This Is Why Republicans Are Blocking the Epstein Files

It looks like Elon Musk was once expected to visit Jeffrey Epstein’s island, according to a new batch of documents from the estate of the alleged sex trafficker.

Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee released excerpts of flight logs and daily schedules Friday showing that Epstein had vacation plans with Elon Musk, held meetings with Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon, and flew around with Prince Andrew.

The documents included three pages that appeared to be from Epstein’s daily schedule, with mentions of powerful right-wing figures.

One entry dated December 6, 2014, included a reminder: “Elon Musk to island Dec. 6 (is this still happening?)”

It’s unclear whether Musk traveled to Epstein’s home in the Virgin Islands, where one survivor of Epstein’s abuse testified that guests used girls for “instant sexual entertainment.” Musk himself had become an outspoken critic of the government’s refusal to release the Epstein files, and pointed the finger at those in power, specifically President Donald Trump.

Peter Thiel, the apocalyptic prophet and defense contractor with ties to the Trump administration, was scheduled to meet with Epstein for lunch in Palm Beach on November 27, 2017.

Bannon, the architect behind the MAGA movement, was scheduled for a 7 a.m. breakfast on February 16, 2019, before leaving New York. Five months later, Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Bannon’s connection to Epstein isn’t totally surprising, either. In 2023, Epstein’s brother Mark said that he’d seen an unaired interview between Epstein and Bannon, in which the disgraced financier claimed he’d “stopped hanging out with Trump when he realized Trump was a crook.”

Epstein’s general ledger revealed that he had paid $200 each for two massages for “Andrew” in the year 2000, once on February 11 and again on May 16. A flight log showed that Prince Andrew flew with Epstein, and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, from New Jersey to Palm Beach on May 12, 2000.

Virgina Giuffre previously alleged that she had been sexually exploited by Prince Andrew and Epstein’s other “adult male peers, including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen, and/or other professional and personal acquaintances.” The Duke of York denied the accusation, and the suit was settled in 2022.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry reported Friday that the legendary writer, activist, and political prisoner Assata Shakur has died of natural causes in Havana. She was 78. 

“On September 25, 2025, American citizen Joanne Deborah Byron, ‘Assata Shakur,’ passed away in Havana, Cuba, due to health conditions and advanced age,” the ministry said in the press release. 

Her daughter Kakuya Shakur confirmed the news on Facebook. “At approximately 1:15 PM on September 25th, my mother, Assata Shakur, took her last earthly breath. Words cannot describe the depth of loss that I am feeling at this time,” she wrote. “I want to thank you for your loving prayers that continue to anchor me in the strength that I need in this moment. My spirit is overflowing in unison with all of you who are grieving with me at this time.” 

Shakur was born Joanne Deborah Byron in Flushing, Queens, in 1947, and grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. She graduated from CUNY and joined the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, shortly after. There she witnessed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO initiative infiltrate the BPP and other organizations, as the government deliberately sowed chaos and misinformation within Black leftist groups fighting for basic human rights in the 1960s and ’70s. 

Shakur briefly led the Harlem BPP’s Free Breakfast for Children program before joining the Black Liberation Army, a group that engaged in militant guerilla tactics to “take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of Black people in the United States.” This included allegedly robbing banks, bombing buildings, and murdering police officers. 

Shortly after joining, Shakur rejected her born name, recognizing it as a name forced upon her enslaved ancestors when they were brought from West Africa to the United States. “It sounded so strange when people called me JoAnne. It really had nothing to do with me. I didn’t feel like no JoAnne, or no Negro, or no amerikan. I felt like an African woman,” she wrote in her autobiography. Assata means “she who struggles.” 

On May 2, 1973, Shakur was involved in a shootout with police on the New Jersey Turnpike after she and two Black men were pulled over by two officers for a broken taillight. One of the men was killed, as was an officer. Shakur was shot twice and later detained at Middlesex County Jail, chained to her hospital bed bleeding out while federal officers questioned her. 

Shakur was then moved to Rikers Island, where she spent nearly two years in solitary confinement. 

Shakur argued that the police fired first, and she herself was shot with her hands up—a key part of the trial. Yet she was eventually convicted by an all-white jury of first- and second-degree murder, among other charges. She was in various prisons from 1973 to 1979, and maintained her innocence until the day she died. 

“It had been and is in my view that it was the racism in Middlesex County, fueled by biased inflammatory publicity in the local press before and throughout the trial, fanned by the documented government lawlessness, that made it possible for the white jury to convict Assata on the uncorroborated, contradictory, and generally incredible testimony of trooper Harper, the only other witness to the events on the Turnpike,” Shakur’s lawyer Lennex Hinds wrote in 1998. 

In 1979, Shakur was broken out of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey by fellow BLA members in an elaborate plot involving hostages, a stick of dynamite, and a stolen van. No one was injured.  

Shakur briefly lived as a fugitive in the U.S., as police monitored her daughter and friends and performed massive, armed sweeps of Black neighborhoods in New York City in search of her. She made it to Cuba in 1984, where she was granted political asylum. There she wrote books and essays, including her immensely popular Assata: An Autobiography. In 2013, she became the first woman ever added to the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list.  

“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows,” she wrote, in the later chapters of her autobiography. “After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.” 

Shakur was a poor Black woman in segregated America who was fed up, weary of this society’s constant denial of her humanity. Her life, words, and actions are a poignant example of the wide spectrum of responses—from peaceful protest to militance—that Black Americans have always had to their violent experiences as racialized others in this country. 

One of Shakur’s latest essays, from 2013, was a message to the media. It’s one that rings particularly true today, as President Trump continues to call for its muzzling.   

“Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not have a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of expression and very little freedom of the press,” she wrote. “I am only one woman. I own no TV stations or radio stations or newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as to what is going on and to understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask those of you in the Black media, those of you in the progressive media … to let people know what is happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.” 

Political prosecutions won’t be an anomaly for the remainder of the Trump administration if the president has his way.

Donald Trump broke a 50-year presidential tradition this week by directly involving himself in the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, whom he has framed as “corrupt” and “crooked” since Comey rejected the president’s demand for personal loyalty in 2017.

Speaking with CNN Friday morning, Trump made it clear that there were would be “others” who would need to pay for daring to oppose his political ascendancy.

“Now that James Comey has been indicted, who is the next person on your list in this retribution?” asked CNN’s Kevin Liptak.

“It’s not a list, but I think there will be others,” Trump said outside the White House.

“I mean, they’re corrupt. These were corrupt, radical left Democrats. Because Comey essentially was a Demo–, he’s worse than a Democrat,” Trump continued. Comey identified as a Republican for “most of [his] adult life,” according to his congressional testimony.

“No, there will be others. That’s my opinion,” he added. “They weaponized the Justice Department like nobody in history. What they’ve done is terrible, I hope, frankly, there are others because you can’t let this happen to a country.”

In a Truth Social missive directed at Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this week, Trump ordered the top cop to not only focus her attention on Comey but also pursue leads on California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

President Donald Trump on Friday continued his war on the painkiller Tylenol, while offering some unsolicited, all-caps medical advice in a Truth Social rant addressed to “Pregnant Women.”

“DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY,” he warned. “DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON.”

Trump this week urged pregnant women to avoid Tylenol, claiming a link to autism. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, it is safe to use acetaminophen occasionally “as directed for fever and pain relief during pregnancy,” and patients should talk with their obstetrician about pain relief—as all medications—during pregnancy.

As for the claim that children should not take Tylenol “FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON,” the AAP says that “decades of research” show the medication to be “safe for children when taken, or dosed, correctly and under the guidance of a child’s pediatrician.”

The president also gave his two cents on vaccines: “BREAK UP THE MMR SHOT INTO THREE TOTALLY SEPARATE SHOTS (NOT MIXED!)” FactCheck.org notes that there’s no evidence that the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination is “less safe.” Further, the president’s suggestion is a moot point, given the vaccines are not available separately in the United States.

“TAKE CHICKEN P SHOT SEPARATELY,” Trump added. While Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked Centers for Disease Control advisory panel on immunization recently voted that children under four years of age should separate the varicella (chickenpox) and MMR vaccinations, the AAP broke from that conclusion and still recommends that “families have the option” of a combined MMRV vaccine.

“TAKE HEPATITAS B SHOT AT 12 YEARS OLD, OR OLDER,” the president went on, misspelling hepatitis.

Trump recently questioned the practice of giving newborns hepatitis B vaccines because the disease is “sexually transmitted.” In reality, newborns can acquire hepatitis B during birth if the mother has it. Giving a birth dose “is critical to reduce chronic hepatitis B later in life,” notes the AAP, and eliminating it would “lead to more cases of perinatally acquired hepatitis B and hepatitis B infections throughout childhood.”

“AND, IMPORTANTLY,” added Trump, “TAKE VACCINE IN 5 SEPARATE MEDICAL VISITS!” According to the CDC, “Many vaccines are recommended early in life to protect young children from dangerous infectious diseases. Different childhood vaccines can be given at the same time.”

Recently-elected Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva could deliver the tie-breaking vote to release the government’s files on alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. That is, if House Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t delay her swearing in—and it looks like he’s planning to.

Grijalva, who won 68 percent of the vote in a special election for Arizona’s 7th congressional district earlier this week, is set to tip the scales for Democrats and their few Republican allies hoping to force the government’s hand on the long-awaited release of documents on Epstein. But when exactly she’ll be sworn-in isn’t set, and it’s cause for concern.

Grijalva could be sworn in when Congress is back in session on October 7, but if Johnson waits for Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to deliver the official vote certification she will have to wait until at least October 14, and be sidelined during the vote.

“I think that maybe it has to do with the fact that I am the 218th signer to push for a vote on the release of the Epstein files,” Grijalva told KGUN 9, adding that she planned to head to Washington next week to caucus with Democrats.

“I am going, even though I have no official capacity there yet, it is very clear I won this election by nearly 40 points,” Grijalva said. She also pointed out that when Representative James Walkinshaw of Virginia won a special election just a few weeks ago, he was sworn in without having to wait for certification.

In a statement, Johnson’s office said that the House would proceed with “standard practice” and wait for the “appropriate paperwork from the state.” So far, Congress has only received a letter from Fontes’s office saying that unofficial results show Grijalva the clear winner.

Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna are just one signature shy on their bipartisan bid to force a vote—which would likely go to the House floor and pass with Grijalva’s signature.

Against the grain of official statements by FBI leadership, Donald Trump has all but admitted—in his own words—that he was behind James Comey’s indictment.

The former FBI director was charged on Thursday with lying to Congress regarding his testimony to Senator Ted Cruz in a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The statute of limitations on the charges was set to expire Tuesday. Comey has maintained his innocence and has denied any wrongdoing.

The president didn’t hesitate to celebrate the charges. Rather than await the results of a fair and honest trial, Trump appeared to set the tone for the prosecution of the ex-federal official, openly slandering Comey as a “dirty cop” and a “destroyer of lives” who needed to pay a “big price.”

“Whether you like Corrupt James Comey or not, and I can’t imagine too many people liking him, HE LIED!” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday morning. “It is not a complex lie, it’s a very simple, but IMPORTANT one. There is no way he can explain his way out of it.”

“He is a Dirty Cop, and always has been, but he was just assigned a Crooked Joe Biden appointed Judge, so he’s off to a very good start,” Trump continued. “Nevertheless, words are words, and he wasn’t hedging or in dispute. He was very positive, there was no doubt in his mind about what he said, or meant by saying it. He left himself ZERO margin of error on a big and important answer to a question. He just got unexpectedly caught.”

Trump had ordered the agency to imminently reorient its focus on prosecuting his political rivals earlier this week. Directly addressing Attorney General Pam Bondi on Truth Social, Trump demanded that the DOJ prosecute Comey, as well as California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Nonetheless, current FBI leadership attempted to claim that Comey’s indictment was the fruit of independent efforts made by the bureau. In a post on X, FBI Director Kash Patel argued that there was nothing political about the charges against his predecessor.

“Career FBI agents, intel analysts, and staff led the investigation into Comey and others. They called the balls and strikes and will continue to do so,” Patel wrote Friday morning. “The wildly false accusations attacking this FBI for the politicization of law enforcement comes from the same bankrupt media.”

It’s the first instance in 50 years—since Watergate—that a U.S. president has directly involved themselves in DOJ prosecutions, but it likely won’t be the last. Speaking with CNN Friday morning, Trump said there was no list he had made of his political enemies, but that he believed “there will be others” besides Comey who face the fire for their political opposition. “I hope,” Trump said.

Comey’s arraignment is set for October 9. He could face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took over Gazan residents’ mobile phones to broadcast his speech from the United Nations Friday, so they could listen to him deny that he has committed a genocide against them, live.

The prime minister was set to deliver his remarks to empty seats after dozens of dignitaries walked out ahead of his remarks, but announced that the IDF had taken the “unprecedented action” to take control of the phones of Gazan residents to broadcast his remarks.

A statement from the Prime Minister’s office on X said that Netanyahu had “appealed” directly to the residents of Gaza, urging the return of the hostages, disarming Hamas, and demilitarizing the region. “PM Netanyahu stressed that whoever does so will live while those who do not will be hunted,” the statement said.

Despite his bloodthirsty rhetoric, Netanyahu rejected a U.N. inquiry that concluded Israel is committing genocide and denied that Israel is causing starvation the region.

In fact, Israeli’s deadly siege in Gaza has killed more than 65,000 people—including medics and journalists—as well as displaced nearly two million more, and caused widespread famine. Now, they are being forced to listen to him as well.

The Trump Justice Department’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is so flimsy that even Fox Business is second-guessing it.

“Well I don’t think there’s a case.… I’m as big a critic of [the Russiagate stuff] probably as there is, I wrote a book about it, I think it was a disgrace, and history will remember it that way,” conservative lawyer and National Review contributing editor Andrew McCarthy told Mario Bartiromo on Friday. “This indictment is not about that, and it seems to be premised on something that’s not true, which is that [former FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe said that Comey authorized him to leak to The Wall Street Journal. If you look closely at what McCabe said, what McCabe said is he directed a leak to The Wall Street Journal and told Comey about it after the fact.”

Comey has been charged with one count of making a false statement during a Senate hearing and one count of obstructing Congress. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

“What about the leaking in general? What about leaking a story that they may have known was a lie to the media?” Bartiromo asked, still trying to pin Comey for Russiagate. “Because, if you’re the director of the FBI, you need the evidence.… What was the origins of Russia’s collusion with Trump? They never really had any evidence of it, but they leaked it to the press?”

“Yeah but that’s not what this case is about,” McCarthy responded. “What this case is about is, Comey is accused of lying because what Ted Cruz said … was that Comey authorized McCabe to orchestrate the leak. And what the inspector general found … McCabe said that he directed the leak, and he told Comey about it afterwards.… The charge is that Comey authorized the leak, and he didn’t authorize the leak.”

McCarthy isn’t the only one who thinks it’s a weak case. Attorney General Pam Bondi and her Justice Department have reportedly expressed apprehension over the Comey indictment for the exact reasons McCarthy offered above.

Naples, Florida, has discovered one easy trick to bypass the bureaucratic delays Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has created at the Federal Emergency Management Agency: Get a wealthy friend and supporter of Noem to reach out to her.

Until August, the city had been exasperatedly waiting on relief to rebuild the Naples Pier, which was damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022. According to a new ProPublica report, FEMA only finally responded—providing $11 million for reconstruction—once a deep-pocketed friend and supporter of Noem, named Sinan Gursoy, stepped in.

Prior to Gursoy’s intervention, ProPublica reports, the city was trapped in “bureaucratic purgatory.” It’s a story that’s familiar by now, as local and state officials face interminable delays in disaster relief—made worse thanks to a rule instituted by Noem, in which all DHS expenditures exceeding $100,000 require her approval.

In one communication this summer, a city official informed Florida Senator Rick Scott that they’d been told that “Secretary Noem would have to ‘personally’ approve the Pier project before FEMA funding would be obligated,” ProPublica reports.

Naples Mayor Teresa Heitmann was “feeling increasingly helpless” this summer, after she and city officials had pulled out nearly all the stops, including writing to FEMA, hiring Washington consultants, and seeking the help of Scott.

In early August, the mayor decided to fire off some texts to Gursoy, according to ProPublica. A wealthy Naples cardiologist and associate of Noem’s, Gursoy contributed at least $25,000 to Noem’s 2022 gubernatorial reelection bid in South Dakota, placing him among the campaign’s top disclosed donors.

“FEMA is holding us up,” Heitmann told Gursoy. “Kristi Noem could put some fire under the FEMA employees slacking.”

“Okay. I will get on it,” Gursoy replied.

On August 11, he told Heitmann he’d “just” texted Noem, after holding off while she was out of office. Not a day had passed before he told Heitmann she’d hear from Noem’s “FEMA fixer” soon.

“We are now at warp speed with FEMA,” a Naples official reportedly wrote in an email once things got moving. A FEMA representative told the city: “Per leadership instruction, pushing project immediately.”

On August 29, Noem took a government plane to Naples, where she reportedly walked the pier before dining with Gursoy at Bleu Provence, an expensive French restaurant, and staying at the four-star Naples Bay Resort & Marina.

A DHS spokesperson insisted to ProPublica that the Naples Pier aid “has nothing to do with politics.” Gursoy told the publication to “get lost.”

Notably, Noem’s top henchman at DHS, Corey Lewandowski (who is also rumored to be her paramour, which they both deny), reportedly has a house close to the Naples Pier. Lewandowski told ProPublica he was not involved in the decision, nor was he in Naples at the time of Noem’s trip.

While in Naples, Noem shared a self-congratulatory Instagram post of herself assessing the damage to the pier. “The iconic Naples Pier was destroyed in 2022, and the city is still waiting on answers from FEMA,” she wrote, adding, “Americans deserve better than years of red tape and failed disaster responses.” Apparently, some more than others.

Nearly half of the entire United Nations General Assembly walked out when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium Thursday, in protest of his ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. 

Dozens and dozens of delegates exited the hall as soon as Netanyahu appeared. Other attendees cheered them on while the assembly leader banged his gavel and called for “order in the hall.”

Netanyahu was forced to deliver his speech to a room that was damn near empty.

Moments like these indicate that Israel’s indiscriminate and grotesque actions in Gaza—over 65,000 dead men, women, and children—are finally shifting the world’s perceptions. The fact that countries like Canada, France, and the U.K. are (finally) acknowledging a Palestinian state is also indicative of that shift.  

Some leaders were even more outspoken at the General Assembly. 

“We need a powerful army of the countries that do not accept genocide,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Tuesday. “We must liberate Palestine.… I invite the armies of Asia, the great Slavic people who defeated Hitler with great heroism, and the Latin American armies of Bolívar.… We’ve had enough words; it’s time for Bolívar’s sword of liberty or death.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, made similar comments. 

“No situation is more emblematic of the disproportionate and illegal use of force than the one occurring in Palestine.… The Palestinian people are at risk of disappearing,” he said. “They will only survive with an independent state integrated to the international community.” 

At this point it seems like the United States is the only government that has yet to realize just how atrocious Israel’s actions have been, as our leaders continue to offer financial and rhetorical support.