Democratic lawmakers in North Carolina on Tuesday called on the federal government to release some of its files on millionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, adding their names to the growing chorus of politicians seeking more information.
It comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump's name appears in the Epstein files, which has prompted Trump to sue the news organization that's led by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News.
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Senate Minority Leader Sydney Batch, D-Wake, asked state lawmakers on Tuesday to sign a letter she's writing to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi seeking release of the Epstein files. She urged the entire state Senate to sign the letter after Tuesday's voting session, pointing them to where they could find it and mentioning that she printed enough copies for every lawmaker to take one and read it if they wanted.
A copy of the signature sheet Batch provided later shows that no Republicans co-signed her letter, but nearly all Democrats did. A spokeswoman for Republican Senate leader Phil Berger didn't respond to a request for comment.
Batch never mentioned Trump by name when she spoke about the letter on the Senate floor. But she alluded to the Wall Street Journal's report that it was Bondi herself who, after reviewing the government's files, told Trump his name appeared in the files multiple times.
"Public reports, including recent confirmation from the US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, indicate that prominent names appear in sealed documents related to the Epstein case," Batch said. "The American people deserve to know who those individuals are. And most importantly, the survivors, many of them who were trafficked and abused as minors, deserve justice."
In Washington, efforts to push for a release of the Epstein files have prompted U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson to shut down Congress until September.
Congressional Democrats had earlier forced a vote on releasing the Epstein files, which every Republican in the U.S. House voted against, leading to backlash against those Republican politicians from the many conservative voters and activists who have pushed for years for the government to be more forthcoming about what it know about Epstein and his network.
In the state-level version of that same debate Tuesday, Batch said her letter asks Bondi to redact information about Epstein's victims, to protect their privacy, but to publicize the names of their abusers in Epstein's circle.
"Some of those individuals on this list are still unnamed," Batch said. "Some may never face consequences. But today, we can change that."