The US justice department will release files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, attorney general Pam Bondi has said.

 

17m ago

19.15 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/nov/19/us-congress-epstein-files-donald-trump-saudi-arabia-redistricting-latest-news-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-691e13e58f0888d27c1da54e#block-691e13e58f0888d27c1da54e

 

Here's a recap of the day so far

• The US justice department will release files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, attorney general Pam Bondi has said, after Congress voted nearly unanimously to force Donald Trump’s administration to make them public. At a news conference today, Bondi confirmed that the DOJ will release its Epstein-related material within 30 days, as required by legislation that passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate yesterday. “We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency,” she said.
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• However, the department may have to hold back material that could impact Trump-ordered investigations of Democratic figures who associated with Epstein. They could argue argument that releasing certain documents would be prejudicial.
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• The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has said it will not release a full US jobs report for the month of October, following the country’s longest ever federal government shutdown. Instead, the available figures will be published with November’s data in mid-December, the BLS said. The October data is expected to show negative job growth after around 100,000 federal workers participated in the deferred resignation program and formally left payrolls in late September during the shutdown.
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• In federal court today, Lindsey Halligan (the president’s handpicked choice for interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia) and another prosecutor acknowledged that the entire grand jury never saw the final indictment against James Comey. Halligan charged the former FBI director with lying to Congress in September. But when the prosecution was probed by Judge Michael Nachmanoff today, they admitted that the a new version of the indictment was not presented to the full panel, after they rejected one of the charges.
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• The US has signalled to Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine must accept a US-drafted framework to end Russia’s war which proposes Kyiv giving up territory and some weapons, two people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the proposals included cutting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces, among other things. Washington wants Kyiv to accept the main points, the sources said.