Aug. 22 (UPI) — The Department of Justice was to begin sending some of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation files to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday.
The committee on Aug. 5 had subpoenaed the DOJ to gain access to the investigation files, which the DOJ agreed to begin sharing on Friday after redacting the names of alleged victims and child sex abuse materials, NPR reported.
Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., anticipated receipt of hundreds of Epstein file documents Friday and has said at least some of them eventually will be made public.
“We’re going to be transparent,” Comer told media earlier this week. “We’re doing what we said we would do. We’re getting the documents.”
Comer submitted 11 subpoenas for federal investigation files regarding Epstein and his imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, plus testimony from well-known witnesses.
The list of subpoenaed witnesses’ testimonies includes those by former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller, and former Attorneys General Bill Barr and Merrick Garland.
Committee members are to consult with the DOJ to ensure any shared files will not affect ongoing investigations and criminal cases, Forbes reported.
Although the files have not been made public yet, at least one congressional Democrat claims the Trump administration employed a distraction tactic to divert attention away from the Epstein files.
The FBI on Friday raided the home of former Trump administration National Security Adviser John Bolton for unknown reasons.
“It looks political” and “an attempt to distract from the other big news of the day, which is the first production of the Epstein files,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., told CNN on Friday, as reported by The Daily Beast.
He accused the Trump administration of wanting to “change the conversation repeatedly” and said such events will “happen every day because they don’t want people talking about the Epstein files or about their mismanagement of the economy.”
Bolton was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019 and has become a vocal critic of the president.
Trump said he was not briefed on the FBI’s raid, The Guardian reported.