Today’s notice: How the Epstein files era changes after today. The Senate says no to the House ACA discharge petition before the House even has a chance to vote on it. A scoop about the transgender care debate in Congress. And: Another administration scratching its head at economic polls.
THE LATEST
The next phase of the Jeffrey Epstein saga: Legally speaking, today is the day the DOJ is required to release all the Epstein files it can under the parameters of the law passed by Congress last month. Politically speaking, there’s still a lot to fight about when it comes to the files. Donald Trump appointees have the power to decide which files exactly fall into the law’s requirements, and you can be sure every sheet of paper left unreleased will become A Thing.
A MAGA obsession is now a Democratic one. The law releasing the files ended up being broadly bipartisan. In fact, it was maybe the one instance of Trump 2.0 when Congress got together and flexed its coequal powers against the president, though many Republicans didn’t join in until Trump said it was OK. Don’t expect that bipartisanship to hold. NOTUS’ Daniella Diaz and Em Luetkemeyer report that Democrats are preparing for a long list of future fights related to Epstein.
But there’s also a lot of reading to do. Both sides hope to find damning stuff about the other in these files, and now the debate will turn to what the files mean.