On Monday evening, Attorney General Pam Bondi dropped a bombshell update about the status of the notorious Epstein files, revealing thousands of these files had finally been handed over to the FBI after being withheld from the initial request made by the DOJ. Bondi stated during a recent interview that redactions will have to be made, however, explanations for why each one will be included for the sake of transparency.
Most of these redactions will no doubt concerning the personal information and identities of the victims of billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in order to protect them from exposure that could cause additional trauma.
Last Thursday, the Justice Department released a 100-page document they referred to as phase one of “The Epstein Files,” but it was a huge nothingburger. The information it contained was mostly already known. Due to this fact, a massive controversy exploded online. People were lived and were most definitely not shy about expressing their outrage.
Bondi sat down for a conversation with Fox News host Sean Hannity who asked for her response to all the online hate and pushback she and the Trump administration received after the release of the document.
She responded by saying that she’d only been informed 24 hours before the release of phase one that “there were way more documents that they were supposed to turn over.”
“You’re looking at these documents going, ‘These aren’t all the Epstein files.’ There were flight logs, there were names, victims’ names, and we’re going, ‘Where’s the rest of the stuff?’ That’s what the FBI had turned over to us,” Bondi said in her discussion on Hannity’s program. “So a source said, ‘Whoa, all this evidence is sitting in the Southern District of New York.’ So based on that, I gave them the deadline, Friday at 8, a truckload of evidence arrived.”
“It’s now in the possession of the FBI. Kash is going to get me, and himself really, a detailed report as to why all these documents and evidence had been withheld,” the attorney general explained. “We’re going to go through it, go through it as fast as we can, but go through it very cautiously to protect all the victims of Epstein, because there are a lot of victims.”
Just before the big let down on Thursday, Bondi was on Fox News where she stated that the DOJ would be putting these documents in the public so that they would see “a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information.”
According to a report from the Daily Caller, the Trump administration, including Bondi and the Justice Department, got raked over the coals over the release of the binder due to it including no new revelations.
Hannity then gave a bit of push back over the files being redacted.
“National security, some grand jury information, which is always going to be confidential, but we’ll see. Let’s look through them as fast as we can. Get it out to the American people, because the American people have a right to know,” Bondi responded. “Not only on that, but on Kennedy, on Martin Luther King, on all of these cases that the Biden administration has just sat on for all these years.”
“It’s really — it’s not sad. It’s infuriating that these people thought that they could sit on this information, but they can’t,” Bondi told the Fox News host. “And when we redact things, Sean, what we’re going to do is not just pull pages out like they used to do. If something’s redacted, you will know the line, and you will know why it’s redacted, the victim’s name, identifying information of a victim.”
Epstein was arrested and charged in 2019 with sex trafficking, only later to be found dead in his New York Metropolitan Correctional Center cell a month after his arrest. Since his death, Republicans, including Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, have called for the full, unredacted records of Epstein to be released to the public, which includes his infamous flight log.
After the release of phase one, Bondi requested that the FBI deliver the remaining documents to the DOJ by Friday at 8 a.m., tasking newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel with investigating “why the request for all documents was not followed.”
“We believe in transparency, and America has the right to know. The Biden administration sat on these documents. No one did anything with them. Why were they sitting in the Southern District of New York? I want a full report on that,” Bondi said during the discussion.
“Sadly, these people don’t believe in transparency, but I think more, unfortunately, I think a lot of them don’t believe in honesty,” the attorney general wrapped up the interview. “It’s a new day. It’s a new administration, and everything’s going to come out to the public. The public has a right to know. Americans have a right to know.”
We need to know, deserve to know who is on the list. If there are politicians on it, people we chose to represent us in Congress, we need to know how extensive their connection to this sick monster really was. And whether or not they were engaging in illegal sexual activity.
If so, it’s time to hold them accountable.