The house has just launched thousands of files on Jeffrey Epstein

Washington (AP) – The Supervision Committee of the House of Representatives published on Tuesday the archives he has received from the Department of Justice about sexual trafficking research on Jeffrey Epstein and his ex -girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, responding to the growing pressure in Congress to force more dissemination in the case.

Even so, the files mainly contain information that was already publicly known or available. The folders contained hundreds of image files of judicial presentations of years related to Epstein and Maxwell. They also included video files that seemed to be images of the body chamber of police searches, as well as recordings and summaries of interviews of application of the law with victims that detail the abuse they said they suffered.

The release of the file committee showed how legislators are eager to act when they return to Washington after a month of one month. They quickly revived a political shock that has baffled the republican leadership of the Chamber and the administration of President Donald Trump. The Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, is trying to suffocate an effort of the Democrats and some Republicans to force a vote on a bill that would require the Department of Justice to release all the information in the so -called Epstein files, with the exception of the personal information of the victims.

The survivors meet with legislators

In Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Johnson and a bipartisan group of legislators met with survivors of Abuse from Epstein and Maxwell.

“The objective here is not only to discover, investigate Epstein’s evils, but also to ensure that this never happens again and, ultimately, discovering why justice has been delayed for these ladies for so long,” said Johnson, Republican of the La LaSIS, after he left a two -hour meeting with six of the survivors.

“It is inexcusable. And it will stop now because Congress is marked in this,” he added.

But there are still intense disagreements on how legislators should proceed. Johnson is pressing so that the investigation is handled by the Chamber’s Supervision Committee and supporting the Committee as he publishes his findings.

Davidoff Studios Photography through Getty Images

What are in the files released?

The files published on Tuesday included the audio of an Epstein employee who described an official of the law how “there were many girls who were very, very young” visiting the house, but they could not say with certainty if they were minors.

In the course of Epstein’s visits to the house, said the man, more than a dozen girls could visit, and was accused of cleaning the room where Epstein had massages, twice a day.

Some pages were almost completely written. Other documents related to the prosecution of Epstein in Florida that led to a guilt agreement that for a long time has been criticized as too indulgent, including emails between defense and prosecutors on the conditions of their probation after their sentence. Barbara Burns, a Palm Beach County prosecutor, expressed her frustration when the defense promoted less restrictions on her client: “I don’t know how to convey more than I already have that his client is a registered sexual criminal who was lucky to obtain the treatment of the century.”

Some of the interviews with officers of the Palm Beach Department Datan of 2005, according to the time brands read by officials at the beginning of the archives.

The majority, if not all, of the text documents published on Tuesday had already been public. In particular, the Affidavit of Probable Cause and other records of the 2005 investigation on Epstein contained a notation that indicated that they had previously published in a request for public records of 2017. An internet search showed that these files were published on the website of the office of the Palm Beach County Prosecutor in July 2017.

Representative Robert García, the main democrat in the House Supervision Committee, rebuked the Republicans in the panel to release material that, according to him, consisted almost completely in information already available.

“The 33,000 pages of Epstein James’s documents has decided to ‘free’ were already public information. For the American people, do not let this deceive you,” Garcia said in a statement.

Department of Justice

The thrust continues for dissemination

If the purpose of the launch was to provide responses to an still curious audience for the cases concluded in the long term, the raw mechanics of the clumsy implement made it a challenge.

Legislators at 6 PM published thousands of pages and videos through a cumbersome Google Drive, letting readers and spectators decipher new and interesting things on their own. The dissemination also left the question open why the Department of Justice did not release the material directly to the public instead of operating through Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, the Democrats and some Republicans were still trying to maneuver around the control of Johnson on the floor of the House of Representatives to vote for their bill to demand the Department of Justice to release files publicly. The representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who leads the maneuver, spoke with confidence that he could obtain the support of at least a handful of Republicans, as well as all the Democrats, to force a vote.

If Massie, who presses for the bill together with the representative RO Khanna, D-Calif., He succeeds in forcing a vote, which could take weeks, the legislation would still need to approve the Senate and be signed by Trump.

The clash suggests that little has changed in Congress since the end of July, when Johnson sent legislators to home early in the hope of cooling the political battle on the case of Epstein. The members of both parties remain dissatisfied and demand more details on the investigation of years on Epstein, the rich and well connected financial whose death in 2019 in a cell in the New York prison while facing sexual trafficking charges has caused broad theories and speculation of conspiracy.

“We continue to bring the pressure. We are not going to stop until we obtain justice for all survivors and victims,” ​​Garcia told reporters.

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The writers of News Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Mike Sisak in New York and Meg Kinnard in Chapin, South Carolina, contributed.