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President Donald Trump is back in the news, with one of the most powerful men in the world again being linked to Jeffrey Epstein. It's no secret that the current President of the United States was friends with the shamed financier, with the pair reportedly becoming close when they lived next to each other in the 1980s.
While Donald Trump has continued to distance himself from the child sex offender, serial rapist, and human trafficker, the former COO of Trump Plaza and Casino, once said that Epstein was the POTUS' 'best friend'.
The Trump administration has repeatedly come under fire for its handling of the Epstein files, with the president pulling a U-turn on their release and the Department of Justice still being accused of holding back materials relating to the president. There was embarrassment when it looked like people could unredact the swathes of redacted materials, and now, one top Democrat has thrown more fuel on the fire by claiming President Trump appears more than a million times in the files.
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As reported by Axios, the latest scandal surrounds Epstein's attendance at Mar-a-Lago and whether he was thrown out of Trump's luxury private club. Rep. Jamie Raskin is a high-ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, claiming that unredacted files contradict Trump's previous assertion that Epstein was barred from Mar-a-Lago for trying to poach staff.
Alongside the idea that information like the above has been withheld to protect potential victims, the White House has shared posts by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accusing Rep. Thomas Massie of sensationalizing revelations from the unredacted files. In particular, naming Bath & Body Works, Inc, co-founder Les Wexner as a 'co-conspirator'. Wexner was Epstein's financial manager from 1987 to 2007, with Blanche saying his name "already appears in the files thousands of times."
Following the accusation of improper redactions, lawmakers have been given access to the full files, with Judiciary Committee members being the first allowed to take a look on terminals at DOJ headquarters.
Raskin and Massie are among those who've been given access, with the former saying the Mar-a-Lago situation is "just one memo out of 3 million!"
A disgruntled Raskin explained: "The idea that we could get through a meaningful fraction of them is just ridiculous...I mean, there's tons of redacted stuff. ... And [Trump's] name, I think I put his name, and it appears more than a million times. So it's all over the place."
Clarifying this to Axios, Raskin reiterated that the Mar-a-Lago exchange was one of the first he came across, although he's complained that the "DOJ database review tool given to Members is confusing, unreliable, and clunky."
As for the 'million' claim, Raskin added: "In the database, I typed in the words 'Trump,' 'Donald or Don' and it came up with more than a million results.
"I obviously didn't have the time to review each one, and I obviously cannot guarantee that every mention of a Donald is Donald Trump as opposed to some other Donald."
He referred to the idea of members coming to sit at terminals from nine to five as part of the 'coverup, concluding that the supposed three million documents yet to be publicly released are the ones he'd like to see: "The administration says that these are duplicative. Well go ahead and release them then! If they're duplicative, what's the problem? We'll be the judge of that."
