DoJ accused of cover-up after lawmakers view unredacted Epstein files | First Thing

Jamie Raskin, House judiciary ranking member, says ‘mysterious redactions’ obscure abusers’ names. Plus, RFK Jr accused of misleading Senate Don’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up here Good morning. A top House Democrat on Monday accused the justice department of making “mysterious redactions” to documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that obscured the names of abusers, while also allowing the identities of the disgraced financier’s victims to become public. What did Raskin say? He told reporters “there were tons of completely unnecessary redactions, in addition to the failure to redact the names of victims, and so that was troubling to us”. What happens next? “We’re going to start by posing questions directly to attorney general [Pam] Bondi about the process that produced such flawed results, and that has created such mystery,” Raskin said. How bad does it look? The US fell from 28th place to 29th, overtaken by Lithuania, recording its lowest ever score of 64. (Transparency International said the score did not factor in all of the events of 2025.) What about globally? The report identified an overall global deterioration, as 31 countries improved their score while 50 declined. Continue reading...