A Georgia Congressman who voted for legislation last week mandating the release of documents connected with child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein said on Monday that it does not go far enough and that he wants further investigation.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week with votes in favor by all 14 members of Georgia’s Congressional delegation, including Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican from Tifton.
House Resolution 4405 became law the next day after the Senate passed it and President Donald Trump signed it, and on Monday Scott issued a statement saying the language did not achieve everything he felt was needed.
“I maintain concerns that the Epstein language, as drafted, did not provide enough protections for victims and witnesses,” Scott said. He said he wants the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to continue investigating to uncover “the extent of these crimes and who was involved.”
The law gave the U.S. Department of Justice 30 days to release its records, documents, communications and investigative materials concerning the deceased sex offender Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison for conspiring with him to sexually abuse minors.
The law says the agency cannot withhold information just because it is politically sensitive or causes embarrassment or reputational harm to a government official, public figure or foreign dignitary. But it allows Attorney General Pam Bondi to withhold information for a variety of other reasons.
She can deny the release of records that she thinks would jeopardize an active federal investigation or prosecution. She can keep records that are declared a national defense or foreign policy secret by executive order. And she can hold back records that she deems to be a “clearly unwarranted” invasion of privacy when they contain “personally identifiable information of victims or victims’ personal and medical files and similar files.”
The American Conservative published a piece last week that suggested Bondi could misuse her discretion with the privacy provision.
“It is not difficult to imagine such unilateral power being abused to protect administration officials from scrutiny,” the story said.
The legislation apparently widened a rift between Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Rome Republican who was once among his biggest supporters.
She announced Friday that she would resign effective Jan. 5, blaming Trump for turning against her, in part, due to her pressure to release the Epstein files.
“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked and used by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States whom I fought for,” Greene said in a video she posted online.
Greene serves on the committee that Scott wants to continue investigating the Epstein case.
Scott did not offer specifics about his concerns with the Act beyond what he said about the protections for victims and witnesses, but his statement suggested that the controversy over the Epstein files is not over.
Marjorie Taylor Greene at the Georgia Republican Party convention in Dalton on June 7, 2025. (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
ATLANTA — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who forged a political brand as a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and his political base, announced on Friday that she had had enough of Washington — and of Trump himself — and will resign.
The Rome Republican said in a nighttime post on X that she was disgusted with what she described as a takeover of her party by wealthy elites. She said she was quitting after the president threatened to back a challenger in her GOP primary next year.
Greene predicted that Republicans would be routed by Democrats in next year’s election, losing control of Congress. She also predicted that she would win re-election herself after enduring “a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president” and then “be expected to defend the president against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me.”
Greene said in a 10-minute video that industry insiders, elite donors and “the MAGA political machine” had cast her aside.
She acknowledged breaking with Trump over a handful of issues, including her support for preserving states’ rights to impose a moratorium on artificial intelligence, her opposition to military engagement overseas and her demand for the release of the Epstein files.
But, she said, “loyalty should be a two-way street” and that she should be allowed to vote her conscience.
“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked and used by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States whom I fought for,” Greene said.
She said her last day in Congress will be Jan. 5.
“It’s all so absurd and completely unserious,” she said. “I refuse to be a battered wife, hoping it all goes away and gets better.”
ATLANTA — Drivers saw rising auto insurance bills in recent years, yet the industry was not seeing gains, an advocate told state lawmakers Friday.
Companies offering commercial, health and life insurance were posting ever higher pre-tax operating gains, but not those in the auto and home insurance segments, said Robert Passmore of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
Data he presented to a special committee of the House of Representatives showed industry gains in that “personal” insurance segment falling below zero in mid-2021 before bending back up later that year but still in the red in 2023.
Passmore blamed more aggressive, speedy and distracted driving — and more expensive repairs.
As vehicles have become more computerized, even once-simple repairs, like replacing a windshield, have become more costly, due to onboard cameras and sensors.
“The average car on the road is about 12 years old in the United States right now,” he said. “And a large part of those right now don’t have that kind of technology. So, those kinds of expenses are only going to increase.”
But people in the auto repair industry complained that insurance companies have not been covering the full cost of those repairs.
Jason Babb, owner of Babb’s Body Shop in Chatsworth, asked lawmakers to support legislation that prohibits insurers from denying claims when a shop follows the manufacturer’s repair procedures.
“It would protect consumers by ensuring that required safety inspections, scans, and calibrations are treated as standard reimbursable parts of a repair, not optional add-ons to be argued over claim by claim,” Babb said. “And it would keep all Georgia shops on a level playing field so the shops that are doing the right thing aren’t punished when compared to those who are cutting corners.”
Passmore countered that such laws in other states have driven up insurance rates, and he contended that auto manufacturers’ repair standards can be self-serving, requiring shops to use their official parts.
Two reasons for rising consumer costs may be difficult to counter because they are rooted in behavior.
A team of 35 agents at the state office of Insurance and Safety Fire has been investigating about 10,000 reports of insurance fraud a year, said Bryce Rawson, who handles legislative affairs for the agency.
“We rank third in the nation in terms of questionable claims,” he said.
Joshua Carroll, a Macon lawyer and president of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, said the number of wrecks has risen over the past 15 years, tracking the market saturation of smartphones.
And for some reason, Georgia has become a magnet for crashes. “We have double the amount of wrecks in Georgia of the national average,” he said. “That’s really a breathtaking statistic.”
If left unchecked, it will become a major problem for the state, said Sen. John F. Kennedy, R-Macon, who led the committee.
“It’s all about the kids, but it’s also an economic issue for the state of Georgia. It is a workforce issue for the state of Georgia,” said Kennedy, who stepped down this summer as the Senate president pro tem to run for lieutenant governor.
The bipartisan committee voted unanimously on a host of recommendations that could turn into legislation.
Among the proposals were punitive approaches, including temporary suspension of licenses and of participation in team sports for chronically absent students. There were also recommendations that require more support for families, mandating that schools intervene thoroughly before referring students to juvenile court.
The lawmakers also talked of banning cellphones in high schools.
Sen. Shawn Still, R-Johns Creek, the majority caucus chair of the Senate, said chronic absenteeism will join literacy and social media as the top three educational concerns next year.
Another Senate study committee recently concluded its research into the impact of social media and smartphones on Georgia children.
That committee was convened after tech companies sued to block a new state law that sought to limit their access to children.
That committee has yet to issue recommendations, but co-chair Sen. Sally Harrell, D-Atlanta, talked of targeting social media algorithms and of including high schools in the state’s ban on cellphones in elementary and middle schools, which takes effect next fall.
The members of the absenteeism study committee heard from national, regional and state experts about the manifold causes of absenteeism. Poverty and the fear of bullying were top reasons.
On Thursday, Carol Lewis, the president and CEO of Communities in Schools of Georgia, described fundamental unmet needs.
Providing feminine hygiene products had improved attendance, she said, adding that a lack of clothing and washing machines were another obstacle.
Lewis, whose nonprofit supports students at risk of dropping out in a quarter of Georgia’s school districts, described one student who collected rainwater to wash his clothes.
She asked the senators to imagine a child who had to sleep in school clothes with a bed-wetting little brother.
“You know what you smell like, and you’re having to sit in class all day,” Lewis said. “They’re going to try to find a way not to be there. And that happens regularly.”
Another nonprofit that offers mental health services in a handful of Georgia middle and high schools said anxiety was a common unaddressed problem. Dr. Juliana Chen, the chief medical officer for Cartwheel Care, asked lawmakers to increase funding to cover services in elementary schools, as well.
When Still calculated that the additional cost of $20,000 for each of Georgia’s more than 1,800 elementary schools would pencil out to $34 million for the state budget, Democrat RaShaun Kemp of Atlanta was stunned.
ATLANTA — An alleged international drug king pin from China accused of trafficking cocaine and fentanyl in Atlanta using operations based in Mexico was arraigned in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn Wednesday, where he was accused of a host of crimes that could land him in prison for life.
Zhi Dong Zhang, 38, was extradited from Mexico last month, where the U.S. Department of Justice accused him of working on behalf of major cartels.
“Zhang’s transnational network was allegedly intricate, well-coordinated, and well-funded,” said Theodore S. Hertzberg, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd W. Blanche said Zhang is accused of running a global enterprise that pumped “massive quantities” of cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine into American communities, causing addiction, violence and death.
The indictment against Zhang in Georgia accuses him of negotiating and coordinating delivery of 11 kilograms of cocaine and one kilogram of fentanyl to Atlanta for distribution in 2022. It says he oversaw stash houses in Georgia and California where drug money was held before being deposited in banks, with 150 companies, 170 bank accounts and about $20 million in proceeds involved.
The indictment against Zhang in the Eastern District of New York traced seizures of 46 kilograms of cocaine, 58 kilograms of methamphetamine, and nearly 7 kilograms of fentanyl to the organization he allegedly ran.
It says he laundered $77 million through more than 100 shell companies with bank accounts opened by recruits called “banqueros.” They were allegedly supervised from Mexico, where coordinators booked their travel and provided fake Social Security Numbers.
“This arrest represents a critical milestone in a long-running investigation into an alleged high-level narcotics trafficker with international reach,” said Robert J. Murphy, Special Agent in Charge in Atlanta for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
