Tranche of government-held files filled with ‘ham-fisted redactions’ and expose survivors’ identities, say attorneys
Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation have reacted to the voluminous – and possibly last – tranche of government-held investigative documents with calls for further accountability for the scheme’s alleged clients.
“It is without question that a significant piece of Epstein and [his convicted associate Ghislaine] Maxwell’s vast sex trafficking operation was to provide young women and girls to other wealthy and powerful individuals,” said Sigrid McCawley, a partner with Boies Schiller Flexner, a firm representing survivors of the scheme.
That practice, McCawley said, gave Epstein and Maxwell “control and power over individuals who were implicated in the sex trafficking”.
McCawley added: “Those who find themselves entangled in the mire of newly released information, no doubt, will play the deny and distance card, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is exactly how the sex trafficking operation worked.”
The comments came after the Trump administration’s justice department on Friday released about 3m files related to the late financier and convicted sex offender. Some files that were immediately appraised included references to and correspondence with prominent individuals, including multibillionaire businessperson Elon Musk and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick – who were at times associated with Epstein but have not been accused of wrongdoing.
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said several categories of pages were withheld from release, including personally identifying information of the victims, victims’ medical files, images depicting child sexual abuse and pages related to ongoing cases.
Victims’ attorney Brad Edwards, however, told ABC News that there had been errors in the releases that identified victims.
“We are getting constant calls from victims because their names – despite them never coming forward, being completely unknown to the public – have all just been released for public consumption,” Edwards said. “It’s literally thousands of mistakes.”
Victims attorney Jennifer Freeman said the justice department’s “handling of the Epstein files has been a mess from the start, filled with … ham-fisted redactions, while exposing the identities of survivors”.
Freeman also alluded to how Friday’s release missed a congressionally set deadline that passed in December. She said that the victim-survivors and their advocates “won’t allow the federal government to simply dump a couple million documents and wash their hands of one of the largest law enforcement failures in US history”. She also accused the justice department of “hiding the names of perpetrators while exposing survivors”.
Another attorney, Spencer Kuvin, cited victim’s testimony that Epstein provided girls to other famous and notable people – “usually” done so as favors with the hope that he would get something in return from these people. “The recent documents only confirm what the victims have been saying all along,” Kuvin said.
Separately, a group of 20 Epstein survivors said the document dump served to shield powerful figures but exposed those who had been harmed.
The files, they said, were being sold as transparency – but what they actually did was expose survivors.
“As survivors, we should never be the ones named, scrutinized, and re-traumatized while Epstein’s enablers continue to benefit from secrecy,” the statement said. “Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected. That is outrageous.”
That position awkwardly aligns with that of Ghislaine Maxwell, who said in court papers seeking to overturn her late 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges that a group of 25 alleged accomplices of Epstein made “secret settlements” with their accusers.
Those papers say “none of these men have been prosecuted and none has been revealed to” Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022. “She would have called them as witnesses had she known,” the papers added.
In the political dimension, bipartisan sponsors of the transparency law that forced the release of the documents sent a formal letter to Blanche demanding that they view the un-redacted files to ensure Congress is fulfilling its oversight duties.
“Congress cannot properly assess the department’s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record,” wrote California Democrat Ro Khanna and Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie of the US House.
Democratic US senator Chuck Schumer, his chamber’s minority leader, also accused attorney general Pam Bondi of failing to adhere to the law.
“Every member of this body voted that all the Epstein files should be released,” Schumer said on the Senate floor on Friday. “We are not satisfied that the law is being complied with. We believe it is not.”
On Saturday, Bronx US House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted on Twitter/X, “Even with everything in this Epstein drop, remember: this is a minority of the files. This is STILL just what they were *willing* to release – in violation of the law, which requires release of all files.
“Pam Bondi’s [justice] department is still hiding most of them. We need them all.”
A justice department statement to ABC News said that it had “coordinated closely with victims and their lawyers to ensure that the production of documents includes necessary redactions”.
“We want to immediately correct any redaction errors that our team may have made,” the justice department added. “So, the Department has established an email inbox ([email protected]) for victims to reach us directly to correct redaction concerns when appropriate.”
Epstein died in federal custody in 2019.
Before releasing the files on Friday, Blanche said: “I think there’s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents.
“There’s nothing I can do about that.”
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