gizmodo.com
The search for radical "transparency" isn't going so well inside the new Trump White House. MAGA-world was perturbed last week when President Trumps new attorney general, Pam Bondi, claimed to have finally shed light on the mysterious case of Jeffrey Epstein but, instead, released a bunch of documents that had already been publicly available for years. Now, Bondi is claiming that the reason she wasnt able to release more documents is because other government officials blocked them from being sent to her. Late yesterday, l learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein, she wrote in a recently published letter. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of the files. Bondi now claims that a source told her that there were thousands of pages pertaining to Epstein that remained in the Southern District of New York, the district where Epstein was being tried for sex trafficking when he died in 2019. Bondi has intimated that the FBI and the SDNY withheld those documents from her when she requested the full Epstein dossier. She now says that, with the help of new MAGA FBI director Kash Patel, a truckload of documents have been acquired from SDNY and that those documents will soon be made public. However, Bondi has explained that the documents that will be released may still be partially redacted. Bondi went on Fox News recently and said that aspects of the thousands of newly discovered documents may still be shielded from public scrutiny. Were gonna go through it as fast as we can, but go through it very cautiously to protect all the victims of Epstein, Bondi said, implying that the identities of victims would remain secret. Is that the only thing that will be redacted? asked Hannity. National security? the host tried a little later. National security, some grand jury informationwhich is always going to be confidential. But well see. Lets look through them as fast as we can, get it out to the American peoplebecause the American people have a right to know. Not only on that, but on Kennedy, on Martin Luther King. Given Bondis discussion of JFK and MLK in the same conversation, its unclear if her national security concerns applied to those cases rather than to Epsteins, althoughgiven the fact that those figures died half a century ago, its unclear why any of Americas national security interests would be impacted by information pertaining to those cases. Gizmodo reached out to the Justice Department for clarification. The internet certainly took Bondis rhetoric to mean that the Epstein case might have national security implications. As one commenter put it, heres an idea, how about you tell us WTF a known human trafficker and pedophile has to do with our national security?? Bondis bizarre claims about the FBI and the SDNY suggest two equally disturbing possibilities: 1) there is some sort of conspiracy involving a rogue wing of the FBI and the legal system in New York or 2), Bondi, the Attorney General of the United States, is basically inventing a narrative to justify the governments resistance to the long-sought transparency that Trumps base has been asking for. Julie K. Brown, perhaps the most authoritative journalist when it comes to the Epstein case, has pointed out that some 10,000 pages of heavily redacted Epstein case files are already publicly available on the FBIs website. Many of those files were publicly released during Bidens administration. If the subsequent files that the DOJ releases duplicate those documents, it will have meant that Trumps government is essentially re-releasing already available documents and attempting to present them as new. Brown has also noted that Bondi was the Attorney General of Florida between 2011 and 2019, a period of time when Jeffrey Epsteins plane records became public, victims lawsuits were filed, and a lot of new evidence against Epstein surfaced. So questions should be asked about why she didnt take up the case or launch a probe when she was attorney general in Florida. The news that Bondis supposed document dump will be redacted has only further spurred long-circulating conspiracy theories that Epstein was an intelligence asset that either worked for the CIA, Israels Mossad, or both. Theories that Epstein may have been a spook have been around for years and seem to have first germinated due to the mysterious circumstances in which Epstein was given a plea deal in Florida when he was first arrested for sex crimes in 2006. The non-prosecution agreement that many deemed highly lenient was overseen by then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta. Acosta is reported to have later said: I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone. Acosta was later made Trumps labor secretary and was also reportedly in the running to replace Trumps Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, but was dropped from the list of contenders a day after Brown published a story on his Epstein sweetheart deal. But Epsteins possible links to the spook world go further than that. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epsteins longstanding partner in crime, is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, a publishing magnate who enjoyed ties to the Israeli government and who died under suspicious circumstances in 1991. It has long been rumored that Maxwell worked for Mossad, Israels top intelligence agency. The reigning conspiracy theory is that Epsteins sexual exchanges with young girls werent just about his own perverse desires but were part and parcel of a broader honeypot operation to entrap powerful men with compromising material. This is, again, a conspiracy theory, and no evidence has yet surfaced to substantiate itthough its worth pointing out that Epstein did know a hell of a lot of powerful men, and ferried them (and lots of women) around on his private jet (which has since been dubbed the Lolita Express). Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in 2019, and a coroners report produced by the New York City medical examiners office stated that Epstein died by suicide. However, Epsteins death has long been the subject of conjecture and conspiracy theory, leading to the oft-heard refrain Epstein Didnt Kill Himself, which has circulated the internet for the past half-decade. Odd aspects of the casesuch as the malfunctioning of the prison security cameras in front of Epsteins cell on the day of his deathhave contributed to public suspicions about the case. A forensic pathologist hired by Epsteins brother in 2019 produced a report that stated homicide appeared likely in the case.
