By Daily Caller Staff
A federal judge on Wednesday shut down a bipartisan bid by two House members to force the Justice Department to speed up the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related records, ruling the court lacks authority to police the Justice Department’s compliance inside Ghislaine Maxwell’s “effectively closed” criminal case.
Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna asked U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer to let them weigh in as “friends of the court” and appoint a special master or monitor to oversee the DOJ’s public release of records under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed in November. (RELATED: House Oversight Moves To Hold Clintons In Contempt After They Duck Epstein Testimony)
“Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act,” the lawmakers wrote in a Jan. 8 letter urging Engelmayer to install an independent watchdog.
Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, ruled the bid was a nonstarter because “[t]he only parties to the case are Maxwell and the United States,” and because Maxwell was charged under six federal criminal statutes “not brought under the EFTA, which did not exist at the time and is not a criminal statute.”
Still, Engelmayer acknowledged the underlying dispute, writing that the lawmakers’ and victims’ questions “raise legitimate concerns about whether DOJ is faithfully complying with federal law.” The judge noted the decision does not bar Massie and Khanna from filing a separate lawsuit and said they remain free to use congressional oversight tools.
The law requires to the DOJ to publish, in a searchable and downloadable format, all unclassified records in its possession that relate to Epstein, Maxwell and bars withholding “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
