California Gov. Gavin Newsom trolled President Donald Trump on Christmas Eve over the Justice Division’s dealing with of the Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata launch, which has been hindered by heavy redactions and delays.
The governor rounded off a 12 months of mocking the president by posting a brief video that confirmed pages and pages of redactions within the recordsdata within the late convicted intercourse offender’s case, lower with footage of Trump talking with Epstein within the early 90s.
“2025: REDACTED,” Newsom posted on his X account alongside the 20-second clip, which opened with a voiceover that mentioned: “And with that, the 2025 season involves an finish. Goodnight.”
The footage performed over the 2009 Mumford & Sons hit White Clean Web page.
Newsom’s video then confirmed a grainy picture of Trump inside Epstein’s desk that was initially printed by the Justice Division on December 19, the deadline set by Congress to launch the entire recordsdata.
The picture was eliminated the following day by officers “out of an abundance of warning for additional evaluate” and was later reposted.
However critics had been fast to note the picture had been taken down, which solely fueled additional hypothesis over whether or not the division was withholding proof of Trump within the recordsdata.
“DOJ defends eradicating Trump picture from Epstein recordsdata,” a headline learn alongside the picture within the video posted by Newsom.
The president shouldn’t be accused of wrongdoing in reference to Epstein’s crimes, and an individual’s look throughout the recordsdata doesn’t counsel wrongdoing. Early this week, the DOJ launched one other batch of paperwork from the Epstein recordsdata. These featured a number of mentions of Trump, although DOJ officers had been fast to supply context that among the references involving the president got here from faux paperwork a part of the file.
Newsom’s video additionally highlighted a document of an inside e-mail despatched by an unnamed assistant U.S. legal professional for the Southern District of New York relationship from January 2020 that was included within the second batch launch.
The official wrote to colleagues explaining that flight information obtained from Epstein’s personal jet revealed Trump had flown in it “many extra occasions than beforehand has been reported.”
That seems to contradict a declare Trump made on Reality Social in January 2024, whereas campaigning for the presidency, by which he flatly declared: “I used to be by no means on Epstein’s Aircraft.”
Simply half-hour after Newsom posted the video, Justice Division officers admitted that they had uncovered over 1,000,000 extra paperwork “doubtlessly” tied to the Epstein case, and it might take weeks to launch all of them.
“We’ve legal professionals working across the clock to evaluate and make the legally required redactions to guard victims, and we’ll launch the paperwork as quickly as potential,” the assertion mentioned.
The Trump administration faces extra backlash over its partial launch of the recordsdata by the December 19 deadline and because the Justice Division seems to be scrambling to redact the remaining recordsdata.
To date, roughly 750,000 paperwork within the convicted intercourse offender’s case have been reviewed and launched by a workforce of 200 individuals, a Trump administration official instructed Axios.
Management reportedly despatched out an “emergency request” asking profession prosecutors in Florida to volunteer over the Christmas vacation to help in redacting the recordsdata, in accordance with CNN.
“We’d like AUSAs to do distant doc evaluate and redactions associated to the Epstein recordsdata,” the e-mail from a supervising prosecutor within the Southern District of Florida’s U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace reportedly mentioned.
“I’m conscious that the timing couldn’t be worse,” the e-mail despatched two days earlier than Christmas Day mentioned. “For some the vacations are about to start, however I do know that for others the vacations are coming to an finish.”
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, the lawmakers behind the laws to launch the recordsdata, have instructed Lawyer Common Pam Bondi may very well be held in contempt for failing to launch paperwork by the deadline.
