Washington, D.C. — As the Trump-Vance administration continues its efforts to hide its cover-up of the Epstein Files, Democracy Forward today made it clear that it is not stopping its fight to make the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) release the long-withheld records related to the handling of the Epstein matter.
Last month, in a first-of-its-kind case, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted Democracy Forward’s motion for summary judgment–an order to decide the case without a trial–and compelled the DOJ to expedite nearly all aspects of Democracy Forward’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. After Democracy Forward won this court order, DOJ sought to stonewall additional progress in the case through objecting to Democracy Forward’s filing of an amended complaint to add a claim that DOJ violated federal law through failing to meet its deadlines for releasing non-exempt records. DOJ did not oppose the amendment prior to the Court ruling for Democracy Forward.
Rather than allow DOJ’s procedural hurdles to delay the public’s right to know what its government is up to, Democracy Forward today moved to withdraw its amendment request and will pursue all necessary legal action to ensure DOJ fully complies with FOIA and releases all non-exempt records.
“This is a classic Trump-Vance administration tactic: when the facts are indefensible, hide behind procedure,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “Let’s be clear—the Department of Justice is violating the law. This is an effort to run out the clock and avoid releasing information that the public has a legal right to see. A court already issued an order forcing the DOJ to speed up its responses. The administration’s next move should have been transparency. Instead, it was a procedural sleight of hand, but we’ve seen this trick before. We are not going anywhere, and we will continue to fight—relentlessly—until transparency wins and accountability is real.”
The case is Democracy Forward Foundation v. Department of Justice, and the legal team at Democracy Forward in this case includes Daniel McGrath, Amy Vickery, and Robin Thurston.