Washington
DOJ to begin giving Congress files from Epstein investigation, lawmaker says
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has agreed to provide to Congress documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, a key House lawmaker said Monday in announcing a move that appears to avert, at least temporarily, a potential separation of powers clash.
The records are to be turned over starting Friday to the House Oversight Committee, which earlier this month issued a broad subpoena to the Justice Department about a criminal case that has long captivated public attention, recently roiled the top rungs of President Donald Trump’s administration and been a consistent magnet for conspiracy theories.
“There are many records in DOJ’s custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,” Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the Republican committee chair, said in a statement. “I appreciate the Trump Administration’s commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter.
A wealthy and well-connected financier, Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell weeks after his 2019 arrest in what investigators ruled a suicide. His former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
The House committee’s subpoena sought all documents and communications from the case files of Epstein and Maxwell. It also demanded records about communications between Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration and the Justice Department regarding Epstein, as well as documents related to an earlier federal investigation into Epstein in Florida that resulted in a non-prosecution agreement.
It was not clear exactly which or how many documents might be produced or whether the cooperation with Congress reflected a broader change in posture since last month, when the FBI and Justice Department abruptly announced that they would not be releasing any additional records from the Epstein investigation after determining that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”
That announcement put the Trump administration on the defensive, with officials since then scrambling both to tamp down angry questions from the president’s base and also laboring to appear transparent.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed Maxwell at a Florida courthouse over two days last month — though no records from those conversations have been made public — and the Justice Department has also sought to unseal grand jury transcripts in the Epstein and Maxwell cases, though so far those requests have been denied.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Monday.
The House Oversight panel separately issued subpoenas to eight former law enforcement leaders as well as former Democratic President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Bill Clinton was among a number of luminaries acquainted with Epstein before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago. Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.
Alabama
State sets October execution using nitrogen gas
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama has scheduled an October execution by nitrogen gas for an inmate who has an ongoing lawsuit challenging the new method as unconstitutionally cruel.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday set an Oct. 23 execution date for Anthony Boyd, 53. Boyd is one of four men convicted in the 1993 killing of Gregory Huguley in Talladega. Prosecutors said Huguley was burned to death after he failed to pay for $200 worth of cocaine.
Boyd’s lawsuit challenges the use of nitrogen hypoxia gas as unconstitutionally cruel. He suggested a firing squad, hanging or medical aid-in-dying as better alternatives. A federal judge has scheduled a Sept. 4 hearing in the case.
Alabama began using nitrogen gas last year to carry out some executions. The method uses a gas mask to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing the inmate to die from lack of oxygen.
Alabama has used nitrogen to carry out five executions and has another planned in September. Louisiana has used nitrogen to carry out one execution.
In 2018, Boyd selected nitrogen as his preferred execution method, but at the time the state had not developed procedures for using it. Lawyers for Boyd filed a federal lawsuit in July — about a month after the state began asking for his execution date — seeking to prevent the state from executing him with nitrogen. They cited descriptions of how other inmates shook on the gurney while being executed with nitrogen gas.
“Each prisoner previously executed by the State’s Protocol showed signs of conscious suffocation, terror, and pain,” lawyers for Boyd wrote in the lawsuit.
The Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser who witnessed the first nitrogen execution and is now working with Boyd, said Monday that he was “horrified” by what he saw at that execution, which he described as being “suffocated to death.”
The Alabama attorney general’s office has urged a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that there is “substantial evidence that nitrogen hypoxia is a painless way to die.”
The state argued the described movements in previous executions were either inmates actively resisting or “involuntary movements associated with dying.”
Huguley’s burned body was found Aug. 1, 1993, in a rural ballpark in Talladega County. Prosecutors said that the night before, the men had kidnapped Huguley after he failed to pay for $200 in cocaine.
A trial witness, testifying as part of a plea bargain, said that Boyd taped Huguley’s feet together before another man doused him in gasoline and set him on fire.
At his trial, Boyd’s lawyers maintained he was at a party that night and did not commit the murder.
A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder during a kidnapping and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence.
Boyd has been on Alabama’s death row since 1995. He is the current chairman of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, an anti-death penalty group founded by men on death row.
Shawn Ingram, who was accused of pouring the gasoline and then setting Huguley on fire, was also convicted of capital murder and is also on Alabama’s death row.
Moneek Ackles was sentenced to life in prison without parole. A fourth man, Quintay Cox, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of murder as part of a plea deal. Cox was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
DOJ to begin giving Congress files from Epstein investigation, lawmaker says
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has agreed to provide to Congress documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, a key House lawmaker said Monday in announcing a move that appears to avert, at least temporarily, a potential separation of powers clash.
The records are to be turned over starting Friday to the House Oversight Committee, which earlier this month issued a broad subpoena to the Justice Department about a criminal case that has long captivated public attention, recently roiled the top rungs of President Donald Trump’s administration and been a consistent magnet for conspiracy theories.
“There are many records in DOJ’s custody, and it will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted,” Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the Republican committee chair, said in a statement. “I appreciate the Trump Administration’s commitment to transparency and efforts to provide the American people with information about this matter.
A wealthy and well-connected financier, Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell weeks after his 2019 arrest in what investigators ruled a suicide. His former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 of helping lure teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
The House committee’s subpoena sought all documents and communications from the case files of Epstein and Maxwell. It also demanded records about communications between Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration and the Justice Department regarding Epstein, as well as documents related to an earlier federal investigation into Epstein in Florida that resulted in a non-prosecution agreement.
It was not clear exactly which or how many documents might be produced or whether the cooperation with Congress reflected a broader change in posture since last month, when the FBI and Justice Department abruptly announced that they would not be releasing any additional records from the Epstein investigation after determining that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”
That announcement put the Trump administration on the defensive, with officials since then scrambling both to tamp down angry questions from the president’s base and also laboring to appear transparent.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed Maxwell at a Florida courthouse over two days last month — though no records from those conversations have been made public — and the Justice Department has also sought to unseal grand jury transcripts in the Epstein and Maxwell cases, though so far those requests have been denied.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Monday.
The House Oversight panel separately issued subpoenas to eight former law enforcement leaders as well as former Democratic President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Bill Clinton was among a number of luminaries acquainted with Epstein before the criminal investigation against him in Florida became public two decades ago. Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.
Alabama
State sets October execution using nitrogen gas
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama has scheduled an October execution by nitrogen gas for an inmate who has an ongoing lawsuit challenging the new method as unconstitutionally cruel.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday set an Oct. 23 execution date for Anthony Boyd, 53. Boyd is one of four men convicted in the 1993 killing of Gregory Huguley in Talladega. Prosecutors said Huguley was burned to death after he failed to pay for $200 worth of cocaine.
Boyd’s lawsuit challenges the use of nitrogen hypoxia gas as unconstitutionally cruel. He suggested a firing squad, hanging or medical aid-in-dying as better alternatives. A federal judge has scheduled a Sept. 4 hearing in the case.
Alabama began using nitrogen gas last year to carry out some executions. The method uses a gas mask to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing the inmate to die from lack of oxygen.
Alabama has used nitrogen to carry out five executions and has another planned in September. Louisiana has used nitrogen to carry out one execution.
In 2018, Boyd selected nitrogen as his preferred execution method, but at the time the state had not developed procedures for using it. Lawyers for Boyd filed a federal lawsuit in July — about a month after the state began asking for his execution date — seeking to prevent the state from executing him with nitrogen. They cited descriptions of how other inmates shook on the gurney while being executed with nitrogen gas.
“Each prisoner previously executed by the State’s Protocol showed signs of conscious suffocation, terror, and pain,” lawyers for Boyd wrote in the lawsuit.
The Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser who witnessed the first nitrogen execution and is now working with Boyd, said Monday that he was “horrified” by what he saw at that execution, which he described as being “suffocated to death.”
The Alabama attorney general’s office has urged a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that there is “substantial evidence that nitrogen hypoxia is a painless way to die.”
The state argued the described movements in previous executions were either inmates actively resisting or “involuntary movements associated with dying.”
Huguley’s burned body was found Aug. 1, 1993, in a rural ballpark in Talladega County. Prosecutors said that the night before, the men had kidnapped Huguley after he failed to pay for $200 in cocaine.
A trial witness, testifying as part of a plea bargain, said that Boyd taped Huguley’s feet together before another man doused him in gasoline and set him on fire.
At his trial, Boyd’s lawyers maintained he was at a party that night and did not commit the murder.
A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder during a kidnapping and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive a death sentence.
Boyd has been on Alabama’s death row since 1995. He is the current chairman of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, an anti-death penalty group founded by men on death row.
Shawn Ingram, who was accused of pouring the gasoline and then setting Huguley on fire, was also convicted of capital murder and is also on Alabama’s death row.
Moneek Ackles was sentenced to life in prison without parole. A fourth man, Quintay Cox, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of murder as part of a plea deal. Cox was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
