Iowa’s Epstein Files Cover Up Enablers Still Silent

As DOJ continues to stonewall the law that required full release of the Epstein sex trafficking criminal files, Iowa's House delegation stays silent

PHOTO CREDIT: US Rep. Randy Feenstra’s official Facebook page

Left to. Right: Rep. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA), Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA); Speaker Mike Johnson (R-4th LA), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA), and Ashley Hinson (R -2nd IA)

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) —- Technically, the above photo is Iowa’s all Republican US House delegation, celebrating the birthday last week of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R- 4th LA) on the House floor.

While last week was awful for most Americans, Iowa’s House delegation apparently found time to celebrate the Speaker’s birthday on the House floor - but not to avoid yet another government shutdown. Which is underway - again - as I write this on Saturday night.

Seriously, Republican elected officials must have all been born without the “governing” gene - or they have it surgically removed upon taking the oaath of office - because they are pretty lousy at governing - across the board.

The Speaker’s birthday was Friday, January 30 - which happens to also be the same day Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) released more of the Epstein sex trafficking criminal files that were required by law to be released in full no later December 19, 2025.

The DOJ release of the Epstein files brought the total portion of the files released so far - a full month and more after the lawful deadline for releasing 100% of the files - to only 50%.

Just half of what’s required by law, and much of what has been released is so redacted to be useless.

At the same time, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (Trump’s former personal lawyer) also announced that this is it. At 50 %, they aren’t releasing any more. They are done releasing material. There’s nothing more of interest.

Nice try, Mr. Blanche, but that decision is not yours, the Attorney General’s, the DOJ’s or the President’s to make - given the law. And given the subpoena requiring full release of the files that dates back to last summer.

In other words, the DOJ effectively announced it is “thumbing its nose” at the law and at the subpoena from here on out. It will do whatever it wants to do. The law and Congress be damned.

Now, what would you do if you were a Republican member of the Congress from Iowa; part of a co-equal branch of government under the Constitution; facing these same circumstances?

Party on the House floor and get your picture taken with Mike Johnson the Speaker who kept the US House out of session for five weeks last summer to avoid having to vote on the bill that required full release of the Epstein files in the first place?

That would not have been my choice.

According to pubic opinion polls, it would not have been your choice either.

But it certainly appears to have been the choice Iowans in the US House made.

Now technically, we do not know when this photo was actually taken.

But we do know Rep. Randy Feenstra (R - 4th IA) proudly put it up on his Facebook page Friday with a cheery “Happy Birthday Speaker Johnson!” message, so at the very least it was a “virtual” party on the House floor, celebrating the Speaker’s birthday.

Friday was also the same exact day Epstein’s victims were once again denied justice, gas lighted, and short changed by Donald Trump’s DOJ.

Iowa’s House members will be quick to tell you that they all voted for the bill that required full release of the Epstein files.

What they won’t tell you is that they voted for that bill only when they had no other choice.

What they won’t tell you is that not one of them objected to Johnson keeping the House metaphorically circling the airport for five weeks this summer as a dodge against voting on that bill at all.

They won’t tell you that not one of them asked, wrote, or called on Speaker Johnson to stop stalling, bring the bill to the House floor and hold a vote on it - and get some justice for the victims and accountability for the the very wealthy, powerful criminals who raped them.

Nor, most importantly, will they tell you that not one of them signed the discharge petition which finally forced the bill to the House floor, where - kicking and screaming - Johson finally had to bring it for a vote, and the Iowans had no choice, politicallly, given the polls - to vote for it.

It passed, just as Johnson and most House Republicans feared it would all along, a fear which drove Johnson’s five week shuffle to keep it off the floor and away from a House vote.

Once Iowa’s silent enablers had to vote on the bill, and had no choice but to vote for the bill that they previously would not lift a finger to rescue from Johnson’s strangle hold, they all talked tough about Epstein and justice for the victims and accountability for those who abused and raped young girls, because, of course, what else would they do once they were forced into the spotlight on the issue, with public opinion piled high against them.

But when DOJ missed the required-by-law deadline, when it started trickling out the files at a snail’s pace weeks past the legal deadline; when more than a month after that legal deadline had passed and DOJ unilaterally announced - with just half the documents required by law to be released actually released - what did Iowa’s all Republican delegation have to say in response

Nothing.

Nothing.

And exactlly nothing.

Now, I don’t believe Iowans in Congress suddenly became pro-child sexual abuse and pro-sex trafficking.

What I do think, however, is that there is an unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from their disgusting silence: they are more than willing to look the other way - to remain silent - about those crimes to protect Donald Trump who clearly does not want the Epstein files released and who has done everything he can do to keep them out of sight short of piling all six million documents, videos and photographs in the middle of Fifth Avenue and burn them.

The only reason, probably, that he hasn’t done that already, come to think of it, is beause he didn’t think of it yet. Now I’m sorry I mentioned it.

Staying silent.

Looking the other way.

Aiding and abetting Trump’s perpetual game of “deep sixing” the Epstein files; Being unwilling to do anything to bring justice to the victims or accountability to their rapists and traffickers unless backed into a corner by events beyond their control

None of that would have been my choice. And as I said, according to pubic opinion polls, I know those choices likely wouldn’t have been your choices, either, nor the choice of Iowans or most Americans.

For the Iowans in Congress, however, it appears to have been a no-brainer.

Friday’s announcement by the DOJ that it plans to ignore the law, continue to openly and fully disobey it from here on out, unilaterally declare its noncompliance with the law somehow full and complete compliance?

Not a problem for Iowa’s U.S. House Republicans apparently.

Not enough to cause them to speak up on behalf of the victims. Not enough to prompt them to demand accountability for the abusers.

Not enough to stop party time on the House floor, that very day, with the Speaker of the House who did everything in his power to keep the Epstein files hidden, including “locking out” House members from the House chamber for five weeks to avoid the vote that required the release of those files.

Epstein’s victims deserve so much better.

So do Iowans.

PHOTO CREDIT: Barry Piatt

OVERDUE FARM BILL TRACKER: DAY 854

Iowa’s farmers produce and deliver excellence.

The same, sadly, can’t be said about Iowa’s congressional delegation when it comes to the five-year federal farm bill, vital legislation for Iowa’s farmers.

The last Farm Bill expired 854 days ago. No new Farm Bill has been enactd to replace it, 854 days later.

Two thirds of Iowa’s congressional delegation serve on either the US House or US Senate Agriculture Committees. They are: US Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Joni Ernst (R-IA); and US Reps. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA).

Those four had - and still have - special responsibilities to get a new Farm Bill enacted and to make sure it supports family farm agriculture.

Grassley, Ernst, Nunn, and Feenstra failed to meet that responsibility before the old Farm Bill expired. They have failed to meet that responsibility each of the 854 days since.

The clock is still ticking.

US Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA) and Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA), who are not on the House Agriculture Committee, but are members of one of the nation’s most important farm states, share that responsibility - and that failure.

Compounding the failure by Feenstra and Hinson is the fact that - despite failing so miserably and for so long on what is probably the most important bill for Iowa’s farm economy that Congress ever writes - they both think they deserve a promotion.

Both are running for higher office - instead of working to pass a new Farm Bill.

SOUND BITES & RUMBLINGS:

Attorney General Pam Bondi once claimed the Epstein criminal files were “on her desk” with their imminent release pending her final review and sign off. Nothing happened.

Then as the DOJ tried to explain why nothing was happening, they offered as an excuse that the Epstein files consist of six million documents, plus photographs and videos.

Friday, Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche (Trump’s former personal lawyer) said the latest batch of Epstein file documents DOJ was releasing - which brought the total percentage of existing documents now released to just 50% - would be the DOJ’s last release. They were done. Nothing more of interest to be found or released.

Nice try, Mr. Blanche, but this is not the DOJ’s call to make, nor the president’s. There’s a federal law requiring 100% release - deadline was December 19, 2025, by the way - and a congressional subpoena from last summer requirng full release as well.

Not to mention reporters and victims are calling out obvious missing evidence from what has been released.

Tons of unanswered questions, of course, remain. But there’s one question that hasn’t even been asked yet. It is this week’s “Sound Bites & Rumblings” entry.

How did six million of anything fit on Pam Bondi’s desk?

Bondi’s claim that the Epstein files were on her desk with full release just around the corner was an obvious lie

As is Todd Blanche’s latest assertion that there’s nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

PHOTOS FROM MY ARCHIVES: SEN. BOURKE HICKENLOOPER (R-IA) ANNOUNCES HIS RETIREMENT

This pix is former Iowa Governor and U.S. Senator Bourke Hickenlooper (R-IA) moments after concluding a press conference at the Kirkwood Hotel in Des Moines on December 28, 1967. At that press conference, Hickenlooper announced he would retire from the Senate at the end of his current term rather than seek re-election in 1968.

It was the first “big” political press conference I covered. I was a freshman in high school. I was excused from school that day so I could cover it, and my parents drove me to the Kirkwood Hotel early that Thursday morning. At age 14, I was too young to have a driver’s license, didn’t have a car, and couldn’t legally drive myself.

Hickenlooper, as I recall, was in a nostalgic mood at the press conference, ready to reminisce. But it was also clear he was announcing a reluctant decision to leave politics and elective office behind. There was an air of sadness and resignation about him. At age 71 he said he was resigning because of his age and “a number of other personal reasons,” one being that the people of Iowa deserved an energetic campaign for his Senate seat in 1968. He wasn’t sure he could deliver that at his age.

He told a lot of stories that morning, but my favorite was the one about accompanying a college friend home for Christmas. The friend introduced him to his grandmother, who didn’t hear well.

“Who?” she said. “I’m not hearing his last name. Say it again.”

The friend repeated, louder this time: “Hickenlooper, Grandma, Hickenlooper.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not getting it. Say it louder. Speak up,” the grandmother said, raising her own voice now, in frustration.

“Hickenlooper!” the friend shouted this time. “Hickenlooper! His last name is Hickenlooper!”

His grandmother turned away and walked off. “Oh, never mind,” she said with a wave of her hand. “All I can make out is "Hickenlooper"

The retiring senator laughed as he told the story, and said he’d been telling it his entire career in politics since the 1930s.

It was a funny story. Hickenlooper was, indeed, a mouthful. Senator Hickenlooper said he recognized that fact.

The story, he added, helped voters not only pronounce his name, but remember it.

And he insisted the story was true.

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