What happened
The Justice Department yesterday released its second large batch of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and unlike the tranche released over the weekend, President Donald Trump is mentioned multiple times. The latest 30,000 pages also contain new allegations about former British prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and reference “10 co-conspirators” the FBI wanted to interview in July 2019, days after Epstein’s arrest and before his death in custody. The only Epstein co-conspirator charged was Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving 20 years in federal prison. 

Who said what
In a January 2020 email, an unidentified federal prosecutor in New York said Trump had flown on Epstein’s private jet at least eight times between 1993 and 1996, “many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware).” Two flights carried just Trump, Epstein and two “women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case,” the email said. Last year, Trump claimed on social media he “was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island.” 

The newly released files also “include several tips that were collected by the FBI about Trump’s involvement with Epstein,” The Washington Post said, but do not indicate “whether any of the tips were corroborated.” A limousine driver in Dallas reported that during one ride, “Trump continuously stated the name ‘Jeffrey’ while on the phone, and made references to ‘abusing some girl,’” the FBI said. The driver also claimed to have spoken to a woman who alleged Trump and Epstein raped her. The Justice Department said on social media yesterday that some of the documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump that, if credible, would have already been “weaponized” against him.

What next?
The Epstein files release “has been marred by DOJ mishandling, and that’s continuing,” CNN said. The Justice Department sounds like “Trump’s personal lawyer,” and the documents contain “curious and heavy-handed redactions that go beyond the limits of the law.” The files “involving Epstein’s 2007 sweetheart plea deal” are so ”heavily redacted,“ it’s “almost impossible to understand” how he escaped federal prosecution, the Miami Herald said. 

What happened
The University of Oklahoma has removed a graduate student after she gave a student a failing grade on a psychology paper that cited the Bible as proof that “belief in multiple genders” is “demonic.” A review determined that the instructor, Mel Cuth, “was arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper,” the university said Monday, and she “will no longer have instructional duties.”

Who said what
The junior psychology major who wrote the essay appealed her zero grade and filed a religious discrimination claim. “Her case became a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over academic freedom on college campuses” after the university suspended Cuth and struck the student’s failing grade, The Associated Press said. Conservative groups and commentators made it an “online cause, highlighting” the junior’s argument “she’d been punished for expressing conservative Christian views.”

The University of Oklahoma’s Graduate Student Senate called Cuth’s removal “reprehensible.” The failed essay, meant to discuss academic research on gender expression and bullying in middle school, included a “prayer” that America’s youth “would not believe the lies being spread from Satan” about multiple genders. Cuth responded that the paper “does not answer the questions for the assignment,” relies on “personal ideology” and “is at times offensive,” though “I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs,” according to a screenshot posted online by the school’s Turning Point USA chapter.

What next?
Cuth said through a lawyer yesterday she was “considering all of her legal remedies, including appealing this decision.”