US president says he backs efforts to release documents related to late sex offender because ‘we have nothing to hide’

A top Democrat has accused Donald Trump of “panicking” after the US president told his fellow Republicans in Congress to vote for the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a sudden reversal of his earlier position.

Robert Garcia, the ranking member on of the House oversight committee, which released a tranche of new Epstein documents last week, said that Trump “has tried everything to kill our Jeffrey Epstein investigation”.

“Now [Trump’s] panicking and has realized he is about to lose this Epstein vote to force the Department of Justice to release the files,” Garcia said in a statement.

“Let’s be crystal clear: Trump has the power to release all the files today,” Garcia added. “But instead, he wants to continue this cover-up and launch bogus new investigations to deflect and slow down our investigation. It won’t work. We will get justice for the survivors.”

    • bus_factor@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      He hasn’t changed his mind. He’s switched from refusing to release the files to refusing to release the files with extra steps.

      At the same time he said he wants to release the files, he also ordered additional investigations. Because of course he wanted to release the files, but unfortunately they’re part of an ongoing investigation.

    • defunct_punk@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      Yeah lol. Did you watch the conference today? His eyes were bulging out his skull. To put it mildly, he’s very upset about this turn of events

        • dnick@sh.itjust.works
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          28 days ago

          It’s an absolute hoax… Anything it says about Republicans that is, every word of it that implicates a Democrat is completely true… But it’s an absolute hoax

            • dnick@sh.itjust.works
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              16 hours ago

              Not sure if you’re being intentional obtuse, but the point is that some things are more important than protecting members of your own in group that don’t deserve protecting, even if it harms the group short term.

              No doubt there are considerations to have it happen far enough ahead of the mid-terms so they can recover if it does implicate them, but doesn’t the fact that Democrats are willing to push for releasing the document and Trump is pushing to hide them tell you a while lot about what’s really likely in there?

    • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      I’m sure they’ve finished using white-out on every instance of his name and hastily scribbled “cliNtoN” over the top.