NPR's Leila Fadel asks Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California about lawmakers' demands for the Justice Department to release more files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
FINE. We now turn to a member of Congress who co-sponsored legislation that would require the Justice Department to release these documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. Ro Khanna is a Democrat from California. Congressman, thank you for being back on the program, and good morning.
RO KHANNA: Good morning.
FADEL: So you called this latest release a bomb and you quote one reference in particular to 10 accomplices. What are you looking at in files that seem like a bomb to you?
HANNAH: The fact that there's an email that says there are 10 accomplices means there were other rich and powerful people involved. Many skeptics said it was a hoax and that only Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were involved in the abuse. I know from talking to survivors that this is not true. They named other men who either went to the rape island, abused them, or covered up the abuse. This is in the FBI statements, in the 302 statements, and this is what we insist on being made public. But we received an email saying there were at least 10 other accomplices.
FADEL: So you said – to elaborate on what you want to release, you said you want to see FBI witness interviews that mention other people, Epstein's emails seized from his computers, the 60-count draft indictment and the 82-page charging memo. You know, just tell me what you're looking for in these particular documents that you need that makes you want them to be publicly available. Like, what are you looking for in these documents?
HANNAH: The most important ones are the FBI witness interviews. I know from survivors and survivors' lawyers that when they spoke to FBI agents, they specifically named the other men they were trafficked to…
FADEL: Yes.
HANNAH: …Or who showed up on the island or who covered up this violence. And the survivors' lawyers were there. There are dozens of such interview protocols. The Department of Justice has not published any. In fact, in one case, the Department of Justice illegally published the name of a survivor, but did not release the file that the survivor wanted. The 60-count draft indictment shows how the prosecution of Epstein has failed. He was charged with only two counts. So we need this. And Jeffrey Epstein's emails on the computer that Jeffrey Epstein had are his emails to other men organizing human trafficking, organizing flights to the island. Nothing came of it.
FADEL: We are well past the deadline set by your law last Friday for releasing all files. What do you think of the DOJ's argument that this takes time because they need to review every document to avoid inadvertently identifying victims?
HANNAH: Well, to be honest, they didn't do a good job. I mean they inadvertently released too many survivors. But both Thomas Massey and I said that we are less obsessed with the problem of time. We are more concerned that they conscientiously comply with the spirit of the law, and they did not. If they had released some 302 FBI memos about witness interviews, that would have been fine. If they published a draft 60-count indictment, that would be fine. It doesn't take much time, and the law explicitly calls for them to publish internal messages about whether to charge a fee or not. So, they're protecting people, and the president has made it clear who they're trying to protect. He is concerned that people's reputations will suffer because bankers and powerful politicians are involved in the files. And this is true, and this is the purpose of the law – to ensure public accountability for them. But frankly, the DOJ seems more intent on protecting them than the survivors.
FADEL: Now both you and Republican Thomas Massie, the co-sponsor of this legislation, have talked about filing, quote, a “contempt of court” case against Attorney General Pam Bondi. What will it look like? What is innate contempt?
HANNAH: Well, we have Republican support – and some Republican support. We will provide the Attorney General with a 30-day grace period to continue releasing documents as required. And after these 30 days, she will be personally fined $5,000 for documents she does not provide. We're also planning to go to the Southern District of New York and ask the judge who ordered these releases to have a special leader look at what should be redacted and what shouldn't, or create a congressional committee, a bipartisan committee, to look at what should be redacted and what shouldn't.
FADEL: Is it realistic, though, that something like this will pass the House of Representatives? I mean, charges of contempt of court have not been brought against anyone in the House since the 1930s, and this House in particular can't seem to agree on anything.
HANNAH: Well, people thought it was very unrealistic for us to get the resignation accepted. This also hasn’t happened for decades. We know we have some Republican support. And the fact is, because we have Republican support, the Justice Department has begun to back down. An hour after Massey and I announced that they had begun releasing the redacted documents in unredacted form, they released a second set of documents containing emails about 10 co-conspirators. They are…
FADEL: We'll have to leave it here. Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you. He is a co-author of the Epstein File Transparency Act.
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