If An Epstein File Drops in a Media Forest, Does It Make a Sound?

Alternate philosophical question: How many nothingburgers would it take to open a McDonald’s?

Late yesterday, the House Oversight Committee released over 30,000 pages of documents from its own investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein case, as well as documents from the Department of Justice. Rather than race to see what might appear in the ‘new’ material, it seemed wiser to wait and review the reaction from the media, which has hyped this incessantly for months. 

Lo and behold, hardly a headline could be found on the front pages of Protection Racket Media portals. Like the other breath-abating releases, this one turned out to be nothing much. The Washington Post offered a rare front-page entry, mainly to complain that the news was that there was no news:

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday night released 33,295 pages of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a bipartisan group of lawmakers seeks more transparency from the Trump administration on the subject.

But the highly anticipated tranche of documents provided to Congress by the administration appears to mostly contain information that was already in the public domain, drawing complaints from Democrats and doing little to tamp down an effort in the GOP-controlled House to force the Trump administration to turn over more documents. …

A Washington Post analysis of the documents released by the committee found that at least two-thirds of them are court documents from various Epstein-related investigations and thus probably were publicly available already.

And here’s the unkindest cut of all to the PRM and the WaPo:

Some of the documents released by the committee on Tuesday, including a flight log from the early 1990s, appeared to be more heavily redacted than ones Attorney General Pam Bondi released earlier this year.

Hoo boy. I bet that the editors at the Washington Post gnashed their teeth over the tacit admission that Bondi turns out to be more transparent than most on this issue — and all she did was package the material in binders. 

Small wonder, then, that all of the Post’s colleagues in the media market remain quiet today. Democrats on the committee complain that the release is 97 percent previously released material, which should surprise no one, since the case is literally ongoing. Ghislaine Maxwell still has an appeal before the Supreme Court; in the (perhaps unlikely) chance that they remand the case for a new trial, the DoJ can’t release material that might prove prejudicial to a jury panel. Furthermore, the DoJ has applied to have the two grand jury records released, only to be rejected by two federal judges. They share the same concern, and judges are generally loath to publicize grand jury proceedings in any case. 

The only new material, according to the WaPo report, extends some data on Epstein’s private jet locations over a 14-year period. It’s not clear why that information was previously unreleased, but it’s also unclear why it matters. It appears to have been mainly overlooked, and it’s well worth noting that the WaPo report doesn’t offer any reason to consider it of interest except in its publication at this point.  

At a certain point, we have to consider the Epstein case a dry hole. Everyone has tried to politicize it, and have wound up with egg on their faces. The Protection Racket Media has invested itself far more into this case than it has the attempted coup of an elected president by intelligence officials and a previous administration in 2016-17 and then attempts to pervert an election in 2022-4 by a far wider group of Democrats via lawfare, not to mention the fraud of Joe Biden’s cognitive status and cover-up. I’m all for full transparency on the Epstein case (with the rights of defendants and uncharged suspects in mind), but why do media outlets not demand the same in these other cases?

Yes, that’s a rhetorical question. 

Editor’s note: If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight. Why not join the fight and join our VIP Membership program? Choose VIP to support Hot Air and access our premium content, VIP Gold to extend your access to all Townhall Media platforms and participate in this show, or VIP Platinum to get access to even more content and discounts on merchandise. Use the promo code FIGHT to join or to upgrade your existing membership level today, and get 60% off!