A congressman who viewed Jeffrey Epstein files that are still redacted for the public says the Department of Justice is “covering up for Donald Trump.”
Nearly half a year after the president signed the law forcing the DOJ to release its files on the convicted sex trafficker, roughly 2.5 million documents remain sealed from public view, and many of the unsealed documents remain heavily redacted.
New York Rep. Dan Goldman argued on The Daily Beast Podcast that the DOJ’s handling of the release of the files—a cause backed by a majority of Americans—suggests a larger cover-up is underway.
“Based on the way that they released, and poorly and ... illegally redacted, as well as what they covered up, even within those documents, it is clear that the Department of Justice is covering up for Donald Trump,” Goldman, a Democrat, told host Sarah Ewall-Wice.
Goldman continued, “I want to know what’s in those 2.5 million pages, because I am almost certain right now that there is a lot more material that would implicate Donald Trump in some aspect of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking conspiracy—and I don’t mean necessarily that Donald Trump is guilty of being a co-conspirator—but he was involved in some way, and perhaps in more ways than we even know about and that is being covered up.”
“There’s no reason for them to cover up two and a half million pages,” he added.
Earlier this year, Goldman, 50, visited the DOJ to inspect unredacted versions of the released Epstein files, which only members of Congress have been allowed to see.
There he saw a document with “nothing in there that should have been redacted,” he told Ewall-Wice.
Goldman appeared to be referring to a bombshell email that he exposed on the House floor in March as an example of the DOJ’s questionable redactions.
A 2009 email from Epstein’s attorney, Jack Goldberger, was nearly fully blacked out by the DOJ when it was released as part of its Epstein files dump, but Goldman said he viewed the unredacted version and brought a large poster board to the House floor displaying what he described as the full email.
In the email, Goldberger appears to have summarized a “20-minute phone conference” with Trump, Trump’s attorney Alan Garten, and a person named “Brad,” presumably Brad Edwards, who has represented Epstein’s victims.
According to the email, Garten allegedly said that Epstein was “never asked to leave” Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, and Trump allegedly said he “may have been” on Epstein’s plane, as well as at Epstein’s house.
The DOJ redacted that entire portion with a large black block.
Trump, who appears thousands of times in the Epstein files, has said that he wasn’t “friendly” with Epstein and was “never” on his plane.
Goldman told Ewall-Wice that the DOJ “made up some bogus explanation of attorney-client privilege” for the redactions to the document.
“It is not anything approximating attorney-client privilege,” he argued. “And instead, it’s using these privileges, using the various different mechanisms that they are falsely using, to cover up.”
The DOJ has claimed that documents still being withheld are “privileged,” “duplicates,” or related to ongoing federal investigations. But Goldman countered, “If they’re duplicates, turn them over.”
After an investigation by NPR into “dozens” of withheld pages, the DOJ released further documents, including files relating to allegations that Trump had sexually abused a minor. Trump has denied the allegations.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who replaced Pam Bondi after her unceremonious firing, declared last month that the DOJ has to move on from the Epstein files, saying, “to the extent the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward.”
When reached for comment, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Beast in a statement: “Anything said on the Daily Beast podcast is equivalent to screaming into the void. No one listens to this Trump Derangement Syndrome therapy session. And just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein. By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him. Meanwhile, Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Stacey Plaskett have yet to explain why they were soliciting money and meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender.”
The latest episode of The Daily Beast Podcast has racked up more than 260,000 views on YouTube alone.
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