Oof: DoJ Releases 3M Pages, 180K Pics in Epstein Files Finale

Have fun storming the castle. 

After a full year of both parties seizing the Epstein Files monkey’s paw, the effort to get full transparency has at last come to a conclusion … at least as defined by Congress. Deputy AG Todd Blanche released the full inventory of material related to Jeffrey Epstein, totaling 3 million pages, 180,000 images, and 2,000 videos. That will give internet sleuths plenty of material to peruse, although the redactions mandated by Congress will likely frustrate them:

The files fulfill the DOJ’s obligations under the law Congress passed last year to compel the release, Blache said. It includes 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

“Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” he said. “The Department has engaged in an unprecedented and extensive effort to do so.”

The tranche comes more than a month after the Trump administration blew past the Dec. 19 statutory deadline for DOJ to make public all of the materials in its possession related to the federal Epstein investigation.

That’s because the statutory deadline demanded by Congress was absurd, considering the scope of this project. The DoJ could have met that deadline had Congress not also required the investigators to review all of the material and redact any data that could identify the victims. That, however, was never considered a viable option, since the big push for releasing the material came from victims and their families, joined at various times by Republicans and Democrats for political motives of their own. 

Inevitably, then, we will soon start to see complaints about redactions in the material and claims that trafficking conspirators are getting protected. The problem with this complaint is that Congress literally required the DoJ to redact the material, which means we are not going to ever get a complete picture. If the victims waived the redaction requirement and Congress amended the law they passed late last year, the entire scandal could be put to rest, at least in terms of having the evidence – and unsubstantiated claims made to investigators as well – completely in the open. 

Alan Dershowitz has long demanded the full, unredacted release of all Epstein-related material, not to condemn the guilty, but to finally vindicate the innocent. Too many of the allegations and assumptions in the Epstein case were false, and the entire episode has transformed into a McCarthy-esque travesty that only full transparency can resolve, he wrote last month:

If all of the evidence is released with no redactions, it will become clear that the notorious Epstein case, with its “gotcha” partisan accusations from both sides, is essentially a modern replication of the awful McCarthyism of the 1950’s, which I experienced as a young student.

There are innocent Epstein victims who are telling the truth about having been abused, though many fewer than the media claims – just as there were real communists in the 1950s but far fewer than McCarthy claimed. . But there are also falsely accused innocents, as there were during the original McCarthyism.

McCarthyism destroyed lives – many of them innocent – by promiscuously hurling accusations of communist affiliation, while denying those accused any semblance of due process or opportunity to defend themselves.

Nearly all the denials of civil liberties that characterized the original McCarthyism are being replicated in the new Epstein McCarthyism.

Among them are guilt by association, which implies that anyone who knew Epstein must be somehow complicit in his crimes; anonymous accusations which deny the accused the right to confront their accusers; guilt by accusation, which assumes that all accusations must be believed, even if made by alleged “victims” or “survivors” with histories of lying; suppressing evidence that would prove that some accusers may not be credible or may themselves have been perpetrators; attacking lawyers who defend accused perpetrators, and accusing them of being facilitators; refusal by politicians on both sides, as well as the media and civil liberties groups, to raise civil liberties concern, out of fear they will be accused of victim shaming and siding with perpetrators.

Dershowitz knows this better than most. He got targeted for a McCarthy-esque attack for years based on his association with Epstein as his attorney, plus an apparently mistaken identification from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who later retracted her claims after Dershowitz sued. Dershowitz also had more access than most to the material now being released and has insisted for years that it doesn’t provide evidence of vast conspiracies or extortion schemes. He wanted a full and unredacted release in order to finally put an end to all of the speculation and baseless accusations that have persisted since Epstein’s arrest in July 2019.

Today’s release complies with the law Congress passed, and it does bring us closer to closure, but not actual closure. Dershowitz knows this, and the rest of us should have learned it by now. Not only will it never satisfy anyone, but the release of all investigatory and grand-jury material has done and will do damage to the normal practice of law enforcement and prosecutorial discretion. There are good reasons why this kind of material does not usually get made public, since it includes rumors, speculation, and allegations that do not have evidence to support those. Investigators and prosecutors separate the wheat from the chaff in those instances, and leave the latter sealed to protect the innocent. 

This has long departed from the pursuit of justice, however, and has been instead a circus wished into existence through the monkey’s paw of political expediency. Unfortunately, we have been collectively unable to wish it back out of existence, and the circus will be here to stay. 

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media isn’t interested in the facts; they’re only interested in attacking the president. Help us continue to get to the bottom of stories like the Jeffrey Epstein files by supporting our truth-seeking journalism today. 

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