Epstein survivor describes abuse as lawmakers push for release of case files
Survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and their advocates are rallying outside the Capitol to push for the release of documents related to the government’s investigation of the disgraced financier and alleged sex trafficker.
“Our call to action is crystal clear,” said Lauren Hersh, national director of anti-trafficking group World Without Exploitation, who called to “release the files” related to the case.
Liz Stein spoke at the rally to describe the abuse she faced by Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell:
I was once bright, fun, outgoing and kind. I loved people and people genuinely enjoyed being around me, but after meeting Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it felt like someone shut off the lights to my soul. Instead of pursuing my dream of going to law school after graduation, overcoming the terror and the trauma that was inflicted on me by these sex traffickers, overcoming that, became my decades long, full-time career.
The rally came as a bipartisan group of House lawmakers attempt to force a vote on legislation to release files related to the case, over the objections of Donald Trump, who was once friendly with Epstein, and Republican speaker Mike Johnson:
Key events
Shrai Popat
The bipartisan press conference from representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna just started.
They’ll be providing an update about their petition to get a resolution, urging the release of the Epstein records, on the House floor for a vote.
The area outside the Capitol, known as the House Triangle, is packed with reporters and demonstrators. Signs calling the Donald Trump “a pedophile” are raised alongside placards that accuse the Republican Party of a cover-up.
The House oversight committee yesterday released about 30,000 pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, but, as the Guardian’s Dani Anguiano reports, most of the information in them was already public:
The US House of Representatives oversight committee on Tuesday released thousands of pages of records related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from the department of justice.
The release comes as the Trump administration has been embroiled in months of controversy over its decision not to release additional files in the case. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges and was alleged to have abused hundreds of girls.
The 33,000 pages included years-old court filings related to Epstein and his former girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as what appears to be bodycam footage from police searches and police interviews. The files appear to contain information that is already public knowledge.
The records were posted online as the Trump administration was facing renewed attention on the investigation into Epstein. With Congress back in session this week, Democratic and Republican representatives had planned to hold press conferences to demand greater transparency from the administration in the case.
Donald Trump, a longtime friend of Epstein and part of his rich and powerful social circle, has, in recent weeks, tried to avoid the subject. Earlier this year he sued the Wall Street Journal for its reporting on his relationship with Epstein on a birthday note Trump was alleged to have written to him. The president has called the recent Epstein controversy a hoax.
Shrai Popat
This “Stand with Survivors” outside the Capitol today rally aims to center those who suffered at the hands of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. It’s separate from the bipartisan press conference by lawmakers calling for the complete release of the Epstein files that is scheduled to begin at 10.30am.
“We are here to say, we see you, we believe you and we will not stop until justice is served,” said Skye Roberts, the brother of Virginia Guiffre, who died by suicide earlier this year after years of speaking out about the abuse she experienced at the hands of Maxwell and Epstein.
“Ghislaine Maxwell must remain in a maximum security prison for the rest of her sentence. No leniency, no deals, no special treatment,” he added. “The Epstein documents must be unsealed. Every name, every detail, no more secrets, no more protection for those who preyed on the vulnerable.”
Signs at the rally are dotted among the crowd, many echoing messages of support for survivors: “We love you” and “we believe you”. While others are more pointed, reading “guardians of the pedophiles” under pictures of Donald Trump and Epstein together.
Teresa Helm, who was trafficked and groomed by Ghislaine Maxwell, told the crowd here that change was a foot. “Systems built with a root of corruption, violence and deceit always crumble,” she said. “Now is the time to sift through and get rid of the perpetrators and bad actors.”
Epstein survivor describes abuse as lawmakers push for release of case files
Survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and their advocates are rallying outside the Capitol to push for the release of documents related to the government’s investigation of the disgraced financier and alleged sex trafficker.
“Our call to action is crystal clear,” said Lauren Hersh, national director of anti-trafficking group World Without Exploitation, who called to “release the files” related to the case.
Liz Stein spoke at the rally to describe the abuse she faced by Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell:
I was once bright, fun, outgoing and kind. I loved people and people genuinely enjoyed being around me, but after meeting Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it felt like someone shut off the lights to my soul. Instead of pursuing my dream of going to law school after graduation, overcoming the terror and the trauma that was inflicted on me by these sex traffickers, overcoming that, became my decades long, full-time career.
The rally came as a bipartisan group of House lawmakers attempt to force a vote on legislation to release files related to the case, over the objections of Donald Trump, who was once friendly with Epstein, and Republican speaker Mike Johnson:
Hundreds of current and former employees of the department of health and human services are calling on secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to quit, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reports. Here’s why:
A letter published on Wednesday from more than 1,000 past and present workers of the health and human services department (HHS) has demanded the resignation of Robert F Kennedy Jr, insisting the health secretary’s attacks on vaccines endangered the lives of all Americans.
The hard-hitting letter, addressed to Congress members, blames Kennedy for turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the firing of the agency’s chief and replacement by a Donald Trump loyalist with no medical or scientific background.
It comes two days after nine former CDC officials wrote in a New York Times guest essay that Kennedy’s leadership, and ousting of the CDC director, Susan Monarez, months after he appointed her, was “unacceptable” and “unlike anything we have ever seen”.
The letter posted on Wednesday by a group calling itself Save HHS assails Kennedy for “endangering the nation’s health by spreading inaccurate health information”.
It cites the resignations of other leading health officials, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of CDC’s national center for immunization and respiratory diseases; Daniel Jernigan, the agency’s director for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases; and Debra Houry, its chief medical officer.
The Democratic vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee Mark Warner said the Trump administration cancelled his visit to a government facility after pressure from far-right activist Laura Loomer.
Warner said he was going to visit the headquarters of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in his home state of Virginia, but the administration disinvited him after Loomer launched “a campaign of baseless attacks” against him and the agency’s director, Trey Whitworth.
“This nakedly political decision undermines the dedicated, nonpartisan staff at NGA and threatens the principle of civilian oversight that protects our national security. Members of Congress routinely conduct meetings and on-site engagements with federal employees in their states and districts; blocking and setting arbitrary conditions on these sessions sets a dangerous precedent, calling into question whether oversight is now allowed only when it pleases the far-right fringe,” Warner said in a statement.
“This should concern Republicans as well as Democrats: if routine oversight can be obstructed for political reasons, no member of Congress is immune.”
The Trump administration’s deployment of warships towards Venezuela prompted concerns in the country that the United States was planning an invasion. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Tom Phillips and Patricia Torres:
As US warships carrying cruise missiles and marines powered towards Venezuela’s coastline this week, supporters of the South American country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, warned a dastardly imperialist plot for an Iraq-style invasion was afoot.
“No one will lay their hands on this land!” Maduro thundered, calling on patriots to help repel the supposed regime change operation by joining his “Bolivarian militia”.
Donald Trump’s allies posted incendiary social media messages, warning the Venezuelan autocrat the end was nigh. “Your days are seriously numbered,” Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, proclaimed, urging Maduro to buy “a one-way ticket to Moscow”.
Another Trump supporter, Congressman Carlos Gimenez, celebrated “the largest military presence we have ever had off the coast of Venezuela” and told Maduro to accept “his time is up!”
Hegseth says US will carry out more strikes on suspected drug traffickers
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said that the US will continue to use force against suspected drug traffickers, hours after the military destroyed a boat in the Caribbean that was thought to be carrying drugs from Venezuela.
In an interview with Fox News this morning, Hegseth said:
This is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop with just this strike. Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated Narco terrorist will face the same fate.
The US military said the strike killed 11 drug traffickers, days after the US deployed several warships into the Caribbean on what it said was a mission to stem the flow of narcotics into the United States. Here’s more:
As part of the Trump administration’s campaign of mass deportations, the defense department will soon have hundreds of military judges work on immigration cases, the Associated Press reports:
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to the federal justice department to serve as temporary immigration judges, according to a memo reviewed by the Associated Press.
The military will begin sending groups of 150 attorneys – both military and civilians – to the justice department “as soon as practicable” and the military services should have the first round of people identified by next week, according to the memo, dated 27 August.
The effort comes as Donald Trump’s presidential administration cracks down on immigration across the country, ramping up arrests and deportations. Immigration courts are also already dealing with a huge backlog of roughly 3.5m cases that has ballooned in recent years.
However, numerous immigration judges have been fired or left voluntarily after taking deferred resignations offered by the administration, according to their union. The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) said in July that at least 17 immigration judges had been fired “without cause” in courts across the country.
That has left about 600 immigration judges, union figures show, meaning the Pentagon move will double their ranks.
Missouri takes up Trump’s redistricting effort in Republican push to win more US House seats
Missouri lawmakers are meeting in a special session to redraw the state’s US House districts as part of president Donald Trump’s effort to bolster Republicans’ chances of retaining control of Congress in next year’s elections, AP reports.
The special session called by Republican governor Mike Kehoe is scheduled to begin at 12pm on Wednesday and will run at least a week.
Missouri is the third state to pursue the unusual task of mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage.
Republican-led Texas, prodded by Trump, was the first to take up redistricting with a new map aimed at helping Republicans pick up five more congressional seats.
But before Texas even completed its work, Democratic-led California already had fought back with its own redistricting plan designed to give Democrats a chance at winning five more seats.
California’s plan still needs voter approval at a 4 November election. Other states could follow with their own redistricting efforts.
Jason Wilson
The flagship podcast of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), the Christian denomination that claims US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, as a member, has functioned as a platform for the promotion of Christian nationalist and other far-right positions.
CrossPolitic, whose hosts are close associates of Idaho-based pastor Douglas Wilson, has in recent weeks hosted a theocratic Canadian pastor who has called for his country to be absorbed by the United States, and a self-styled “patriot professor” who has backed the rise of Russia and China and the decline of liberal democracies and endorsed the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda.
The podcast’s themes and guests, and the prestige of its hosts in CREC circles, raise further questions about the extent to which Hegseth’s views on US foreign and defense policy have been shaped by a religious movement that directly opposes liberal democracy and democratic principles including individual women’s suffrage.
One of the podcast’s guests even voiced support for the need for a modern US version of Oliver Cromwell, an English authoritarian and religious zealot who governed England as a dictator after the country’s 17th-century civil war.
US secretary Rubio visits Mexico amid crackdown on cartels
Secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet with Mexican leaders on Wednesday during his first trip to the country since taking office, as the Trump administration pursues a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration and drug cartels and seeks to counter China’s influence in Latin America.
Washington’s top diplomat will visit Mexico City and Ecuador in his latest trip to the region, where he will meet with counterparts and the presidents of the two countries, Reuters reported.
Rubio, the first Latino US secretary of state, traveled to countries in Central America and the Caribbean during his first overseas trip after taking office as the administration sought to shift back focus to Latin America.
The trip to Mexico and Ecuador comes after the US. military attacked a vessel from Venezuela in the Caribbean on Tuesday that US officials said was carrying illegal drugs. It was the first known operation since the Trump administration’s recent surge of warships to the region that has raised tensions between Washington and Caracas.
The visit comes as Trump has also intensified his campaign to deport migrants in the US illegally, sending federal agents into major US cities and pushing for high daily arrest quotas.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Vladimir Putin was not conspiring with China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un against the United States, and suggested that perhaps president Donald Trump was being ironic with his criticism.
Trump said on Tuesday he was “very disappointed” with Putin, and suggested in a post on Truth Social that Xi, Putin and Kim were conspiring against the United States.
“May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration,” Trump posted.
“Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”
Asked about the Trump remarks by Russian state television, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said that Trump may have been being ironic.
“I would like to say that no one has been conspiring, no one has been plotting anything, no conspiracies,” Ushakov said.
US House committee releases more than 33,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein files
Dani Anguiano
The US House of Representatives oversight committee on Tuesday released thousands of pages of records related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from the department of justice.
The release comes as the Trump administration has been embroiled in months of controversy over its decision not to release additional files in the case. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges and was alleged to have abused hundreds of girls.
The 33,000 pages included years-old court filings related to Epstein and his former girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as what appears to be bodycam footage from police searches and police interviews. The files appear to contain information that is already public knowledge.
The records were posted online as the Trump administration was facing renewed attention on the investigation into Epstein. With Congress back in session this week, Democratic and Republican representatives had planned to hold press conferences to demand greater transparency from the administration in the case.
Donald Trump, a longtime friend of Epstein and part of his rich and powerful social circle, has, in recent weeks, tried to avoid the subject. Earlier this year he sued the Wall Street Journal for its reporting on his relationship with Epstein on a birthday note Trump was alleged to have written to him. The president has called the recent Epstein controversy a hoax.
The White House has urged Republican lawmakers not to support a discharge petition from Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, which would force the release of all of the Epstein files.
Lauren Gambino
The Trump administration illegally deployed thousands of national guard troops in Los Angeles earlier this summer amid widespread protests against its immigration enforcement actions, a federal judged said on Tuesday.
Judge Charles Breyer ruled in a case brought by the state of California that Donald Trump’s administration violated federal law by sending troops to accompany federal agents on raids.
In the order, set to take effect on 12 September, Breyer cited the president’s threats to send national guard troops to other cities across the country, “thus creating a national police force with the president as its chief”.
In a statement, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, praised the court’s ruling as a win for democracy and constitutional limits on presidential power, declaring: “No president is a king — not even Trump.”
On social media, he marked the legal win with a Trumpian-style post: “DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN,” adding, “The courts agree – his militarization of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL.”
Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, dismissed the ruling as judicial overreach and accused a “rogue judge” of trying to “usurp” Trump’s authority to respond to unrest and violence in American cities.
“President Trump saved Los Angeles, which was overrun by deranged leftist lunatics sowing mass chaos until he stepped in,” Kelly said in a statement, vowing the legal fight was not over. The administration was expected to appeal the decision.
Donald Trump has dismissed speculation that he is in ill health, saying he was busy on the Labor Day weekend giving media interviews and visiting his Virginia golf course.
“I was very active over the weekend,” Trump, 79, told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Asked about rumours on social media that he may have died, he called them “fake news”.
The president complained that he had done several news conferences last week “then I didn’t do any for two days and they said ‘there must be something wrong with him’.”
“It’s so fake. ‘Is he OK, how’s he feeling, what’s wrong?’”
Speculation about his health swirled on X over the weekend, with posts citing his lack of a public schedule late last week and a JD Vance interview in which the vice-president told USA Today he was confident the president was “in good shape” but suggested he was prepared to step in if anything happened to Trump.
Trump to welcome Polish president Nawrocki to White House today
President Donald Trump will welcome Polish president Karol Nawrocki back to the White House on Wednesday after backing the conservative nationalist in Polish elections, with their meeting likely to focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine and energy security.
Trump extended the invitation days after Nawrocki was sworn in early in August and then intervened to ensure he joined a key telephone call on Ukraine with European leaders instead of his rival, centrist Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, Reuters reported.
The president hosted Nawrocki at the White House in May, backing him at a crucial moment in the Polish election. Nawrocki went on to defeat the candidate of Tusk’s pro-European, centrist party a month later.
Wednesday’s talks are expected to center on stalled negotiations to end the war and Poland’s security concerns, amid signs that Trump has grown frustrated with Russian president Vladimir Putin for failing to move forward on ending the war.
Trump cannot use Alien Enemies Act to deport members of Venezuelan gang, appeals court rules
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog for today. I am Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans he alleged were part of a criminal gang.
In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the Trump administration from removing a group of Venezuelans under the seldom-used 18th-century law, Reuters reported.
The fifth circuit is the first federal appeals court to rule directly on a March 14 presidential proclamation invoking the 1798 law to justify rapid deportations.
Circuit judge Leslie Southwick, writing for the two-judge majority, rejected the Trump administration’s assertion that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had engaged in a “predatory incursion” on US soil.
The act gives the government expansive powers to detain and deport citizens of hostile foreign nations, but only in times of war, or during an “invasion or predatory incursion.”
Southwick was appointed by former president George W Bush. He was joined by circuit judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, an appointee of president Joe Biden. Circuit judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented.
The Trump administration could ask the entire 5th Circuit to rehear the case. It is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court.
“The Trump administration’s use of a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court,” said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, who represented the Venezuelans. “This is a critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.”
It comes as Trump claimed that the US military had killed 11 drug traffickers from Venezuela during a “a kinetic strike” in the Caribbean Sea.
Trump trailed the announcement during an address at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters the US had “just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out … a drug-carrying boat”.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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A judge has found the Trump administration’s use of national guard troops during southern California immigration enforcement protests was illegal. Judge Charles Breyer ruled on Tuesday that the administration violated federal law by sending troops to accompany federal agents on immigration raids. The judge did not require the remaining troops withdrawn, however.
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The US House of Representatives oversight committee released thousands of pages of records related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein from the justice department. The 33,000 pages included years-old court filings related to Epstein and his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell as well as what appears to be body-cam footage from police searches and police interviews.
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Donald Trump has dismissed speculation that he is in ill health, saying he was busy on the Labor Day weekend giving media interviews and visiting his Virginia golf course. “I was very active over the weekend,” Trump, 79, told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Asked about rumours on social media that he may have died, he called them “fake news”.
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Trump made his first public appearance in a week on Tuesday to announce that the US Space Command (Spacecom) headquarters, which is tasked with leading national security operations in space, would be in the Republican stronghold of Alabama. Flanked by Republican senators and members of Congress at a White House news conference, Trump said Huntsville, Alabama, would be the new location of the space command.
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Trump will welcome Polish president Karol Nawrocki back to the White House on Wednesday after backing the conservative nationalist in Polish elections, with their meeting likely to focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine and energy security. Trump extended the invitation days after Nawrocki was sworn in early in August and then intervened to ensure he joined a key telephone call on Ukraine with European leaders instead of his rival, centrist Polish prime minister Donald Tusk.
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The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Vladimir Putin was not conspiring with China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un against the United States, and suggested that perhaps president Trump was being ironic with his criticism. Trump said on Tuesday he was “very disappointed” with Putin, and suggested in a post on Truth Social that Xi, Putin and Kim were conspiring against the United States.
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is expected to say Britain has become an “authoritarian censorship regime” on a trip to the US after the arrest of Irish writer Graham Linehan. He is due to speak about free speech at the House Judiciary Committee later today.