DOJ Holding 100,000+ Pages on Epstein

The Justice Department has been sitting on more than 100,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein-related files, despite an exhaustive months-long review that mobilized hundreds of FBI agents and prosecutors in a desperate attempt to find documents that could be safely released.

NYT reported:

This spring, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department made an all-out push involving hundreds of employees to scour the Jeffrey Epstein files with a single goal in mind — find something, anything, that could be released to the public to satisfy the mounting clamor from the angry legions of President Trump’s supporters.

But after devoting countless hours to the project, working at times around the clock searching databases, hard drives, network drives, cabinets, desks and closets, the bureau and the department finally acknowledged this month that they had little to show for their efforts. They came to realize, for instance, that there was no specific “client list,” which previous investigators had known years ago.

Those conclusions, announced in a memo earlier this month and then repeated this week in a statement by a Justice Department official, capped a frenetic scramble to sort more than 100,000 pages of materials related to Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in prison six years ago awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. During the inquiry, Justice Department officials diverted hundreds of F.B.I. employees and federal prosecutors from their regular duties to go through the documents at least four times — including once to flag any references to Mr. Trump and other prominent figures.

The bureau’s own expert document reviewers raised concerns at one point that the investigation was not only being rushed, but could also violate laws and internal protocols put in place to protect against sensitive information about witnesses, child victims and grand jury material from being released.

Details of the review were based on accounts by three former F.B.I. and Justice Department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fears of retaliation. The New York Times also obtained a summary of the process as described by one senior bureau official to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The expansive and ultimately fruitless effort to scrutinize the files reflects the obsession within the Trump administration and Mr. Trump’s political base with Mr. Epstein — a fixation that several top administration officials helped fuel themselves before they entered government. The review appeared to be nearing an end in mid-April, shortly before Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed Mr. Trump that he was mentioned in the files.

Still, by reaching the same conclusion that other inquiries had come to — namely, that Mr. Epstein killed himself in 2019 and that no evidence existed to charge other people with trafficking young women — the document review has created deep fissures among the president’s followers, who have found themselves not knowing who or what to believe about a story that they have been fed for years.

On Tuesday, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, drove the most recent stake into the heart of the Epstein conspiracy theory, reiterating the findings of the department memo this month indicating that the F.B.I.’s review had not turned up any additional culprits.

“This Department of Justice does not shy away from uncomfortable truths, nor from the responsibility to pursue justice wherever the facts may lead,” Mr. Blanche wrote on social media. “The joint statement by @TheJusticeDept and @FBI of July 6 remains as accurate today as it was when it was written.”

Mr. Blanche’s message was a tacit concession that the review by the bureau — one that diverted resources from other critical missions — had largely been a waste of time. It also risked further enraging Mr. Trump’s supporters and right-wing influencers, many of whom remain convinced that other powerful men were in league with Mr. Epstein.

Almost as soon as Mr. Trump returned to the White House, digging into the Epstein files emerged as one of his administration’s top priorities. But there were early signs that recriminations and missteps would consume the effort.

Just days after Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, was confirmed by the Senate and Dan Bongino was installed as his deputy, the two men found themselves immersed in the review while also facing criticism from Ms. Bondi herself.

On Feb. 27, one week after Mr. Patel assumed his post, Ms. Bondi wrote him a letter accusing the F.B.I.’s field office in New York of withholding thousands of pages of documents related to the Epstein case. While the basis of her claim remains unclear, she also ordered Mr. Patel “to conduct an immediate investigation into why my order to the F.B.I. was not followed,” giving the director two weeks to come up with an answer.

The day after the letter was delivered, James E. Dennehy, the top agent in the New York office was forced to leave his job for reasons that were never made clear.

Then, in early March, the F.B.I.’s Record/Information Dissemination Section in Winchester, Va., was ordered to process more than 100,000 pages in the Epstein files for public disclosure. But the files were littered with data that was not supposed to become public, such as personal identifying information, grand jury material, information protected under the Pen Register Act and the National Security Act and information prohibited from disclosure under the Child Victims’ and Child Witnesses’ Act, the senior bureau official told the Judiciary Committee.

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