DOJ Releases Millions of Pages of Epstein Files; Trump Sues IRS for $10 Billion; Democrats Seek ICE Reform; Wildfire Risk Data Underestimates Danger
The Department of Justice (DOJ) released over 3 million pages of files related to investigations into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a DOJ announcement on Friday. The release occurred well over a month after the deadline imposed by Congress and President Trump for the agency to release all its Epstein files, according to Time.
The newly released files include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Friday. Blanche noted that a large amount of the files are images or videos that were not taken by Epstein himself or are of commercial pornography, while some of the videos and images appeared to have been taken by Epstein or by others around him. The Justice Department said it did not redact images of any men in the files, unless it was impossible, according to Time.
In other news, President Donald Trump, along with the Trump Organization, and his sons Eric and Donald Jr., is suing the IRS and the Treasury Department for $10 billion, according to Time. The lawsuit, filed in a Miami federal court on Thursday, accuses the federal agencies of failing to stop former Internal Revenue Service contractor Charles Littlejohn from illegally obtaining and disclosing tax returns to the New York Times, ProPublica, and other leftist media outlets, between May 2019 and September 2020, according to Time. The lawsuit claims the IRS and Treasury Department had a duty to safeguard and protect plaintiffs confidential tax returns and related tax return information from such unauthorized inspection and public disclosure, according to Time.
Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing for reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), focusing on ending warrantless patrols, curtailing aggressive tactics, and increasing accountability, according to Vox. A series of recent polls hammer home just how unpopular ICE has become: Almost half of voters say theyd like to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Vox. Tom Homan, White House border czar, said the Trump administration will scale down operations in Minnesota and conduct targeted anti-immigration actions, according to Vox.
In climate-related news, federal models may be underestimating the risk of wildfires to millions of homes, according to Vox. Wildfires are a faster-growing and much closer threat than we may realize, burning in places that a lot of us might assume that most homes that are destroyed by wildfires were in obvious, high fire-risk areas, like on the edge of forests that frequently burn, according to Vox. A new AI tool is being developed to provide a more accurate assessment of wildfire risk, according to Vox.
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