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NEW YORK -- A new batch of unsealed documents pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of teenage girls was released Thursday, adding several hundred pages to the fountain of information detailing how the financier leveraged connections to the rich, powerful and famous to recruit his victims and cover up his crimes.

The 19 documents, or about 300 pages, were half as many as the over 40 documents released Wednesday. The documents so far -- with more to come -- were sprinkled with names of celebrities and politicians who socialized with Epstein or worked with him in the years before he was publicly accused nearly two decades ago of paying underage girls for sex.

Most of those names were familiar to anyone who has followed the scandal closely, including the criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was Epstein's former girlfriend, household manager and chief recruiter of young, vulnerable girls and women.

It was during Maxwell's criminal trial two years ago that Epstein's victims, some of whom aspired to be models or artists, described how he dropped the names of his famous and influential friends to suggest that he was the victims' ticket to reaching their dreams. Maxwell, 62, was convicted of sex-trafficking charges and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

The roughly 250 documents being unsealed, starting this week, in one of the lawsuits against Maxwell mostly rehash what has long been known about a man who traveled in elite circles until his July 2019 sex-trafficking arrest left him so cornered that he took his own life in jail.

But they have included a few fresh details about a pyramid of abuse that grew over three decades and harmed dozens of teenage girls and young women.

Among the famous people in Epstein's orbit before he was exposed as a sexual predator were former Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, singer Michael Jackson and magician David Copperfield, according to the accounts of his victims and other witnesses quoted in newly released documents. None of those men were accused of wrongdoing.

There were also repetitions of well-known stories about Britain's Prince Andrew. He was sued by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, who said she had sexual encounters with the royal when she was 17. The prince, who denied the allegations, settled the lawsuit in 2022.

Epstein's death came one day after earlier redacted documents from the Giuffre-Maxwell lawsuit were released. Giuffre alleged in those documents she was coerced into having sex with some of the world's most powerful and wealthy men, including former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Thomas Pritzker, executive director of the Hyatt Hotels Corp. -- all of whom denied the claims.

Though none of the records released Wednesday directly implicate anyone beyond Epstein and Maxwell in illegal or improper activities, witnesses -- mostly young women -- testified that Epstein bragged about his sexual prowess with virgins and boasted of his long list of famous acquaintances.

The court documents being released now are related to a 2015 lawsuit that Giuffre brought against Maxwell. Thousands of pages of documents in that lawsuit had been made public previously, but some sections had been blacked out because of privacy concerns.

The Miami Herald first sued to have the records released in 2018 and the court has released several tranches of documents since then that have painted a detailed portrait of Epstein's abuse of hundreds of girls and Maxwell's role in facilitating that abuse. But many of the names in the records were redacted. The Herald pushed to have those redactions lifted.

U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered last month that those redactions be lifted, mostly because names in the documents had already been made public through news coverage or through other court proceedings.

Among the more interesting documents released Wednesday was the May 2016 deposition of Johanna Sjoberg, who worked as a masseuse in Epstein's household. Sjoberg said she once met Michael Jackson at Epstein's Palm Beach, Fla., home, but that nothing untoward happened with the late pop icon. Epstein also had homes in Manhattan, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands.

She also described an April 2001 trip to New York in which she said Prince Andrew touched her breast while they posed for a photo at Epstein's Manhattan town house.

Clinton previously said through a spokesperson that although he traveled on Epstein's jet several times, he never visited his homes, had no knowledge of his crimes, and hadn't spoken to him since his conviction. Trump has also said he once thought Epstein was a "terrific guy," but that they later had a falling-out.

Sjoberg also testified that she once went to a dinner at one of Epstein's homes that was also attended by Copperfield.

She said Copperfield did magic tricks before asking if she was aware "that girls were getting paid to find other girls." One allegation against Epstein and Maxwell was that some girls he paid for sexual acts later recruited other victims. Sjoberg said Copperfield didn't get more specific about what he meant. A Copperfield publicist didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

Sjoberg, who worked for Epstein for five years, said she once overheard Epstein talking on the phone about famed hairdresser Frederic Fekkai. "I heard him call someone and say Fekkai is in Hawaii. Can we find some girls for him?" Sjoberg testified during a deposition. Fekkai couldn't be reached late Wednesday for comment, but he has denied knowing of Epstein's conduct in the past.

Sjoberg said she never met Clinton, but that Epstein told her they were friends. "He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls," Sjoberg told lawyers during the deposition.

And Sjoberg recalled a 2001 visit to one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City. After their plane was forced to land in Atlantic City instead of New York, Sjoberg recalled that Epstein said, "Great, we'll call up Trump."

The two men socialized together in Palm Beach.

It isn't clear whether Sjoberg ever actually met Trump, and she said that she never gave him a massage. Epstein was known for requiring three massages a day from young women and girls recruited for him by staff at any of his several houses.

A spokesperson for Trump's presidential campaign didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.

The newly released records also include many references to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent who was close to Epstein and who killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022 while awaiting trial on charges that he raped underage girls. Giuffre was among the women who accused Brunel of sexual abuse.

Separately, Brunel's estate was sued this week by a woman who alleges that he and others sexually assaulted her while she was working as a model in New York. She says that on one occasion, she was driven to a home in Canada and kept there for several days while men abused her. The lawsuit, filed in state court in California, does not mention Epstein or Maxwell.

Information for this article was contributed by Larry Neumeister of The Associated Press and by Julie K. Brown, Brittany Wallman and Ben Wieder of the Miami Herald (TNS).

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Details of Epstein's sex abuse revealed | Arkansas Democrat Gazette - Arkansas Online

Following the recent backlash over GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haleys failure to mention slavery during a Civil War question, lawmakers in Florida this week filed a bill taking aim at Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, who has visited and spoken out several times in Florida on issues of Black history and slavery.

The Republican legislation filed Wednesday in the Florida Senate (SB 1192) is described as: Kamala Harris Truth in Slavery Teaching Act.

The House bill (HB 1139) does not reference Vice President Harris. But both bills would require public-school instruction about African American history and which political parties supported slavery.

The new and proposed requirement references:

The history of African Americans, including the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery; the passage to America; the enslavement experience; a comprehensive account of the sociopolitical circumstances surrounding slavery, including which political parties supported slavery by adopting pro-slavery tenets to their party platform .

Given the language in the bill, those political parties would likely be considered Southern Democrats.

In the House, Republican Kiyan Michael filed the legislation. She represents part of Duval County, where a white man in his early 20s killed three Black people in August at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville.

In the Senate, Blaise Ingoglia filed the legislation. He represents Citrus, Hernando, and Sumter counties and part of Pasco. Ingoglia is a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.

In July, Harris spoke out about new Black history standards in Florida, blasting what she called revisionist history. She told the crowd in Jacksonville that Black history revisions are part of a national right-wing agenda.

Adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape; it involved torture; it involved taking a baby from their mother; it involved some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world; it involved subjecting people to think of themselves and be thought of as less than humans, Harris said at the time.

In August, Harris spoke in Orlando about Floridas black history standards, saying:

Right here in Florida they plan to teach students that enslaved people benefited from slavery, Harris said about halfway through her 18-minute speech. They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us in an attempt to divide and distract our nation with unnecessary debates. And now, they attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates, with a proposal that most recently came in, of a politically motivated roundtable. Well, Im here in Florida, and I will tell you, there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact. There were no redeeming qualities of slavery.

In September, Harris was in Miami part of a trip that focused on visits to historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions to get students motivated to go to the polls in 2024.

The GOP legislation sponsored by Michael and Ingoglia has already become controversial, with the Florida Legislature due to open its annual session on Tuesday.

Sen. Shevrin Jones of Miami-Dade released a statement on the legislation:

Yet again, MAGA Republicans in Tallahassee are shamelessly playing political games as a means to distract from their lack of action and plans to address the challenges facing everyday Floridians. It is disheartening, though unsurprising, to see them resort to aimless, desperate trolling of Vice President Harris tactics familiar to women and people of color in public life rather than focusing on the issues that are top of mind for the people they serve.

These same elected officials claim they want to keep political ideology out of the classroom, but then inject blatant partisanship into education every chance they get. Our schools dont need more politicians involved in decision-making or attacking educators who have dedicated their lives to serving our communities.

It would do both Senator Ingoglia and Representative Michael a world of good to research the party of Lincoln they claim to be part of AND the dramatic party realignment that has happened in this country in the last 150 years. They cannot have it both ways, claiming to be on the side of freedom and civil rights when they are walking a different walk and actively dismantling Floridians rights and freedoms.

As for presidential candidate Haley, she backtracked following her comments over slavery.

According to The Hill, What I should have said immediately was that the Civil War was about slavery, but I just assumed that that was a given, and I went on and said it was also about the role of government and about the rights of people economically, socially, and otherwise, Haley said in a Fox News interview Wednesday.

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FL GOP lawmakers take aim at Democrat VP Kamala Harris, who is focused on Black history, slavery - Florida Phoenix

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Friday will mark three years since the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S Capitol with a warning to voters that Republican Donald Trump is a threat to the country's standing as a free democracy.

Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021 and is again seeking the Republican nomination for president, contested his defeat in the 2020 election, prompting thousands of his supporters to attack the U.S Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed bid to stop formal certification of the result.

Speaking near George Washington's Revolutionary War-era headquarters in Pennsylvania, Biden, a Democrat, will inaugurate the 2024 campaign year with an implicit pitch that a vote for him means a continuation of American style of democratic government and a vote for Trump a leap into an uncharted future.

Biden was scheduled to deliver his remarks a day before the Jan. 6 anniversary to avoid a forecast winter storm.

Biden aides expect the 2024 race will be closely contested and see Pennsylvania as a must-win. Biden won Pennsylvania, where he was born, in 2020 with 50.01% of the vote. In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania with 48.58% of the vote.

What impact Biden's Friday speech will make in a politically polarized country 10 months away from Election Day is an open question.

Biden has long used his platform to warn Americans about Trump, but that has done little to shake the faith of tens of millions of the ex-president's supporters, who have given him a commanding lead for the Republican nomination in public opinion polls.

In addition, Biden's arguments have done little to soothe his own supporters' concerns about the state of the economy or his age, 81.

Trump, 77, has portrayed the 2024 race in similarly existential terms, calling his criminal trials a persecution and describing Biden as a crook.

Despite facing federal charges over election interference, Trump in recent months has teased acting as a dictator on "day one" and pledged to investigate, incarcerate and otherwise take revenge on his political opponents.

Trump is expected to spend Saturday's anniversary campaigning with rallies in Iowa, which hosts the first Republican nominating contest of the presidential race on Jan. 15. His leading opponents have largely avoided raising the Jan. 6 attack or Trump's role in it.

Lawyers for Trump have disputed that he engaged in insurrection and argued that his remarks to supporters on the day of the 2021 riot were protected by his constitutional right to free speech.

Authorities are seeking information about more than 80 people who committed violence at the Capitol and remain unidentified, Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters on Thursday. Graves' office has overseen the prosecution of more than 1,200 people so far accused of committing crimes during the attack.

Graves said authorities have two more years to charge rioters before the statute of limitations expires.

"Our democracy is fragile," he told reporters during a briefing on the investigation into the attack. "We cannot replace votes and deliberation with violence and intimidation."

CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Biden's Friday event is officially billed as a re-election event, his most significant foray on the campaign trail to date after he spent much of 2023 touting his signature legislation and the economy at White House events not technically associated with the campaign.

In 2024, Biden aides plan to pair the threat-to-democracy argument with more bread-and-butter topics about U.S. job growth, falling inflation, healthcare, gun violence and abortion rights, hoping to reassemble the coalition of 81 million voters that delivered Biden to the White House in 2020, with his party then in control of both houses of Congress.

Democrats in the 2022 mid-term elections lost control of the House of Representatives to Republicans, but maintained control of the Senate with a slim margin.

Trump holds a marginal, two-point lead in a head-to-head matchup with Biden, 38% to 36%, with 26% of respondents saying they were unsure or might vote for someone else, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Biden prepared for the long-planned speech by inviting a group of historians and scholars to the White House for a wide-ranging conversation on the threats to the country's democracy.

The audience is expected to include people directly affected by "election denialism and the events of Jan. 6," according to a person familiar with the planning of the speech.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Biden marks Jan. 6 with election-year warning on democratic threats - Yahoo News

The Trump International Hotel is seen on March 22, 2019 in Washington, DC. Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images hide caption

The Trump International Hotel is seen on March 22, 2019 in Washington, DC.

A new report by Democrats on the House Oversight committee documents more than $7.8 million in payments from at least 20 foreign governments including China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to businesses owned by then-President Trump during two years of his presidential term.

It is illegal for presidents to accept any money from foreign governments without congressional approval per Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "no person holding any office ... shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state."

Democrats say at least 20 foreign governments or state-controlled businesses paid Trump-owned businesses during his presidential term.

The Democrats' evidence consists primarily of thousands of Trump's business records obtained from his longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA, which were obtained after a years-long legal battle which was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.

Despite warnings from government ethics officials, Trump broke with tradition and did not divest from his businesses before taking office. Instead, he announced that he would cede responsibility for day-to-day decision making to his two eldest sons. He also pledged that there would be no new foreign deals during his time in office.

But payments from foreign governments appear to have continued.

The largest documented payment was $5.4 million in rent from China's state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank during his first two years in office.

The bank's lease payments for the space in New York's Trump Tower began in 2008, according Kimberly Benza, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization.

At the time, Trump was a frequent political commentator who floated running for president but the lease deal was initiated many years before his 2015 presidential campaign announcement.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, India, and Malaysia each spent more than $200 thousand at Trump hotels and properties, according to the report.

Benza said in an email to NPR that the profits from hotel stays "were donated in full to the United States Treasury for patronage at our properties while President Trump was in office" and cited a roughly $450,000 donation by the president.

The company's hospitality portfolio also voluntarily implemented a program in an effort to track all foreign government patronage, Benza said.

At least some properties, including the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., said that they would not pursue or market to foreign delegations and related groups though, as detailed in the report, did not deny foreign government bookings.

"We do not have the ability or viability to stop someone from booking through third parties Expedia etc hence the voluntary donation of profits on an annual basis which has been covered ad nauseam," Benza wrote.

In response to a question about Trump's donations to the Treasury, the Democrats behind the report said that do not believe paying back profits absolves the former president under the Constitution and noted that there is no way to verify the former president's accounting without access to more financial documents.

The report also emphasizes that the total amount of foreign government spending could be significantly higher. The report only covers two years of Trump's time in office because, Democrats say, Republicans ceased enforcing document requests after gaining control of Congress in 2023.

Democratic lawmakers released the report just weeks after Republicans formalized their impeachment inquiry into President Biden, alleging without direct evidence that he was involved in his son's foreign business dealings and that those purported entanglements could have influenced his behavior in while in office.

Benza, the Trump organization spokesperson, accused Democrats of releasing the information to deflect from that investigation.

Asked about the timing, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the report's lead author and the top Democrat on the House Oversight committee, said that the investigation dated back years to the beginning of Trump's term.

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Democrats say Trump profited from foreign governments while president - NPR

President Biden is unhappy.

He has berated his staff for not getting him the credit he believes is his due for what he calls Bidenomics.

While its true that unemployment and inflation are down nationally and business seems to be doing well, many people are unhappy with the economy and give Biden little credit for the positive developments. Their pay may be up, but so are their costs.

Biden looks at the national economy, but individuals look at their own personal economy. The two different views yield two different results.

The reason is possibly that increases in national wealth may not be distributed in a way that gives many people the sense of an improving economy. If a large share of the growth is going to the wealthiest 10%, the rest of the people may miss most of the virtues of Bidenomics.

Whatever the gains under Biden, the country still operates under a tax system created by Donald Trump and a Republican Congress. That system is designed to reward the wealthy and large corporations. Billionaire Warren Buffett, who favors higher taxes on the rich, can still point out that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Despite the tax deal favoring the rich, the GOP does well with average voters by effectively targeting its message at them. Using wedge issues like abortion and gun control to gain support, it may even succeed in inducing them to believe that taxes are too high, which benefits the wealthy far more than them.

Many of these people have become the Trump Republican core. They are fed a steady diet of Trumps version of political and economic reality by the skilled use of social media and cable television.

Surprisingly, the GOP learned about personally targeted politics from a hard-hitting Democrat, then a member of Congress from Illinois. Rahm Emanuel used this approach to flip the House of Representatives from Republican to Democratic in 2006. The GOP watched and learned and by 2010, they flipped it right back. GOP social media and Fox News were flying high.

The success of social media is its focus on responding to the sentiments of its followers rather than recruiting new supporters. Its likely that few liberal Democrats follow right-wing social media outlets or watch Fox and other conservative channels. But loyal Trump backers are continually fed stories that confirm their views, and they remain enthusiastic and become a cult.

Trumps own social media site, called Truth Social, is estimated to have more than 2 million followers. They could be many of the same people who follow conservative cable programs, and they belong to him.

The result is that they can come to believe, inaccurately, that Biden is a socialist and dangerous to the country. They can be left untouched about claims of a booming Gross Domestic Product, if thats even understood. With Trump at the head of the ticket, they are drawn to the ballot box. If they show up, they may give him wins in primaries and swing states.

Social media may succeed in gaining the attention of conservative voters who are not loyal Trump backers. They make their case in readily understandable terms that appeal to the conservative leanings of their recipients.

The Democrats have no answer, as Biden is learning. Bidenomics in 2024, like Obamacare in 2010, is an abstract idea that fires up few voters. Fact-checkers may prove that the GOP errs, but that, too, is an abstraction to many voters. Like the GOP, the Democrats want to appeal to their backers. But they act like theyre in a student debate, not a political war.

One key feature of Trump-inspired social media is always being on the attack. It labels its opponents as dangerous. Its policy proposals are almost all negatives, like quitting NATO or reducing environmental protection. Thats a sharp contrast with the almost academic arguments of the Democrats.

The professional media tends to give each side equal weight and coverage. While Bidens actions are duly reported, mistruths may get the same often unquestioned attention. Its coverage may lack critical news judgment. Objectivity should remain the goal, but its mindless pursuit can promote misinformation.

The Democrats should become more aggressive in the social media. They often sound more like professors than politicians. Their message should be simple and bold. They can direct their message to individual voters, and not only focus on broad national policies, however successful. And Biden should be more visible in the nightly news.

Aside from being too old to run and consequently out of touch with younger generations, Biden plays by dated political rules, no longer suited to the politics of the times. The Democrats will continue to lag in the polls if they dont toughen up.

Gordon L. Weil formerly wrote for the Washington Post and other newspapers, served on the U.S. Senate and EU staffs, headed Maine state agencies and was a Harpswell selectman.

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Gordon L. Weil: Democrats need to toughen up - Press Herald