It’s almost here. T-4 days till the Epstein Files are supposed to be released.
Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed nearly unanimously in Congress and then signed into law by Trump, the deadline for the Department of Justice to deliver “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ’s possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein” is this Friday, December 19th.
Many people, including some survivors of Epstein’s abuse, have been waiting for this day for a long time. But it’s hard not to be skeptical that the government will comply. I’m worried that officials might find ways to ignore the Friday deadline, or release information the public already has access to through court cases, like Attorney General Pam Bondi did with the big fat binders she handed to MAGA influencers earlier this year. And that’s not to mention the possibility of documents being heavily redacted.
In fact, in the spring, the FBI ran something they called the “Special Redaction Project” with more than 900 agents working around the clock to go through the Epstein Files.
Jason Leopold is the reporter who discovered this redaction operation. An investigative reporter at Bloomberg News, Jason is well known in journalism circles as a FOIA guru — and in government circles as a “FOIA terrorist.” He’s an expert in using the Freedom of Information Act to pry loose secret documents from the government, often suing to do so.
As the deadline to release the Epstein Files approaches, I’ve had a bunch of questions about what hanky panky the government can pull with these records, and what levers the public has to make sure the information gets out. Jason is the first guy I wanted to ask about it.
Last week, we featured Jason’s reporting on our show — with an episode of his podcast Disclosure, which he co-hosts with First Amendment attorney Matt Topic. And to follow up, he and I did a live interview, where Jason walked through the various intricacies of public records procedure, as it relates to the impending Epstein drop, and took questions from listeners.
Through records he got released from the FBI, Jason found that the Special Redaction Project could have cost the bureau nearly $1 million in overtime alone (or as the FBI refers to it, “premium pay hours”).
“There were 934 employees that were involved in the processing and review of the Epstein Files, 14,278 premium pay hours worked for a total of $851,344 that the FBI spent on premium pay during the March 17th and March 22nd review of these files,” Jason says. “I mean, that’s a lot of money. That seems like a ton of money to me for the FBI to spend all this. I mean, it wasn’t a national emergency.”
Jason described the way he obsesses over redactions — sometimes even trying to measure out how many characters could fit behind the little black box, to theorize about what name might be there. If the Epstein Files come out Friday, that’s what he’ll be doing.
“It’s really gonna be important to kind of scrutinize the records,” he told me. “You know, you read it, but then you kind of study it, as to, you know, what’s in the background around that redaction. It’ll be very interesting to see if they just redact the name or if they redact the entire context around it. You know, because one of the things that the FBI, in my opinion, kind of goes overboard with is that they believe that we, the public, would be able to build a mosaic out of just having the context.”
There are some tantalizing breadcrumbs in the documents Jason’s been able to get ahold of so far. For instance: reference to information in the Epstein Files related to communications with foreign governments. But communications between foreign governments and whom? We don’t know yet. Maybe that’s something the upcoming (hopefully) release could shed light on.
We also discussed the nearly-decade-old lawsuit to get the Epstein Files released that was filed by the magazine Radar, which could end up being the most effective way to force out the Epstein Files. And we dug into a great question from a listener about the fact that Epstein was once an investor in Radar — the very magazine that has been going after the files for years.
Watch the full conversation, and let’s all reconvene after Friday when we see what the DOJ does on Deadline Day.
Brian
