Democrats use rare law to push for Epstein files release
On Capitol Hill today, Senate Democrats – led by majority leader Chuck Schumer – will hold a presser to discuss their plans to push the justice department to release the full and un-redacted Epstein files.
Democrats are using a rare and little-known law, known coloquially as the “rule of five”, which requires government agencies to provide relevant information if at least five members of the committee request it. In this case all Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee signed a letter to attorney general Pam Bondi yesterday.
Key events
Ed Pilkington
Transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to the sex trafficking indictments of the sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, include the testimony of just two law enforcement witnesses, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has said, as it argues for the documents’ release.
Top DoJ officials disclosed in a filing late on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court that separate grand juries convened to consider the criminal investigations of Epstein and Maxwell, and had heard from only two witnesses.
The revelation was made in the course of court wrangling over whether the transcripts of the proceedings should be unsealed, amid the continuing furor over the Epstein scandal which has roiled Donald Trump’s second term.
The Trump administration is urging the two federal judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell grand juries, Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer, to release the testimony, in an attempt to calm the uproar.
The Trump administration has come under intense pressure from the president’s own base of supporters who were infuriated by the DoJ’s decision not to release any additional Epstein files about the late, disgraced financier’s crimes involving the sex trafficking of girls.
The decision jarred with the previous stance of senior administration figures, including Trump himself and the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, who had hyped the expected release of more details of the New York financier’s businesses, travels and associations, including a possible list of his financial clients, which all further stoked conspiracies around the well-connected Epstein.
Tuesday’s submission states that the grand jury tasked with considering the criminal case against Epstein heard only from an FBI agent when it met in June and July, 2019. A similar grand jury for Maxwell heard from the same FBI agent and a New York Police Department detective when it met in June and July, 2020 and in March, 2021.
The memorandum was signed by Jay Clayton, US attorney for the southern district of New York, and included the names of Bondi and deputy attorney general Todd Blanche.
Epstein took his own life in a federal jail in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges, officials say, but his case has generated endless attention and conspiracy theories because of his and Maxwell’s links to famous people, such as royals, presidents and billionaires, including Trump.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with Epstein in the sexual trafficking of minors. She was convicted in December 2021 on charges that she lured teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
Last week, she sat for two sets of interviews with Justice Department officials, including Blanche, in Florida, where she is serving her time in a federal prison, and answered questions “about 100 different people,” her attorney said.
Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and claimed he had cut off their relationship long ago. But he faces ongoing questions about the Epstein case.
On Tuesday Trump spoke about connections between Epstein and the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. He claimed he evicted the financier from the resort because Epstein “stole” young female staffers from him, including Virginia Giuffre who went on to be a key witness against Epstein and Maxwell. Giuffre died in April.
Maxwell has offered to testify before Congress but with conditions, including being granted immunity. Her lawyer has written to the House committee which has subpoenaed her saying that a deposition without immunity would be a “non-starter”.
The DoJ memorandum says unsealing the transcripts is “consistent with increasing calls for additional disclosures in this matter.”
Democrats use rare law to push for Epstein files release
On Capitol Hill today, Senate Democrats – led by majority leader Chuck Schumer – will hold a presser to discuss their plans to push the justice department to release the full and un-redacted Epstein files.
Democrats are using a rare and little-known law, known coloquially as the “rule of five”, which requires government agencies to provide relevant information if at least five members of the committee request it. In this case all Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee signed a letter to attorney general Pam Bondi yesterday.
Donald Trump is back at the White House today. We’ll see him at 4pm EST for remarks, and he’s expected to sign a bill earlier in the day. It’s currently unclear what that piece of legislation is.
Meanwhile on social media, Trump has said that the 1 August reciprocal tariff deadline will not be extended. He wrote:
The August first deadline is the August first deadline – it stands strong, and will not be extended. A big day for America!!!
Russia says it has developed ‘immunity’ to sanctions
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia had developed an “immunity” to sanctions, Reuters reports.
The comments came after Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would start imposing tariffs and other measures on Russia “10 days from today” if Moscow did not make progress toward ending the war in Ukraine.
Peskov told reporters:
We have been living under a huge number of sanctions for quite a long time, our economy operates under a huge number of restrictions.
Therefore, of course, we have already developed a certain immunity in this regard, and we continue to note all statements that come from President Trump, from other international representatives on this matter.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday it continued to take into account all statements made by US president Donald Trump, but Russia had acquired immunity to sanctions because it had lived under a huge number of them for a long time, Reuters reports.
Trump said on Tuesday that the United States would start imposing tariffs and other measures on Russia in 10 days if Moscow showed no progress toward ending its more than three-year-long war in Ukraine.
Jessica Geen
Jessica Geen lives in London and is the editor of Pink News.
The US’s largest public health insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, turn 60 years old on Wednesday – a birthday that will be celebrated only weeks after Republicans enacted the largest cuts to healthcare in the nation’s history.
Passed in the civil rights era, the sister health insurance programs served as tools for the Democratic president Lyndon Johnson to desegregate American healthcare and fight poverty.
“This is an infamous day for the US, which already has the most abysmal healthcare system among our peer nations,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown Law. “Now, in order to give tax relief and spend more on defense, we’re kicking off our most needy citizens from life-saving care.”
In a health system defined by a patchwork of public and private coverage, Medicare and Medicaid have stood for 60 years as the civil rights era’s health legacy – their history more often marked by expansion than contraction, even amid decades of attacks from conservatives.
That history took a sharp right turn on the Fourth of July, when Donald Trump signed a Republican budget law that will cut $1tn from Medicaid beginning in 2026.
“It’s really unconscionable these cuts,” said David Lipschutz, co-director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, speaking about both programs. “The magnitude, the scope, the targeting of certain lawfully present immigrants, the added requirements and burdens for people with Medicaid – specifically designed to purge the roles of people who would otherwise be eligible.”
You can read more of Jessica Geen’s explainer here: Trump’s ‘unconscionable cuts’ to Medicaid and Medicare were decades in the making
Epstein-Maxwell grand jury transcripts include testimony of just two law enforcement witnesses, Justice Department says
The Justice Department says in support of its request to unseal grand jury transcripts of proceedings that led to the sex trafficking indictments of New York financier and sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell that they include the testimony of just two law enforcement witnesses, reports the Associated Press (AP).
In a filing late on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, officials describe the grand jury witnesses in a memorandum in response to a call from judges presiding over both cases to provide more details about their request earlier this month. Judges would have to approve any request to unseal records.
The papers filed on Tuesday cite a 1997 second US Circuit court of appeals ruling that said judges have wide discretion and public interest alone can justify releasing grand jury information.
The Epstein grand jury heard only from an FBI agent when it met in June and July of 2019, while the Maxwell grand jury heard from the same FBI agent and a New York police department detective when it met in June and July of 2020 and in March of 2021, according to the submission.
The memorandum was signed by Jay Clayton, US attorney for the Southern District of New York, and included the names of attorney general Pam Bondi and Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche.
After the request to unseal grand jury records, two former prosecutors in Manhattan told the AP the transcripts would be relatively short and contain only the testimony of law enforcement witnesses talking about evidence that tracks information in the indictments.
In its filing on Tuesday, the Justice Department further dampened expectations the grand jury transcripts would contain new revelations when it said “certain aspects and subject matters” contained in them became public during Maxwell’s trial.
Humana on Wednesday raised its annual profit forecast, as the US health insurer bets on its efforts to rein in higher medical costs that have plagued the sector, Reuters reports.
The company is a top provider of Medicare Advantage plans under which the US government pays private insurers a set rate to manage healthcare for people aged 65 and older, and those with disabilities.
The industry has been battling with persistently high costs for the last two years due to increased use of healthcare services across the government-backed plans.
However, Humana said its medical costs were in line with its expectations.
The company now expects full-year profit to be about $17 per share, compared with its previous estimate of about $16.25. Analysts on average were expecting a profit of $16.38 per share.
Oliver Milman
Oliver Milman is an environment reporter for Guardian US.
US liberals have become so disgusted with Tesla since Elon Musk’s rightward turn that they are now not only far less likely to purchase the car brand but also less willing to buy any type of electric car, new research has found.
The popularity of Tesla among liberal-minded Americans has plummeted since Musk, Tesla’s chief executive and the world’s richest person, allied himself with Donald Trump and helped propel the president to election victory last year.
While liberals reported mostly positive intentions around buying an electric car in August 2023, their overall support for EVs eroded in the wake of a collapse in their opinion of Teslas, according to the new study, which polled Americans on an array of environmental actions.
By the latest poll, taken in March as Musk was gutting the federal workforce in his role as Trump’s top adviser after delivering what appeared to be a Nazi salute, the intention to buy any EV among liberals slipped into negative territory.
Alexandra Flores, a psychologist at Williams College and lead author of the study, published in Nature, said:
The suspicion is that Elon Musk became so synonymous with EVs in the US that perceptions of him affected the entire class of vehicles.
This made them way less appealing to liberals – he really dragged down perceptions of EVs in general. It’s definitely unusual to have a chief executive have an impact on a whole class of products like this.
You can read more of Oliver Milman’s report here: Elon Musk is turning US liberals off not just Tesla but electric vehicles in general
A cryptocurrency working group formed by president Donald Trump will release a report on Wednesday that is expected to outline the administration’s stances on tokenization and market-defining crypto legislation, among other issues critically important to the digital asset industry, Reuters reports.
Shortly after taking office in January, Trump ordered the creation of a crypto working group tasked with proposing new regulations, making good on his campaign promise to overhaul US crypto policy.
Wednesday’s report is a culmination of the taskforce’s work so far and its first public findings.
In line with Trump’s January executive order, it will lay out what rules and laws should be enacted to advance the policy goals of the pro-crypto White House.
Those include making sure that the Securities and Exchange Commission has a framework in place for firms to offer blockchain-based stocks and bonds, according to one person familiar with the discussions.
The report is also expected to discuss the administration’s wishlist for legislation Congress is debating to create broad regulatory guidelines for cryptocurrency, according to a second person familiar with the report.
The working group led by Trump official Bo Hines is composed of several administration officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, SEC Chair Paul Atkins and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought.
The White House, Treasury Department and the SEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.
Trump administration urge judges to release Epstein-Maxwell grand jury transcripts
Hello and welcome back to our coverage of US politics.
Donald Trump’s administration urged two judges on Tuesday night to release testimony heard by the grand juries that indicted the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges as the president seeks to calm an uproar over his administration’s handling of the matter.
The Justice Department first sought court permission on 18 July to make public transcripts of the confidential testimony given by witnesses years ago in the two cases, but Manhattan-based US district judges Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer asked the government to flesh out the legal bases for the requests.
The US president also spoke about Jeffrey Epstein and his links to the president’s Mar-a-Lago club, saying that the late sex offender “stole” Virginia Giuffre and other young female staffers when he hired them while they were working at the Florida country club.
Trump, who has faced an outcry over his administration’s refusal to release more records about Epstein after promises of transparency, made the comments on Air Force One while returning from a trip to Scotland.
In other developments:
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In Hawaii, waves of up to 1.7 metres (5.5 feet) affected the islands before the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reduced its warning level for the state about 08.50 GMT, saying no major tsunami was expected after a powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Russia. Coastal residents were earlier told to get to high ground or the fourth floor or above of buildings, and the US Coast Guard ordered ships out of harbours. Tsunami waves of nearly half a metre were observed as far as California, with smaller ones reaching Canada’s province of British Columbia.
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Indian exporters are bracing for higher US tariffs to kick in as prospects dim for an interim trade deal between New Delhi and Washington before the 1 August deadline. On Tuesday, US president Donald Trump said India could face a 20-25% rate since a deal had not been finalised, although he added that a final levy was yet to be decided.
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A group of global civil society organizations have placed the US on a watchlist for urgent concern over the health of its civic society, alongside Turkey, Serbia, El Salvador, Indonesia and Kenya. On Wednesday, a new report released by the non-profit Civicus placed the US on its watchlist after “sustained attacks on civic freedoms” across the country, according to the group.
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President Trump said on Tuesday he might skip the upcoming Group of 20 (G20) leaders’ summit in South Africa in November and send someone else to represent the United States, citing his disapproval of South African policies. “I think maybe I’ll send somebody else because I’ve had a lot of problems with South Africa. They have some very bad policies,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
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The United States has repatriated an American child from a large camp in northeastern Syria. The camp houses tens of thousands of people with alleged ties to the Islamic State group. The state department announced the move on Wednesday. The al-Hawl Camp holds about 30,000 people from 70 countries, mostly families and supporters of IS fighters.
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Vinay Prasad, the US Food and Drug Administration’s chief medical and science officer, has left the health regulator, the US Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, said on Tuesday, confirming an earlier news report.
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The US Senate on Tuesday confirmed Emil Bove, a top justice department official and former defense attorney for Donald Trump, to a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court, despite claims by whistleblowers that he advocated for ignoring court orders. The vote broke nearly along party lines, with 50 Republican senators voting for his confirmation to a seat on the third circuit court of appeals overseeing New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the US Virgin Islands.