For days, Attorney General Pam Bondi had spoken about the release of the 'Epstein files', supposedly secret documents that the federal government has about some of the powerful men who were in the job of the shame Jeffrey Epstein.
But the approximately 200 pages with documents that Mrs Bondi released on Thursday contained little new information that points to misconduct by someone other than Mr. Epstein, a registered sex offender who died in prison. The Document Dump consisted largely of flight logs for Mr. Epstein's aircraft – made public long ago – and contact details for hundreds of employees, together with short descriptions of items found in his homes.
The release was invoiced as a gesture that heralded a new era of transparency at the Ministry of Justice. But the Hyped first release of documents (which Mrs Bondi teased as “Breaking News” in a Fox News performance on Wednesday evening) seemed to be mainly political theater. The confusing day -long roll -out spun even a few new conspiracy theories from some Trump supporters, who regard the Epstein research as a fountainhead for other conspiracies.
On Thursday afternoon, Mrs. Bondi and Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, offered a sneak preview of the documents to various conservative influencers, some of whom have come from the West wing with thick white binders with the label “The Epstein Files: Phase I.” One of them later called it an 'interesting souvenir'.
But against the mid -afternoon, the Ministry of Justice had not posted the content. And Mrs. Bondi criticized social media from those who had taken her on her word the night before. The conservative personality Glenn Beck posted on X: “The Epstein files are a total joke” and asked: “Who undermines Potus?”
Mrs Bondi responded by promising more documents. Later she said that a 'source' in the FBI field office in New York City had told her that the office had withheld “thousands” from previously unknown pages of Epstein-related documents and that she was determined to get them, according to a letter that her spokesperson provided to reporters.
The documents were released late on Thursday, together with a statement from Mr Patel who said: “If there are gaps, we will find them. If records are hidden, we will discover them. '
Yet some Republicans went to X in the congress to be dissatisfied with the information released by Mrs. Bondi.
“This is not what we or the American people asked for and a complete disappointment. Buy us the information we asked for! “Written representative Anna Paulina Luna from Florida.
Mr. Epstein, a university and self-proclaimed financial whizz, killed himself in August 2019-a month after his arrest on federal sexual charges.
Mr. Epstein is supposed to have abused more than 200 teenage girls and young women for more than 200 teenage girls and young women for three decades. During that time he gained a fortune worth $ 600 million and became friends with some of the most powerful and famous people in the world.
Included in the documents, which were finally posted on Thursday evening, was a fully edited list of 254 people described as masseuses.
Many of the bold names that were linked to Mr Epstein came to light for the first time in 2015 when Gawker published his so -called black book with names, numbers and addresses.
That list contains the retail magnate Leslie Wexner, the private equity Mogul Leon Black, the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and the Venture Capitalist Reid Hoffman. All those men said they regretted their association with Mr. Epstein.
It has also been known for a long time that President Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew van Groot -Britain and celebrities, including Kevin Spacey and Naomi Campbell, were friendly with Mr. Epstein at the same time, and some traveled on the private aircraft of Mr. Epstein, according to previous flight logs, trial stimony.
The most striking flight log was a document of 118 pages that was produced during the criminal process of Ghislaine Maxwell, one of the old employees of Mr. Epstein and a former girlfriend. She was convicted in 2021 on accusation that she was Mr. Epstein helped with his sex trading activities.
It was a time when a lot said about the Trump government. The two most powerful law enforcement officers in the country, Mrs Bondi and Mr Patel, who are responsible for supervising vital national security and criminal research, chose to prioritize a long-tuned matter to conservative media and the obsessive core of Trump supporters see the case as an ancilling activities.
For years, conspiracy theorists have believed that there is a large plot of the government to not only hide the cause of the death of Mr. Epstein, but also the names of powerful men who also abused some of the victims, including teenage girls and women.
On right-wing media platforms such as FOX News and the own service of Mr Trump, Truth Social, there has long been talk of an “Epstein customer list” that describes the names of men for whom Mr. Epstein has bought women. But there has never been a reference to a “client list” in one of the civil disputes set by victims.
Before he came to the Trump government, Mrs. Bondi fed part of that speculation by talking in media interviews about the refusal of the government to release Epstein documents.
The FBI has also refused to release some documents that were asked by lawyers for victims and the news media. In October, the FBI rejected a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the New York Times looking for a list of all items seized by federal agents when they searched Mr. Epstein's homes in New York and the American Virgin Islands after his arrest of July 2019.
The documents released by Mrs Bondi may contain partial descriptions of some of those items seized by federal agents. Under the head “Provision list” there are short descriptions of items such as “VHS -Tape”, “Envelope with 4 CDs” and “Photo that reflects two girls.”
More than two dozen of Mr. Epstein's victims have joined a lawsuit that accused the FBI of the wrong acting of previous investigations into his activities and ignoring complaints submitted by victims.
Jordan Merson, whose law firm that continues lawsuit, said that Mrs. Bondi had taken a good first step and that he hoped that this would “lead them to take the pain of the victims seriously” who sue the FBI
