Hey everyone, Harry here. I wanted to share some late-breaking and perhaps surprising Sunday night news.

Donald Trump is now telling Republicans they should support a measure to force the Department of Justice to release documents about Jeffrey Epstein.

For months, Trump had strenuously opposed the measure, opposition you'll hear us discuss in this episode.

Whether this change of tune comes from staring down certain defeat on the measure in the house,

or he has something else up his sleeve always a distinct possibility, it's too soon to say. But stay tuned generally for our

in-depth conversation about Trump and the Epstein emails. Welcome to Talking Feds, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests

for a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day.

I'm Harry Littman.

It's our periodic episode with colleagues drawn from the deep bench of the thriving pro-democracy outlet, the contrarian.

The longest government shutdown in history ended last week when eight Democratic senators joined the Republican majority in a vote to reopen for business.

The move angered many of the eight senators' colleagues and supporters,

since it left their side with little to show for the pains of the past weeks,

and it likely dashed any chance of an extension to the Obamacare subsidies.

It was no coincidence that just as the shutdown was ending, Capitol Hill was again jolted

by revelations about Jeffrey Epstein and the administration's efforts to keep buried some 300,000

pages of documents involving his crimes and connections.

House Democrats released three emails from the Epstein estate that strongly suggested

Trump was more involved with Epstein than he has let on.

Beyond Washington, a federal judge in South Carolina seemed

disposed to grant motions brought by James Comey and Letitia James to dismiss indictments against

them signed by Lindsay Halligan on the ground that Halligan's appointment was unlawful.

To chronicle a post-shutdown return to normal, that is anything but normal,

...