Last Friday, after countless campaigns from the public and politicians, the Department of Justice finally released a series of records on Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case to the public. Being a millionaire money manager known for connections with celebrities and politicians across the globe, he was first investigated in 2005 for paid underage sex in his Florida house, and was sentenced to prison in Jul. 2019 after evidence of sex trafficking in NYC and the US Virgin Islands was found. One month later, he committed suicide in his jail cell.

Many public authorities, including US President Donald Trump, sought to conceal this release. Although he has not been accused of any wrongdoing in his connection with Epstein being his ex-neighbour, Trump has explicitly argued that there is nothing to see in the files. Ultimately bowing to political pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump signed a bill on Nov. 19 to give the DOJ 30 days to release most of the Epstein Files. By Dec. 18, Congress passes the Epstein Files Transparency Act, with Trump signing it into law the next day.

The White House claims that this act shows how the Trump administration is the “most transparent in history”. However, there are doubts from the public that the files, including photos, call logs, grand jury testimony and interview transcripts, are just a thin slice of what the Department of Justice is expected to have, and even the ones published are heavily redacted. A legal expert says that there is no “teeth” behind the law to force DOJ to release all Epstein Files - only “most” of them.

The unsealed documents also provided hope for someone else - Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s ex-girlfriend and long-term associate who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2021, says that “substantial new evidence” has emerged in the documents to prove that constitutional violations resulted in a “complete carriage of justice”. She has appealed to a habeas petition (a last resort for reviewing the legality of one’s detention), when her final verdict would be given by the jury. Either way the decision goes, echoes of controversy will be heard all over America - justice is still finding its way home.

Source: https://apnews.com/live/donald-trump-news-updates-12-19-2025