stop...
that's hardly suspicious
The Federal Bureau of Investigation redacted President Donald Trump’s name and those of other high-profile individuals from government files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The redactions were made by a team of FBI employees tasked with reviewing the Epstein files for potential public release. The names were withheld under privacy protections because those individuals, including Trump, were private citizens when the federal investigation into Epstein began in 2006, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-01/fbi-redacted-president-donald-trump-s-name-in-the-epstein-files
or this...
Here’s a Look at What the FBI’s Epstein Files Would Reveal
Welcome back to FOIA Files! Another week, another deep dive into the Jeffrey Epstein saga that has engulfed the Trump administration. We know that the Justice Department and FBI amassed more than 300 gigabytes of data during the epic two-month search for all of the government’s documents on the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. We know that the DOJ and FBI concluded in July that further disclosure of the Epstein files would not be “appropriate or warranted.” What we don’t know is what, exactly, is in the files. It turns out, some clues are buried in an under-the-radar, eight-year-old Freedom of Information Act case. I’ll explain. If you’re not already getting FOIA Files in your inbox, sign up here.
Neither confirm nor deny? Really?
The intense secrecy shrouding the Epstein files dates back to President Donald Trump’s first term. Back then, the FBI blocked the release of documents from its investigation into Epstein. Since then a pretty interesting—and infuriating—chain of events has unfolded.
It dates to April 20, 2017. That’s when James Robertson, an editor for The National Enquirer and RadarOnline, filed a FOIA request with the FBI seeking “all documents relating to the FBI’s investigation and prosecution of” Epstein. A week later, the FBI denied his request, saying that the bureau could neither confirm nor deny the Epstein records existed and, even if they did, Robertson’s request for records on third parties bumped up against two privacy exemptions. (They were the exact same exemptions the FBI used to justify redacting Trump’s name from the files, which I wrote about in last week’s edition of FOIA Files!)
However, in its response, the bureau held out an option that was untethered from reality: It included a privacy waiver, and explained that Robertson must first obtain permission from the subject of his request—Epstein—before the FBI would even consider releasing documents about him.
Ultimately, the FBI’s argument in denying the records boiled down to this: Epstein was never charged with a federal crime. Therefore the release of any FBI records revealing his name could “engender comment and speculation and carries a stigmatizing connotation,” according to the exemption cited by the FBI when it refused to release the documents.
Robertson, who later co-authored a book about Epstein, sued the FBI a month later, arguing that the bureau was wrong in its decision to withhold the records.
In October 2017, the FBI did start to release a sliver of its investigative files on Epstein. Ultimately, over the course of nearly three years, it processed a total of 11,571 pages that the FBI considered responsive to Robertson’s initial request. However, it released only about 1,200 pages, which were heavily redacted.
The FBI posted those 1,200 pages in the bureau’s online FOIA reading room, The Vault. To be clear, the FBI wasn’t acting particularly generous or proactively transparent when it released this narrow set of Epstein documents to the Vault. It was forced to do that. Under the 2016 FOIA amendments, if an agency gets three or more FOIA requests on the same subject it is required to release the records to everyone. If there’s any doubt that’s why the FBI released those files, there’s the telltale series of numbers at the bottom of each page, which corresponds with the federal docket number of Robertson’s FOIA case.
Withheld in full
So what happened to the remaining 10,371 pages of documents not released by the FBI? Well, here’s where the plot thickens. The processing of the Epstein files ground to a halt in July 2019 when Epstein was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
The FBI explained to Robertson and his attorney, Dan Novack, that it couldn’t release any further records on Epstein since the man was now being prosecuted. In particular, the department said that the remaining records would be withheld in their entirety due to ongoing law enforcement proceedings and because disclosure could impact Epstein’s ability to get a fair trial.
But wait. A month later, Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial. Wouldn’t the fact that the defendant was no longer alive mean that the documents could now, finally, be released? Not so fast. The FBI did release another 46 pages that it determined wouldn’t interfere with the ongoing proceedings (mainly news clippings), but it stopped there. The bureau’s FOIA team said that even though Epstein was dead and federal prosecutors dropped their case against him, records still needed to be withheld because of ongoing law enforcement proceedings.
blah, blah, blah...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-08-08/here-s-a-look-at-what-the-fbi-s-epstein-files-would-reveal
NBC News
Congress doesn't want to talk to Alex Acosta, Epstein's '...
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Crnr2Crnr ·
