FBI Staff Told Not to Redact the Juicy Stuff in Epstein Files

Hundreds of FBI employees have been working long shifts examining documents from the bureau’s investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, making only limited redactions that some officials worry will expose sensitive information about sex-abuse victims and witnesses, people familiar with the matter said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the review after a first batch of Epstein files she released in February fell short of expectations. She had promoted the earlier release for days, but the material contained few new revelations, drawing criticism from right-wing influencers.

Bondi promised there was more to come, saying a source in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York field office had told her the bureau withheld thousands of pages of Epstein-related documents. FBI Director Kash Patel promised “no stone left unturned.”

Bondi said on Fox Business last week: “We’ve received a truckload of documents, of evidence, and Kash is going to give me a deadline on when he can go through that to protect, of course, the victims of sex trafficking who are wrapped into this.”

Some on the right have suggested that the government concealed information about a list of men who abused some of Epstein’s victims, which they believe would include powerful Democrats. No evidence has surfaced that such a list exists. Women who were trafficked by Epstein have named more than 20 men as alleged participants in sexual exploitation or abuse, according to a lawyer representing many of those women.

Under pressure from Patel, agents and other FBI employees in New York and at headquarters in Washington have been pulled from other duties to work 12-hour shifts to pore over the material, people familiar with the effort said. They have been instructed to redact only a list of victim names and their personally identifiable information, such as phone numbers and social-media handles, the people said. A victim’s city and state must be disclosed, under the terms of the review.

Reviewers were told not to blacken entire chunks of text and that no other third-party names would be protected, the people said, meaning details of witnesses, victims’ relatives and people close to them could become public. If reviewers find nude photos of victims, they can redact the entire body, but if the victim is clothed, they are instructed to only black out the victim’s face.

Many of the people doing the redactions have no experience with such sensitive work, the people said. Some employees involved in the review worry that victims will be identifiable through other details, and that sensitive information will be compromised, the people said. They worry the documents will inadvertently expose the names of people who weren’t identified among the listed victims.

Last month, lawyers for many of Epstein’s victims, including Brad Edwards and Brittany Henderson, who have represented more than 150 victims, wrote a letter to Bondi expressing privacy concerns and offering assistance with the redaction process. They wrote that they supported the goal of getting out information about the case, but noted that identifying details of victims are scattered throughout the investigative files.

“If the redaction process is done by people without full knowledge of the details of the case, it is likely that victims’ names and identifying information will mistakenly be made public,” they wrote in the Feb. 28 letter. “Such unintended releases could have devastating effects on the victims.”

The Justice Department referred questions to the FBI. An FBI spokesman said Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, at Bondi’s direction, “have prioritized transparency with the Epstein files. All appropriate administrative and legal requirements are being adhered to.”

Current and former officials said the process is a break from normal procedures designed to safeguard sensitive witness and victim information.

“Revealing personally identifiable information from the Epstein files without the victims’ permission or consultation is a shocking betrayal of trust and an appalling violation of the Justice Department’s own policies,” said Kristina Rose, former director of the Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime.

A Wall Street Journal investigation found that Epstein’s sexual exploitation and abuse didn’t end with his 2008 conviction in Florida state court—as many of his famous associates later said they believed—but continued until his second arrest by federal authorities in 2019. He lured dozens of women by promising to use his connections to powerful people to get them jobs or other opportunities. He then groomed most of the women for his personal sexual exploitation. He killed himself in prison in 2019, according to the New York City medical examiner, while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking that could have kept him imprisoned for the rest of his life.

Much of the information under FBI review was already examined as part of the federal prosecution of the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of a decadeslong scheme to help Epstein. Many of the most relevant details were used at her 2021 trial. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

After conservatives labeled Bondi’s first document release a flop, the FBI’s New York office, which investigated Epstein, has borne the brunt of the fallout. The top agent in the office, James Dennehy, was forced out, which came as Patel has sought to upend the bureau and overhaul its structure.