The Epstein memo is a joke — and the joke’s on us

Late Sunday evening, the Department of Justice and the FBI quietly dropped a two-page memo on Axios — a pathetic attempt to bury the Jeffrey Epstein scandal once and for all.

Instead, they lit a fire.

If the goal was to rebuild trust, this failed spectacularly.

Even longtime Trump supporters are furious. The memo offers nothing new. It doesn’t present fresh evidence. It doesn’t announce new investigations. It simply reviews old files and claims to find nothing of interest.

The first sentence tells the tale: The Justice Department and FBI “conducted an exhaustive review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein.” In plain English: They looked at what they already had. That’s it. No digging. No subpoenas. The Federal Bureau of Investigation simply acted as the Federal Bureau of Review.

They may as well have stamped the two-pager: “Nothing to see here.”

No client list. No blackmail ring. No suspicious circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death. According to the memo, none of it exists — at least not in the files current political leadership received.

So what happened to the promise of transparency? Of real oversight? If reform means letting the same entrenched bureaucrats investigate themselves, then nothing has changed.

The FBI and Justice Department officials have spent years turning a blind eye to crimes committed by the ruling class — crimes that threaten national security and corrupt the very institutions charged with upholding the law. Just ask anyone who remembers the Clinton email scandal, the Alfa Bank hoax, the Biden family’s foreign cash pipeline, or the Uranium One deal swept under the rug.

Now we’re supposed to believe they took Epstein’s crimes seriously?

Shifting the blame — with vague suggestions that “Epstein belonged to the intelligence services” — doesn’t cut it. It’s a dodge, not an explanation. Jurisdictional excuses don’t fly when public trust is on the line. Americans want answers from the people who once claimed they would deliver them.

The entire premise of public skepticism surrounding Epstein was that the U.S. government never truly investigated him. He was widely believed to be an asset. If that’s the case, why would the FBI have a smoking-gun confession just lying around in its files?

And even if someone had written down every sordid detail, would we really expect a mid-level bureaucrat to produce it on command?

The memo only accounts for one corner of the federal government. What about the intelligence community? What about foreign actors? What about the rest of the system?

The choice to give this exclusive to Axios is equally baffling. This is the same outlet to which the Trump administration handed the Biden-Hur audio tape — the story co-authored by a reporter who collaborated with Jake Tapper on a book abetting the cover-up of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline. That release was botched too: dropped on a Friday evening, selectively edited, and spun to discredit critics.

So why trust Axios with another political bombshell?

Predictably, Axios buried the lead and used its piece to promote a tangential swipe at President Trump, implying — via Elon Musk’s speculation — that Trump might be named in the Epstein files. That’s the kind of media framing the Justice Department and FBI just handed to the American people.

And let’s not forget: This wasn’t just a Justice memo. It was a joint DOJ-FBI release. In Washington, that means one of two things. Either both agencies want credit, or both want cover. This reeks of the latter.

Nothing in the memo aligns with public statements from political leadership.

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  Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi declared that the Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now.” That same month, she wrote to FBI Director Kash Patel saying she had Epstein’s contact list and that the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York still hadn’t turned over thousands of documents. Then in March, Bondi said she had a “truckload” of evidence. But now we’re told no such list exists and all of that evidence amounted to nothing?

Patel promised, “I will do everything, if confirmed as FBI director, to make sure the American public knows the full weight of what happened.” A two-page memo? That’s the “full weight”?

Deputy Director Dan Bongino vowed, “I’m not letting it go, ever.” So why does this feel like a shoulder shrug? Are we just supposed to “let it go” now?

It all adds up: grandstanding promises, empty symbolism, pointless stunts — like handing out Epstein binders to influencers at the White House — and now, a slapdash memo dumped just as Bibi Netanyahu sits down with President Trump, which will only fuel speculation that Epstein was connected with Israeli intelligence. If the goal was to rebuild trust, this failed spectacularly.

The Epstein saga isn’t going away. This memo doesn’t answer questions — it raises more. And the longer officials play games, the more the public will suspect they’re hiding something.

Until leaders stop playing defense and start delivering real accountability, don’t expect the American people to move on. They won’t.