The State Democracy Defenders Fund, a Democrat-aligned legal hub, on Monday filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests for federal files as it investigates whether the Trump administration is unlawfully interfering with investigations into Jeffrey Epstein.
DDF is seeking more records about whether President Donald Trump, the Justice Department, and the FBI are involved in a cover-up designed to hide information about Epstein.
“These records may also reveal to the public a potential attempt to cover up negative or potentially criminal conduct, including by President Trump,” DDF wrote in a letter to the DOJ.
“Given contradictory statements made by the Department, and the fact that President Trump had a prior long-standing friendship with Epstein before it ended in around 2004, disclosure of these records would conclusively show whether the Department has the information it now purports that it does not have, and, if such records exist, whether Donald Trump’s name appears in any of the documents related to Jeffery Epstein,” the letter continued. “This release is also important to understand whether any undue political influence by the President has affected the Department’s ability or willingness to release documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.”
The organization’s FOIA request comes after the Trump administration has been scrutinized over its handling of the Epstein case.
Trump campaigned on releasing files related to the case, which has long provoked speculation that the now-deceased Epstein, a convicted sex offender, may have held shadowy connections to the intelligence community, such as the CIA, or Israel’s Mossad, which used him to build relationships with a host of prominent figures to help the government influence and monitor society.
Led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department released records related to the case in February, but provoked backlash due to findings that the information had, by and large, already been released. Further backlash ensued when Bondi concluded weeks ago that Epstein did not possess a “client list” of powerful figures he blackmailed by providing them with illicit sex with minors.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) alleged earlier this month that the slow release could stem from Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The two ran in similar circles and became friends until the early 2000s, when Trump banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Durbin accused Bondi’s DOJ of ordering FBI agents and FOIA analysts who were parsing through thousands of files to release to the public to “flag” records related to the Epstein case that mentioned Trump.
In its FOIA request Monday, DDF requested all communications that discuss how DOJ and FBI officials approached references to Trump or Mar-a-Lago as they examined the Esptein files, including “any communications that describe how to flag, categorize, or memorialize mentions of President Trump.”
The Trump administration continues to investigate Epstein, with the president calling on the DOJ to release all grand jury files related to the case, although that effort was recently blocked by the courts.
DURBIN SAYS BONDI INSTRUCTED FBI AGENTS TO FLAG EPSTEIN FILES THAT MENTIONED TRUMP
Alan Dershowitz, a former Epstein lawyer and Harvard law professor, has cast doubt on whether grand jury transcripts would have shed further light on the case, arguing that “sealed records by two or three federal judges in the New York courts” would be more likely to settle the waters.
“The information that hasn’t been requested is going to be far more informative and far more relevant than the grand jury information,” Dershowitz said earlier this month. “Grand jury information is narrowly tailored by prosecutors only to provide sufficient evidence to result in an indictment.”