An Update on the Epstein Files
Recent developments leave little doubt of an extensive cover-up operation
Photo by the White House on Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
The past week was supposed to mark another major milestone in delivering closure and justice to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. Instead, thanks to the Trump administration’s continued obstruction, that justice remains on hold.
Over the last few days, lawmakers received their first glimpses of the non-redacted Epstein files, Ghislaine Maxwell was scheduled to provide a closed-door deposition to the House Oversight Committee, and Attorney General Pam Bondi was expected to testify regarding the status of the investigation. Nevertheless, each opportunity to learn more about Epstein’s co-conspirators turned into a disastrous disappointment.
Never before has a federal cover-up been this painfully obvious.
Firstly, according to Congress, the unredacted files confirmed suspicions that the names of rich and powerful individuals had been scrubbed from the public release — even though the phone numbers, email addresses, and even nude photographs, of several victims had been ‘mistakenly’ published by the Justice Department.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, one of the first House members to review the original documents, said he identified several instances where possible Epstein co-conspirators had been redacted for no apparent reason. Coincidentally, these unnecessary redactions included an email correspondence between Epstein’s lawyers about Mar-a-Lago.
“I think the Department of Justice has been in a cover-up mode for many months and has been trying to sweep the entire thing under the rug,” Raskin reacted on Monday. “There are tons of mysterious redactions and we don’t know why.”
Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, the authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, similarly identified six powerful men whose names had been mysteriously scrubbed from the public files. These redactions allegedly included Ahmed bin Sulayem, the CEO of a Dubai-based logistics company, and Les Wexner, a prominent Republican donor who led the parent company of Victoria’s Secret and many other women’s lingerie retailers.
Jamie Raskin also claimed that the Department of Justice has only made four computers available to members of Congress to review the unredacted files — and that they were only permitted to take written notes about what they read. Given the limited accommodations and restrictive process, he estimated that it could take several years before Congress is able to parse through all the information.
With over three million files awaiting their review, this can only be interpreted as another layer of obstruction imposed by the Trump Justice Department.
Predictably, Ghislaine Maxwell’s long-awaited deposition — or lack thereof — was equally disappointing. Rather than providing Congress with details that could shed light about Epstein’s co-conspirators, the sex trafficker’s top associate kept silent on any matters of substantive importance.
Democratic representatives who participated in the closed-door non-testimony, including Melanie Stansbury and Jasmine Crockett, interpreted Maxwell’s silence as an attempt to buy a pardon from the president.
“Ghislaine Maxwell has made it abundantly clear that she will continue protecting pedophiles and sex traffickers until she is granted clemency by Donald Trump,” Rep. Crockett said. “She doesn’t care about the crimes that she has committed and is completely unremorseful.”
“The United States government is engaged in an active cover up of the largest sex trafficking scandal in the history of the United States and Donald Trump is right at the center of it,” added Rep. Stansbury. “And the person who is living to provide the evidence is trying to invoke the Fifth to buy her clemency.”
Unfortunately, Attorney General Pam Bondi was no more forthcoming during her Wednesday testimony. During her five-hour brawl with the House Judiciary Committee, Bondi dodged and deflected every serious question posed to her by lawmakers.
As has become expected from members of this administration, every attempt to extract basic information about the Epstein investigation was met by an emotional outburst from the attorney general.
Even when Bondi was given a direct opportunity to apologize to survivors for her department’s inept and contemptuous handling of the files, she refused.
Better yet, she walked into the hearing with a ‘burn book’ of prepared insults to dish out against members of Congress — something that would surely get a government employee fired in any other line of work.
Whenever she ran out of personalized rebuttals, Bondi would often accuse lawmakers of suffering “Trump derangement syndrome.” Other times, she would praise the administration for the ‘strongest’ stock market in history — defending policies and economic trends that have no relationship to her department. She sounded less like an attorney general, and more like an unhinged Fox News pundit.
“The Dow is over 50,000 dollars! I don't know why you're laughing,” Bondi once interjected. “The S&P at almost 7,000, and the NASDAQ smashing records. That's what we should be talking about.”
In another egregious example, the attorney general lashed out and called Jamie Raskin a “washed-up loser lawyer” following a heated exchange over her refusal to answer Rep. Jerry Nadler’s questions about prosecuting Epstein’s co-conspirators.
Unfortunately, Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the proceedings, appeared to revel in the attorney general’s crude remarks — doing little to stop her contemptuous outbursts.
Not even Rep. Massie, a Republican, was spared from her childish burn book.
“A funny thing about Bondi’s insults to members of Congress who had serious questions: Staff literally gave her flashcards with individualized insults, but she couldn’t memorize them, so you can see her shuffle through them to find the flash-cards-insult that matches the member,” he wrote later that afternoon.
On top of that, photographers captured Bondi in possession of lawmakers’ search histories of the Epstein files — revealing a targeted surveillance operation of the administration’s political opponents.
Overall, the behavior we’ve witnessed from the Justice Department this past week was beyond deplorable and will be remembered scornfully by future historians.
Even though Congress passed a law compelling the full release of the Epstein files and the unredacted names of co-conspirators, entire sections remain hidden from the public, and lawmakers are being forced to review millions of documents using only four separate computers. Millions of files still haven’t been released in any capacity.
Moreover, Ghislaine Maxwell — who was at the center of the largest sex trafficking conspiracy in history — must be brought to justice and cannot be considered for a pardon under any circumstances. Nevertheless, it strongly appears that she might be granted clemency in exchange for her continued silence.
And worst of all, rather than answering legitimate questions about her department’s investigation of pedophiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi disgraced Epstein’s victims by turning her congressional hearing into a pre-rehearsed insult session and borderline MAGA campaign rally.
By siding with the president over victims, Justice Department officials — alongside the Republican House and Senate majorities — have made themselves complicit in hiding the unforgivable crimes of wealthy and powerful individuals. Regardless of whether Trump is directly implicated in Epstein’s crimes, his administration is obstructing justice and must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.
Of course, for that process to begin, voters must overwhelmingly elect Democrats to Congress this November. With perhaps the singular exception of Thomas Massie, every Republican on Capitol Hill has been fully complicit in enabling the most corrupt presidential administration in history.
Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp, but under his watch, there have seemingly never been more predators in Washington.
Make no mistake, the extent of this cover-up is not normal; around the world, politicians, career diplomats, and even heads of state are being brought down for merely having their names mentioned in the files.
For survivors to finally reach some sense of closure, it’s time for the American people to respond in kind.
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