Thirty-three days after the Trump Department of Justice was required by law to release the Epstein Files — but failed to produce even one percent of them — a federal judge has rejected a bipartisan effort to appoint a special master to oversee production of the documents.

U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), went to court to make their request. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer declined that request, stating that he does not have the authority to appoint a special master.

“Their request is ‘important’ and ‘timely,’ but the appropriate vehicle may be a lawsuit or Congress, the judge says,” according to All Rise News editor-in-chief Adam Klasfeld.

“This criminal case does not give the Court any charter to supervise DOJ’s compliance with the EFTA,” Judge Engelmayer wrote, as New York Daily News reporter Molly Crane-Newman reported. “And the motion exceeds the bounds of permissible amici participation. This decision is without prejudice to the Representatives’ right to initiate a separate lawsuit. The Representatives are also, of course, at liberty to pursue oversight of DOJ via the tools available to Congress.”

READ MORE: ‘Can Barely Keep His Eyes Open’: Trump Mocked Over ‘Ramblefest’ Davos Speech

On Tuesday, Crane-Newman reported that attorneys for the two congressmen had renewed “their push to seek a special master to oversee the Epstein files release, saying the government ‘cannot be relied upon to act with disinterest and objectively to do what is best for the survivors. It has its own conflicting interests.'”

Former Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, earlier on Wednesday, told MSNOW, “I don’t think we’ll see the entire file until Trump is out of office.”

“I think part of the problem here for Congressmen Khanna and Massie is that the law that they wrote is riddled with loopholes. It does not have an enforcement mechanism. So they’re trying to figure out how to get the DOJ to turn over all the documents, but there’s nothing in the law that forces them to do so under penalty of whatever,” he explained.

Aronberg called it “a real big question whether or not they, as members of Congress, have the standing to get this judge in a closed case to force the DOJ to turn over the documents.”

On @Morning_Joe, I expressed skepticism that Judge Engelmayer would grant the request by Reps. Khanna and Massie to assert jurisdiction and grant a special master to oversee the release of the Epstein Files. Turns out that skepticism was justified. pic.twitter.com/WRyXX08UeS

— Dave Aronberg (@aronberg) January 21, 2026

READ MORE: Canadian Prime Minister Warns World Order Has Ruptured

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President Donald Trump drew sharp criticism at home as he delivered a widely panned speech to world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Perhaps never before has Trump given a major speech with so many immediate national and international crises at stake, including the future of Greenland, the future of NATO and Western alliances, global trade, inflation and the cost of living, Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, and the rise of China and authoritarianism.

Much of the reaction to Trump’s remarks focused on his delivery and the audience’s response.

“Trump can barely keep his eyes open during this speech,” mocked The Bulwark’s publisher Sarah Longwell.

“Trump’s on the Davos stage right now and the room feels like a waiting room. Low energy delivery. Zero reaction,” observed political commentator Brian Allen. “The room is so silent for Trump’s lie-fest at Davos you could hear a pin drop,” he added.

READ MORE: Canadian Prime Minister Warns World Order Has Ruptured

“Incredibly low energy performance today by Donald,” remarked The Lincoln Project.

Several commenters used strong language to express their criticism.

“‘Oh, no, this is going great,’ said no one watching Trump at Davos. Senile, mentally ill, reckless, and practically drooling on his speech, this is a ramblefest of grievance and revisionism,” commented The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson.

Others observed how his speech was being received.

“The throngs for Trump at Davos were nothing like I’ve seen before. I’m watching his speech in a packed overflow room. His rhetoric draws periodic chortles from the crowd,” commented Washington Post global affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor.

And still others remarked on the validity of his remarks.

“Trump’s delusion is eclipsed only by the disrespect and insults and lies he is telling in Davos right now,” remarked Democratic strategist and CNN commentator Maria Cardona.

Journalist Ahmed Baba commented on the “contrast between Trump’s delusional Davos speech lying about his accomplishments,” and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “grounded Davos speech eloquently depicting the world as it is as a result of Trump’s unhinged foreign policy could not be starker.”

Trump just mixed up Greenland and Iceland at Davos.

Then blamed a stock market dip on “Iceland.”

He’s threatening to seize land from countries he can’t even identify.

This is reckless incompetence on a global stage. pic.twitter.com/h2kuSwTy87

— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) January 21, 2026

READ MORE: ‘Enemy Is Within’: Trump Boosts Post Casting NATO as a ‘Threat’ in Social Media Spree

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Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney drew a standing ovation at the World Economic Forum in Davos after warning that the global order has ruptured.

“Let me be direct: We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition,” Carney said, as The New York Times reported.

“I will talk today about the breaking of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint,” he explained.

“Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry,” he said. “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”

Carney did not say President Donald Trump’s name, but he did tell his audience, “recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.”

READ MORE: ‘Enemy Is Within’: Trump Boosts Post Casting NATO as a ‘Threat’ in Social Media Spree

“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”

He also said that “there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.”

“It won’t,” he warned.

Carney said that “intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.”

And he warned that those powers “must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

The Times noted that Carney’s speech came “not long after” President Donald Trump “posted an A.I. image on social media that included a map of American flags superimposed over both Canada and the United States,” along with the U.S. flag on Greenland, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Very important and very well put remarks by 🇨🇦 PM Mark Carney. It’s time to take down the sign and speak up. pic.twitter.com/Ky00CNMYVM

— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) January 20, 2026

READ MORE: ‘Code Red’: Newsom Tells Europe They’ve Been Played by ‘T-Rex’ Trump

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