The clock is ticking for the U.S. government to open up its files on Jeffrey Epstein. After months of rancor and recriminations, Congress has passed and President Donald Trump has signed a law compelling the Justice Department to give the public everything it has on Epstein. And it has to be done before Christmas. A federal judge on Wednesday said the department could release grand jury transcripts and other documents from the sex trafficking case brought against Epstein. Two other federal judges have made similar rulings, ordering the release of transcripts of a grand jury investigation into Epstein’s abuse of underage girls in Florida and documents from the sex trafficking case brought against Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

President Donald Trump road-tested his claims that he’s tackling Americans’ affordability woes at a Tuesday rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. The trip came as polling consistently shows that public trust in Trump’s economic leadership has faltered. Following dismal results for Republicans in last month’s off-cycle elections, the White House has sought to convince voters that the economy will emerge stronger next year and that any anxieties over inflation have nothing to do with Trump. The president has consistently blamed his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for inflation even as his own aggressive implementation of policies has pushed up prices that had been settling down after spiking in 2022 to a four-decade high.

One of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s most vocal accusers is urging judges to grant the Justice Department’s request unseal to records from their federal sex trafficking cases, saying that “only transparency is likely to lead to justice.” Annie Farmer weighed in through her lawyer, Sigrid S. McCawley, after the judges asked for input from victims before ruling on whether the records should be made public under a new law requiring the government to open its files on the late financier and his longtime confidante. Farmer and other victims fought for the passage of the law, known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

A federal judge has given the Justice Department a day to say what materials it plans to make publicly available from the file it built to prosecute Ghislaine Maxwell in the sex trafficking case brought against her after financier Jeffrey Epstein died. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer in Manhattan on Tuesday said the government's description of the materials must be sufficient in detail to meaningfully inform victims who do not know what investigative materials were subject to secrecy before. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction. Epstein's 2019 death behind bars while awaiting trial was ruled a suicide.

Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton. Bondi said Friday that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe. This week, congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump. The president, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in demanding the probe have been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.