trump is genuine. She told the Times that she remains a steadfast supporter of the policies on which Trump campaigned. But these clearly have not worked. Greene’s departure also calls into question the future of the Republican Party. Turning Point USA has endorsed JD Vance, but where other groups in the Republican Party go remains uncertain.  Greene’s rehabilitation has doubt attached to it, too, regardless of whether the angle is a campaign for another political position or not. As Mother Jones’ Julianne McShane reported, the congresswoman has still made attempts to reconcile with Trump. And as the Times pointed out, Greene admitted that she only spoke out against Trump when his attacks targeted her.  There’s also the fact that we still live in a political climate ruled by elites. Greene herself is a wealthy co-owner of a construction firm. It’s not a “big tent”—it’s still people at the top conversing with other people at the top on the direction of the country.

On Friday, the Trump-controlled Justice Department was mandated by a nearly unanimous act of Congress to release all government files related to Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes. > “What are they protecting?” But the government has made just a portion of its holdings publically available, and among the 13,000 documents released, some are extensively or virtually totally redacted. While the law permits withholding information to protect victims, obscured portions include the names and faces of numerous Epstein associates, despite the law’s dictate that nothing be withheld “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity…to any government official [or] public figure.” According to Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who broke with his party to champion the Epstein Files Transparency Act, what the government has so far provided “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.” Epstein’s victims have similar complaints. “They are proving everything we have been saying about corruption and delayed justice,” Jess Michaels told the New York Times. “What are they protecting? The coverup continues.”   The release is being overseen by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president’s former personal defense attorney, who represented him in the criminal case related to Trump’s attempt to coverup his affair with Stormy Daniels, the adult film star. Blanche has said that the Justice Department remains at work preparing more files for disclosure in the “coming weeks,” in apparent violation of Friday’s deadline. The law requires the department to prepare a report to Congress justifying any documents or names it may withhold, and submit it with 15 days of the “completion of the release.” But Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley Democrat who moved the bill forward with the help of a handful of GOP colleagues, aren’t waiting to begin discussing how to bring about legal consequences for Trump officials who have or may still be violating their law requiring disclosure.  “The Justice Department’s document dump,” Khanna said in an online video, “does not comply… Pam Bondi has obfuscated for months.” He suggested that Congress consider impeaching officials or holding them in inherent contempt. “Attorney General Pam Bondi is withholding specific documents that the law required her to release by today,” Massie posted, pointedly adding that prosecutors in a future administration could eventually “convict the current AG” for breaking their law. Friday’s release included many photos of Bill Clinton, a former president, but little new information on the current one. While Trump has variously claimed that he and Epstein “did not socialize together,” that “there was no relationship” between them, and that he “was not a fan of his,” this week a Times investigation found that “the two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other’s closest friend.”

A Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida has ordered the public release of grand jury transcripts from the first federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of underage girls, which took place during the mid-2000s.  That investigation ended without any charges. In 2007, however, federal prosecutors in Florida did indict Epstein, who managed to obtain a plea deal, copping to relatively minor charges of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. He was given an 18-month sentence in the Palm Beach County Jail—with daytime work release—and served about 13 months. Back in July, a different judge, at the request of the Trump administration, had declined to demand release of the records from the earlier investigation. On Friday, however, US District Judge Rodney Smith, whom Trump appointed to the bench in 2018, stated that the Epstein Files Transparency Act that President Donald Trump signed into law on November 19, “overrides” rules that prohibit the public disclosure of “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials”—including grand jury transcripts. This same law compels the Department of Justice, federal prosecutors, and the FBI to release, by mid-December, materials they collected during their investigations into Epstein going back at least as far as the mid-2000s Florida case. The DOJ has not yet announced a timeline for making the information publicly available.  Earlier this year, three federal judges denied DOJ requests to unseal the federal grand jury transcripts. US District Judge Richard Berman framed the effort as a “diversion” strategy to distract from the agency’s slow-rolling of its own Epstein files: “The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice,” he wrote. DOJ officials are now attempting to unseal materials from three different Epstein investigations. The Trump administration has asked two New York judges for grand jury transcripts from Epstein’s 2019 sex-trafficking case and Ghislaine Maxwell’s 2021 trial.  The state courts are now weighing privacy concerns from survivors and witnesses. The Epstein Files Transparency Act lists exemptions that may allow the DOJ to redact records that could result in personal identification.  The New York judges are expected to issue their decisions next week.