Politics
Justice Department releases Epstein files, with redactions and omissions
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department released a library of files on Friday related to Jeffrey Epstein, partially complying with a new federal law compelling their release, while acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of files remain sealed.
The portal, on the department’s website, includes videos, photos and documents from the years-long investigation of the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, who died in federal prison in 2019. But upon an initial survey of the files, several of the documents were heavily redacted, and much of the database was unsearchable, in spite of a provision of the new law requiring a more accessible system.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, unequivocally required the department to release its full trove of files by midnight Friday, marking 30 days since passage.
But a top official said earlier Friday that the department would miss the legal deadline Friday to release all files, protracting a scandal that has come to plague the Trump administration. Hundreds of thousands more were still under review and would take weeks more to release, said Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general.
“I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche told Fox News on Friday.
The delay drew immediate condemnation from Democrats in key oversight roles.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, accused President Trump and his administration in a statement Friday of “violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring,” and said they were “examining all legal options.”
The delay also drew criticism from some Republicans.
“My goodness, what is in the Epstein files?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is leaving Congress next month, wrote on X. “Release all the files. It’s literally the law.”
“Time’s up. Release the files,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wrote on X.
Already, congressional efforts to force the release of documents from the FBI’s investigations into Epstein have produced a trove of the disgraced financier’s emails and other records from his estate.
Some made reference to Trump and added to a long-evolving portrait of the social relationship that Epstein and Trump shared for years, before what Trump has described as a falling out.
In one email in early 2019, during Trump’s first term in the White House, Epstein wrote to author and journalist Michael Wolff that Trump “knew about the girls.”
In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse young girls, Epstein wrote, “I want you to realize that the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”
Maxwell responded: “I have been thinking about that…”
Trump has strongly denied any wrongdoing, and downplayed the importance of the files. He has also intermittently worked to block their release, even while suggesting publicly that he would not be opposed to it.
His administration’s resistance to releasing all of the FBI’s files, and fumbling with their reasons for withholding documents, was overcome only after Republican lawmakers broke off and joined Democrats in passing the transparency measure.
The resistance has also riled many in the president’s base, with their intrigue and anger over the files remaining stickier and harder to shake for Trump than any other political vulnerability.
It remained unclear Friday afternoon what additional revelations would come from the anticipated dump. Among the files that were released, extensive redactions were expected to shield victims, as well as references to individuals and entities that could be the subject of ongoing investigations or matters of national security.
That could include mentions of Trump, experts said, who was a private citizen over the course of his infamous friendship with Epstein through the mid-2000s.
Epstein was convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what was considered a sweetheart plea deal that saved him a potential life sentence. He was charged in 2019 with sex trafficking, and died in federal custody at a Manhattan jail awaiting trial. Epstein was alleged to have abused over 200 women and girls.
Many of his victims argued in support of the release of documents, but administration officials have cited their privacy as a primary excuse for delaying the release — something Blanche reiterated Friday.
“There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim,” Blanche said, noting that Trump had signed the law just 30 days prior.
“And we have been working tirelessly since that day to make sure that we get every single document that we have within the Department of Justice, review it and get it to the American public,” he said.
Trump had lobbied aggressively against the Epstein Files Transparency Act, unsuccessfully pressuring House Republican lawmakers not to join a discharge petition that would force a vote on the matter over the wishes of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). He ultimately signed the bill into law after it passed both chambers with veto-proof majorities.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), who introduced the House bill requiring the release of the files, warned that the Justice Department under future administrations could pursue legal action against current officials who work to obstruct the release of any of the files, contravening the letter of the new law.
“Let me be very clear, we need a full release,” Khanna said. “Anyone who tampers with these documents, or conceals documents, or engages in excessive redaction, will be prosecuted because of obstruction of justice.”
Given Democrats’ desire to keep the issue alive politically, and the intense interest in the matter from voters on both ends of the political spectrum, the fact that the Justice Department failed to meet the Friday deadline in full was likely to stoke continued agitation for the documents’ release in coming days.
In their statement Friday, Garcia and Raskin hammered on Trump administration officials — including Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi — for allegedly interfering in the release of records.
“For months, Pam Bondi has denied survivors the transparency and accountability they have demanded and deserve and has defied the Oversight Committee’s subpoena,” they said. “The Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself.”
Among other things, they called out the Justice Department’s decision to move Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, to a minimum security prison after she met with Blanche in July.
“The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ,” Garcia and Raskin said.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), in response to Blanche saying all the files wouldn’t be released Friday, said the transparency act “is clear: while protecting survivors, ALL of these records are required to be released today. Not just some.”
“The Trump administration can’t move the goalposts,” Schiff wrote on X. “They’re cemented in law.”
Politics
Video: Acting Attorney General Says Only Trump Knows Why Bondi Was Fired
new video loaded: Acting Attorney General Says Only Trump Knows Why Bondi Was Fired
transcript
transcript
Acting Attorney General Says Only Trump Knows Why Bondi Was Fired
The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said during his first news conference on Tuesday that “nobody has any idea” why President Trump fired Pam Bondi last week.
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Nobody has any idea why the attorney general is no longer the attorney general and I’m the acting attorney general, except for President Trump. I grow tired of people in the media saying why President Trump did or did do something, because President Trump’s only one that knows that. I did not ask for this job. And if President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor.
By Jackeline Luna
April 7, 2026
Politics
AOC doubles down on call for Trump’s ouster even after ceasefire announcement
Kayleigh McEnany: AOC is not fooling anyone
Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany talks about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., stumbling on her words while discussing foreign policy at the Munich Security Conference and more on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., continued calling for President Donald Trump’s ouster on Tuesday even after the president announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran.
“This statement changes nothing,” she asserted in a post on X, referring to the president’s Tuesday evening ceasefire announcement. “Whether by his Cabinet or Congress, the President must be removed from office.”
Prior to the ceasefire announcement, Trump, who had been threatening to unleash a devastating attack against Iranian power plants and bridges, sent the following warning in a Tuesday morning Truth Social post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the progressive cadre of lawmakers known as “The Squad,” responded by declaring in a post on X, “This is a threat of genocide and merits removal from office. The President’s mental faculties are collapsing and cannot be trusted. To every individual in the President’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat.”
But then on Tuesday night, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire.
TRUMP AGREES TO 2-WEEK CEASEFIRE IF IRAN OPENS STRAIT OF HORMUZ
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks during a rally on March 21, 2025, at Civic Center Park in Denver, Colo. (Chet Strange/Getty Images)
“Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE!” the president wrote in part of a Truth Social post. “Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated.”
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in part of a statement, “If attacks against Iran are halted, our Powerful Armed Forces will cease their defensive operations. For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces and with due consideration of technical limitations.”
But even in light of Trump’s ceasefire announcement, Ocasio-Cortez asserted that the president’s “statement changes nothing.”
“The President has threatened a genocide against the Iranian people, and is continuing to leverage that threat. He has launched a massive war of enormous risk and of catastrophic consequence without reason, rationale, nor Congressional authorization – which is as clear a violation of the Constitution as any. Each day this goes on, the risk and criminality of these actions escalate for our nation and the world,” she wrote in the post on X.
EX-TRUMP ALLY MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE JOINS LEFT-WING CALLS FOR THE 25TH AMENDMENT AS IRAN DEADLINE NEARS
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 6, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“Moreover, this administration’s self enrichment, insider trading, and pure corruption off this chaos – from crypto currencies to predictive trading markets to bribe ‘settlements’ – has placed the Trump administration’s pursuit of personal wealth squarely against the wellbeing of our nation and its people. All of these incidents, and plenty more, have clearly driven our country past the threshold for impeachment or invocation of the 25th amendment,” she continued.
“We cannot risk the world nor the wellbeing of our nation any longer. None of these considerations should be partisan, but shared in good faith by Americans of all backgrounds who care for the safety and stability of the United States. Whether by his Cabinet or Congress, the President must be removed from office. We are playing with the brink,” she wrote.
AOC TELLS TROOPS TO REFUSE ‘ILLEGAL’ ORDERS AHEAD OF TRUMP’S LOOMING IRAN DEADLINE
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) waves to the crowd ahead of Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration as the 112th mayor at City Hall on Thursday Jan. 1, 2026 in New York, NY. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment early on Wednesday.
Politics
Federal judge could halt Nexstar-Tegna TV station merger
SACRAMENTO — A federal judge appears willing to block a $6.2-billion merger of two large TV station groups as he evaluates whether Nexstar Media Group’s takeover of a rival violates U.S. antitrust laws.
At the conclusion of a two-hour hearing in Sacramento on Tuesday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Troy L. Nunley signaled he was preparing to issue a preliminary injunction that would prevent Nexstar and Tegna from combining operations amid an ongoing legal challenge.
Nunley said he would draft a written order, which is expected by Friday.
Previously, Nunley had issued a temporary restraining order to pause the merger.
Last month, Nexstar raced to finalize its blockbuster purchase of Tegna — despite a lawsuit filed by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and seven other state attorneys general. The state officials, all Democrats, claimed the massive merger would give Nexstar too much control over local TV stations, ultimately hurting consumers by diminishing the diversity and quality of their newscasts.
California Deputy Atty. Gen. Laura Antonini argued that when news consolidates, it results in a loss of diverse viewpoints.
“That’s extremely harmful to democracy and to the citizens of this state,” she said at the hearing.
President Trump has championed the Nexstar-Tegna merger, suggesting it would diminish the clout of the major TV networks, including those he often gripes about: ABC and NBC. Nexstar, based in Irving, Texas, owns dozens of network affiliate stations.
Nexstar, which also owns KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles, already is the nation’s largest station group. The deal was expected to reshape the local television industry by extending Nexstar’s reach to 265 television stations, up from 164.
If the acquisition is finalized , Nexstar stations would cover 80% of the U.S. population, exceeding a 39% ownership cap set by Congress.
El Segundo-based DirecTV separately sued, alleging the combination of the nation’s two largest television station groups would do irreparable harm to its pay-TV business by raising prices and potentially increasing programming blackouts.
Representatives of Nexstar, DirecTV and Bonta’s office declined to comment after Tuesday’s hearing.
During the hearing, Nexstar attorney Alexander Okuliar, argued against an injunction, saying the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the merger posed an immediate threat to the public. He said DirecTV and the attorneys general had offered only proposed financial harms.
In court documents, the state attorneys general and DirecTV alleged the deal would give Nexstar multiple TV stations in dozens of markets. That raised concerns about layoffs in an industry that has sustained significant downsizing in recent years as viewers and advertisers migrate to streaming options and social media platforms like TikTok.
Nexstar could “shut down local newsrooms in dozens of markets, reducing the amount, variety, and quality of local broadcast news that Americans rely on for trusted information about their communities,” DirecTV alleged.
For example, Nexstar owns the Fox station in Sacramento, while McLean, Va.-based Tegna owns the ABC affiliate.
Okuliar pushed back, saying there was no evidence that local newsrooms would be shuttered.
“One of the reasons for this deal is to protect local broadcasters, to protect local journalism,” he told the judge.
Nexstar contends the deal would strengthen TV station economics, allowing stations to bolster their news gathering and expand the number of newscasts. The company cited dozens of awards won by Nexstar journalists, including in Oklahoma City.
In addition to Bonta, the plaintiffs include state attorneys general in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia.
Nearly two dozen lawyers attended the hearing on behalf of the other plaintiffs. Eight lawyers represented Nexstar and Tegna.
Nexstar Chief Executive Perry Sook and Chief Operating officer Michael Biard also attended.
In its complaint, DirecTV argued that it would suffer financial harm because Nexstar would use its increased heft to demand significantly higher fees for the rights to carry its network-affiliate stations, which carry local news, prime-time shows and professional sports, including NFL football. Such programming disputes can lead to blackouts that infuriate customers.
Nexstar’s lawyers disputed such allegations, telling the judge the merger would ultimately increase the value of content. The company suggested the deal could lower prices for distributors like DirecTV, which has about 10 million customers nationwide.
Nunley recently combined the DirecTV and state attorneys general lawsuits into one.
The judge, who was elevated to the federal bench by President Obama, had already expressed concerns about the merger.
In his March 27 order granting the temporary restraining order, Nunley said DirecTV had demonstrated that it could prevail at a trial due to the merits of its arguments.
He then instructed Nexstar to “immediately cease all ongoing actions relating to integration and consolidation of Nexstar and Tegna.”
Instead, the Tegna unit must continue to operate independently as “an ongoing, economically viable, and active competitor,” the judge wrote.
The Nexstar-Tegna merger took on political overtones in early February after Trump threw his weight behind it, writing in a post on Truth Social that the proposed union was among the “good deals,” because it would provide competition against “THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks.”
“GET THAT DEAL DONE!” Trump wrote.
The state attorneys general sued to block the merger on March 18, when the transaction was still pending at the U.S. Justice Department, which is tasked with conducting antitrust reviews, and the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees TV station licenses.
The Justice Department and FCC blessed the deal the following day.
Within an hour, Nexstar announced that it finalized the transaction and that Tegna had been disbanded.
“It’s very rare to do what Nexstar did here,” DirecTV’s attorney Glenn Pomerantz said.
Nexstar had asked the judge to require the plaintiffs to post a $150-million bond to compensate it for damages it would suffer from any delays in closing the deal.
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