The American Department of Justice met this Friday, the last day of the deadline set by law by Congress in Washington, with the obligation to publish the papers of Jeffrey Epstein. But, another disappointment which adds to an endless list of postponements, he only did so in part, despite the fact that the rule which obliged him to do so and which President Donald Trump signed specifies the obligation to distribute “all” of these documents.
Attorney General Pam Bondi had 30 days to release the records of the millionaire pedophile, who died in 2019 in a Manhattan cell (he committed suicide, the coroner certified) while awaiting trial as the ringleader of a child sex trafficking ring with hundreds of victims, some of whom were as young as 14 at the time of their rape. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of documents were expected, the result of nearly two decades of investigations by authorities into Epstein’s dark conspiracy of abuse and connections to power, but the penultimate and highly anticipated revelation has once again failed. The excuse given by the Department of Justice was the protection of the victims and the names of innocent people cited in the newspapers. Todd Blanche, deputy attorney general, said in an interview that new releases could be expected in “the next couple of weeks.”
It was (yet another) disappointment for the survivors of this abuse, for the politicians of both parties who fought to shed light on this matter, and for the American public.
She has been intrigued for years by what went on behind closed doors in the circles of power in which the financier moved, and in which he rubbed shoulders with presidents (Donald Trump), former presidents (Bill Clinton), leading politicians (Lawrence Summers), philanthropists (Bill Gates), far-right figures (Steve Bannon), academics (Noam Chomsky), members of British royalty (Prince Andrew) and filmmakers (Woody Allen).
It is a sinister soap opera whose end has been delayed for years, which has generated all kinds of conspiracy theories in its wake. And also tarnish reputations: appearing in the roles of Epstein, an extraordinarily well-connected man in areas like finance or politics, does not automatically mean being guilty of any crime. Nor having been aware of Epstein’s crimes.
That this ending did not take place this Friday could not have surprised anyone. The Trump administration spent months promising to shed light on the role of the millionaire pedophile, only to change its mind last July. Since then, some of its most prominent members, with Bondi at the helm, have concocted all kinds of schemes to break their promises, causing Trump to have a crisis among his base of MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters, many of whom are conspiracy fans.
All members of both chambers, except one, Republican, approved on Capitol Hill the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a rule that twisted the arm of the Trump administration after these months of resistance. It was expected that the name of the President of the United States, signatory of this law, would appear in the new documents, since it has been present consistently in the different declassifications that have occurred over time, thanks to the efforts of victims or members of the Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives, which has published documents in recent months. The last batch, comprising around 70 photographs, arrived this Thursday.
The President of the United States had been friends with the pedophile financier for around 15 years. They ceased to be so – according to Trump, on his initiative – in 2004, before Epstein was prosecuted for the first time in Florida and emerged virtually unscathed, despite dozens of testimonies from minors whom he had recruited under the pretext of acting as masseuses in exchange for money and who were treated by the prosecution as prostitutes. The end of the relationship between the two friends also occurred well before the real estate mogul and reality TV star decided to devote himself to politics and end up in the White House.
In addition to providing this 30-day deadline, the three-page law requires that published material be easily searchable and downloadable. And it authorizes censorship by the Justice Department of any information that could be incriminating to victims, as well as documents containing descriptions of child sexual abuse, shocking images or data that could endanger an active investigation or ongoing legal process. Bondi is also required to justify these censorships and Congress must write a supplemental report detailing the content. rod within 15 days of publication. This will therefore expire at the beginning of January for newly published documents.
Blanche – who has played a leading role in recent months after meeting for nine hours, on two separate days, with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s manager who was later transferred to a minimum security prison in Texas – had already warned in a Fox News interview broadcast in the morning that not all the papers would be known this Friday.
“Let’s be clear: Trump has been saying for years that he wants total transparency,” he warned. “Now the most important thing that the Attorney General and (FBI Director Kash) Patel have talked about is that we have to protect victims. We review every document that we’re going to release to make sure that every victim, their name, their identity and their story, to the extent that it needs to be protected, is fully protected.”
The Justice Department had said in previous weeks that, to meet its obligation, it planned to release 18 categories of documents from the various processes in the Epstein (and Maxwell) tangle. It would also include search warrants, financial records, notes from victim interviews and data from electronic devices.
(Breaking news. There will be an update soon.)
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