Members of Congress in Washington DC can now view the millions of documents from the investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein files, without the extensive redactions made by the Justice Department. According to a letter sent to lawmakers they can take notes of the documents, but not make electronic copies. Also: lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein, say she will speak fully and honestly about her relationship with the late sex offender, but only if President Trump grants her clemency. The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has told his MPs that he will not quit after the leader of his party in Scotland called on him to resign. A lawyer at a landmark trial in California has accused the technology giants, Meta and Google, of deliberately making their platforms addictive to children. Australia’s prime minister has defended a visit by the Israeli president, after clashes in Sydney between police and pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Officials at the Winter Olympics in Italy are to investigate why medals keep breaking.
Tag: secrecy
Pritzker’s “Blind” Trust and $20B in Taxpayer Contracts Raise Waste, Fraud and Abuse Questions
Illinois taxpayers are being asked to believe a fairy tale.
They are told that Gov. JB Pritzker’s massive personal fortune sits inside a “blind trust,” safely sealed off from the decisions of the state government. But the numbers tell a different story – one that is becoming impossible to ignore.
Since Pritzker took office in 2019, companies tied to his blind trust have received more than $20 billion in Illinois state contracts, all paid for with taxpayer money.
That is not blindness. That is precision.
A blind trust is supposed to prevent conflicts of interest, not repeatedly intersect with state spending on a scale that dwarfs most state budgets. Yet under Pritzker, taxpayer-funded contracts continue to flow to companies within his financial orbit – healthcare giants, Medicaid contractors, and corporate entities deeply embedded in Springfield’s lobbying culture.
This is not a one-off coincidence. It is a pattern – and patterns are what expose systems.
Illinois has lived under one-party Democratic rule for years. When competition disappears and oversight weakens, corruption doesn’t need to hide. It operates in plain sight, wrapped in legal language and dismissed as “normal.”
That same pattern extends beyond healthcare and into the Pritzker family’s hospitality empire.
Recent disclosures uncovered show that more than $180 million in taxpayer-funded renovations and upgrades have flowed to the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place since 2011.
Massie, Khanna spotted 6 individuals ‘likely incriminated’ in unredacted Epstein files
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said they spotted at least six names of individuals “likely incriminated” by their inclusion in the Epstein files after the two reviewed an unredacted tranche of the documents.
Members of Congress were permitted for the first time Monday to review the unredacted versions of all the Department of Justice (DOJ) files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Massie and Khanna were the two lead sponsors of the bill that forced the public release of the files.
“There are six men. We went in there for two hours. There’s millions of files, right? And in a couple of hours, we found six men whose names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented,” Massie told reporters outside the Justice Department office where lawmakers can review the files.
The two lawmakers did not name the men but said one is a high-ranking official in a foreign government while another is a prominent individual.
“None of this is designed to be a witch hunt. Just because someone may be in the files doesn’t mean that they’re guilty. But there are very powerful people who raped these underage girls — it wasn’t just Epstein and [his close associate Ghislaine] Maxwell — or showed up to the island or showed up to the ranch or showed up to the home knowing underage girls were being paraded around,” Khanna said.
Massie said he would not be releasing the names himself.
“I think we need to give the DOJ a chance to go back through and correct their mistakes,” he said.
“They need to themselves check their own homework.”
The law that mandated the release of the files allowed for narrow redactions, but lawmakers and victims of Epstein have raised questions about the breadth of what was blacked out and the fact that some names of victims were not.
Massie described an FBI form that listed conspirators in which the Justice Department redacted the name and photo of one of the men who was listed.
The lawmakers also shed light on one email in the latest tranche that garnered significant attention, in which one redacted individual thanked Epstein for a “fun night” and added, “Your littlest girl was a little naughty.”
Andrew ‘shared confidential information with Epstein as trade envoy’
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor knowingly shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein from his official work as trade envoy in Asia, according to information in the latest release of the Epstein files.
Emails in the files show the former prince passing on secret details of investment opportunities to the convicted paedophile following his visits to Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam in 2010 and 2011.
This was after Epstein was first convicted for soliciting a prostitute and procuring a child for prostitution in 2008, for which he was jailed for 18 months.
Trade envoys are legally bound to confidentiality over sensitive, commercial or political information from their visits abroad.
Emails suggest Andrew had told Epstein of his official upcoming trips to Singapore, Vietnam, Shenzhen in China and Hong Kong on October 7, 2010. He was then accompanied by business associates of Epstein on these visits, the BBC reported.
After the trip, he forwarded official reports of the visits to Epstein on November 30, five minutes after he had been sent them by his then special adviser Amit Patel.
In further emails from the files dated Christmas Eve 2010, it appears he sent Epstein a confidential briefing on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, which was being managed by the British armed forces and funded by UK government money.
The messages contradict Andrew’s claim that he broke off his friendship with the paedophile in December 2010, which he asserted in his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview in 2019.
DOJ limits congressional review of Epstein records to publicly released files
Lawmakers set to review unredacted Jeffrey Epstein records at the Justice Department beginning Monday will be allowed to examine only documents that have already been released to the public, not the full universe of Epstein-related materials the department has identified, according to Justice Department correspondence and congressional aides.
In a Jan. 30 letter to Congress, the Justice Department said it identified more than 6 million pages as potentially responsive to the Epstein Files Transparency Act but has released roughly 3.5 million pages in total, including about 3 million pages disclosed last week. The department said the remaining materials were duplicative, non-responsive, privileged, sealed by court order, or otherwise protected from disclosure.
Under the review process announced Friday, members of Congress may view unredacted versions of the publicly released documents in person at Justice Department headquarters. The arrangement does not provide access to materials outside the public release, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
Secret whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard finally shared after eight-month standoff
A secret whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard that had been held in a locked safe has finally been shared with Congress after an eight-month standoff.
Inspector General Christopher Fox, the intelligence community watchdog, on Monday evening carried by hand the highly classified allegation to a select group of lawmakers, according to CBS News.
The document was reviewed on a ‘read-and-return’ basis by members and staff of the Gang of Eight, the small bipartisan group who oversee America’s spy agencies.
The whistleblower complaint filed against the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) by a staffer in May alleged that a highly classified report was deliberately suppressed for political reasons.
The complainant also claimed that an intelligence agency’s legal office failed to refer a potential crime to the Justice Department, also for political reasons.
No other details of the whistleblower complaint were made public as Fox stressed only one previous case required such tightly controlled disclosure to Congress.
Fox told lawmakers in a letter approved for public release on Tuesday that the complaint was ‘administratively closed’ by his predecessor in June and no further action was taken.
‘If the same or similar matter came before me today, I would likely determine that the allegations do not meet the statutory definition of “urgent concern,”‘ Fox wrote.
The ultra-secret Disney ranch bought by Walt himself that entertainment giant doesn’t want fans to know about
Hidden in the hills of California sits a 708-acre ranch that the Disney company tries to keep secret from devoted fans who want to peek behind its gates.
The Gold Oak ranch in Placerita Canyon is used as a film set and testing ground for amusement park rides, just about 25 miles north of the company’s largest studio in Burbank.
Unlike the Disney Burbank Studio, the Gold Oak ranch is completely off-limits, lined with no trespassing signs to keep the company’s future plans secret.
‘They go out of their way to limit access because once you open the door, the floodgates just would be unleashed by all the Disney fans,’ Bill Cotter, a former Disney employee, told SFGATE.
The ranch is closely guarded to keep filming hidden, and plans for future rides private, noted the outlet.
While access is off-limits to the public, diehard fans have likely seen inside the mysterious ranch while watching projects such as The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, Follow Me, Boys!, and The Parent Trap.
Walt Disney purchased the studio, which was only 315 acres, in 1959 for just $300,000 after spending time there while filming the Spin and Marty serials, the SF Gate noted.
‘The rugged canyons and oak-lined meadows, as well as its proximity to the Studio in Burbank, made the Golden Oak Ranch the perfect place to film Walt’s increasing slate of film and television productions,’ according to the Walt Disney Family Museum.
Secret whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard sends shockwaves through DC: ‘Grave damage to national security’
Donald Trump‘s spy chief Tulsi Gabbard is accused of wrongdoing in a whistleblower complaint so highly classified it has been sealed inside a safe.
The sensitive allegations against Gabbard have triggered months of debate over how to present the complaint to Congress, amid warnings it could cause ‘grave damage to national security,’ the Wall Street Journal reports.
The ‘cloak-and-dagger mystery’ implicates a second government agency, and raises claims of executive privilege that may involve the White House, officials said.
The whistleblower accuses Gabbard of stonewalling the complaint by refusing to provide the necessary security guidance for congressional lawmakers to review it.
The intelligence community’s inspector general received the complaint last May, according to a November letter sent by the whistleblower’s lawyer to Gabbard.
A spokeswoman for Gabbard acknowledged the existence of the complaint but claimed it was ‘baseless and politically motivated.’
Gabbard’s office also said it was not stonewalling the whistleblower’s allegations but navigating a unique set of circumstances in order to resolve the classified complaint.
A representative for the inspector general told the Journal that it had determined some specific allegations were not credible. The whistleblower’s lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, said they were never informed that any determinations were reached.
The November letter Bakaj wrote to Gabbard was shared with House and Senate intelligence panels, but lawmakers have not received the complaint months later.
Democratic congressional aides on the intelligence committees have tried to probe for details of the complaint in recent weeks but have not been successful.
The information divulged by the whistleblower is so highly classified that not even Bakaj has been able to view it.
Watchdog experts and former intelligence officials claim the delay in sending the complaint to Congress is unprecedented.
The inspector general is usually required to assess whether the complaint is credible to share with lawmakers within three weeks of receiving it.
The Daily Mail cannot confirm the substance of the allegations.
Director of National Intelligence spokeswoman Olivia Coleman said: ‘This is a classic case of a politically motivated individual weaponizing their position in the Intelligence Community, submitting a baseless complaint and then burying it in highly classified information to create 1) false intrigue, 2) a manufactured narrative, and 3) conditions which make it substantially more difficult to produce “security guidance” for transmittal to Congress.’
The controversy comes as Gabbard has been sidelined in the Trump administration over major national security matters, including Venezuela and Iran.
Ed Department: California Violated Family Rights Law By Secretly ‘Transitioning’ Students
The U.S. Department of Education found the California Department of Education (CDE) in violation of federal family rights law on Wednesday for facilitating the gender “transition” of children and hiding it from their parents.
California pressured school districts across the state to violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a student privacy and parental rights law, by forcing them to conceal student records from parents about their child’s so-called “gender transition,” according to a senior department official detailing the results of an investigation Wednesday.
“FERPA requires that schools provide access to all education records upon a parent’s request. Schools do not get to choose which records they feel like providing to parents and which ones they don’t,” the official said. “As Secretary McMahon stated last year, this is not only patently unlawful, but morally reprehensible. Children do not belong to the state. They belong to their parents. Parents must know about the most sensitive information pertaining to their child’s health and well-being.”
A Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) investigation found that at least 300 students in California were put on “‘gender support plans,’ many without parental consent or knowledge.” At CDE’s direction, school officials placed the “support plans” in “separate filing systems” to keep parents in the dark about the plans.
As The Federalist reported, school personnel are often some of the first and most influential people a student interacts with regarding confusion about sex and “gender,” and many push children toward “social transition” like name and pronoun changes, which often leads to destructive medical interventions.
Federal judge dismisses Justice Department lawsuit seeking Oregon’s voter rolls
A federal judge in Oregon dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking Oregon’s unredacted voter rolls on Monday in another setback to wide-ranging efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to get detailed voter data from states.
In a hearing, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai said he would dismiss the suit and issue a final written opinion in the coming days. The updated docket for the case showed that Oregon’s move to dismiss the case was granted.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield welcomed the move.
“The court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these records in the first place,” he said in an emailed statement. “Oregonians deserve to know that voting laws can’t be used as a backdoor to grab their personal information.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Hellbound and Down 
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