Jeffrey Epstein’s “client list” will be released, according to a new Trump administration task force charged with the declassification of federal secrets.
Anna Paulina Luna, a member of Congress appointed by President Trump to lead the taskforce, announced in a press briefing on Tuesday that the declassified files would include those relating to the September 11 terrorist attacks, Covid-19’s origins, President John F Kennedy’s assassination, UFOs and, lastly, Epstein’s client list.
Luna said the federal government “has been hiding information for decades” and that “it is time to give Americans the answers they deserve”.
Epstein’s friends included public figures including Prince Andrew, the former US president Bill Clinton and Trump himself. There was no suggestion of any wrongdoing by his friends.
Trump had been an associate of Epstein’s in Palm Beach, Florida, before the disgraced financier was charged over sex offences.
The president, 78, insisted that he never visited Epstein’s home in the US Virgin Islands. “I don’t think — I mean, I’m not involved,” he told a podcast in September in response to the suggestion he had shown “some hesitation” about releasing documents related to Epstein.
“I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did,” Trump said.
Epstein killed himself aged 66 in a Manhattan prison in August 2019, while awaiting trial on new charges of trafficking teenage girls. After his death, his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was prosecuted for her role in recruiting underage victims and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Trump signed an executive order to declassify documents on the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King Jr this month.
The move has prompted calls from people across the political spectrum for the president to release a client list that they hope will show who was directly involved in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking network.
Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator for Tennessee, raised the issue during the Senate confirmation hearing for Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee for FBI director, last week.
“I have been working on this for years, trying to get those records of who flew on Epstein’s plane and who helped him build this international human trafficking, sex trafficking ring,” Blackburn told Patel.
“Absolutely, senator,” Patel replied. “Child sex trafficking has no place in the United States of America, and I will do everything, if confirmed as FBI director, to make sure the American public knows the full weight of what happened in the past and how we are going to countermand missing children and exploited children going forward.”
https://www.thetimes.com/us/america...list-among-files-to-be-declassified-h73bzbtbf (Archive)
