Democrats in the United States have moved to force President Donald Trump to release files from the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, invoking an obscure law to keep up the pressure on an issue that has roiled Trump’s administration and base.
The White House has been facing increasingly intense demands to be more transparent about the disgraced financier, who died in federal prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The president raised further questions about his past relationship with Epstein on Tuesday when he told reporters he fell out with his former friend after Epstein “stole” employees from the spa at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The Department of Justice angered Trump supporters earlier this month when it said Epstein had died by suicide and had no “client list” – rebuffing conspiracy theories about the supposed complicity of high-profile Democrats that leading figures in Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement had been pushing for years.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee wrote to the Justice Department asking for the materials under a section of federal law known as the “rule of five”.
