The papers the federal government holds relating to Jeffrey Epstein are trickling out, reluctantly and incompetently, as the Trump administration executes so many duties relating to justice and the Justice Department. They are a morass.
For one thing, there are simply so many of them, from so many legal actions, from (perhaps) intelligence surveillance, from his interactions with presidents and other governmental figures. Then there is the vetting process. They are coming out as individual documents, not at all as files of documents related by time or investigation. Not much can be gleaned from them until they are put into chronological and logical order.
We get a bit here and a piece there. The letter to gymnast pedophile Larry Nassar may or may not be genuine, nobody knows. Photos of smiling and happy Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in congenial surroundings. Legal documents and emails that, because of the too-generous redactions, are difficult to fit into any sort of order. Pages and pages blacked out, some of which may yield information after digital manipulation.
What do we hope to learn from these documents? The women who were abused and who have pressed for justice hope to learn who abused them and bring them to prosecution or at least societal disapproval, if prosecution fails. They would also like to understand why their reports to law enforcement went unacted upon. One of those claims has been found in the mountain of documents. It is a long way to justice.
A portion of Trump supporters and other Republicans seem to have particular expectations, that Trump will be shown to be innocent or even protective of the abused girls, or that some apocalyptic scheme will come together. The mass and incoherence of the material will allow them to construct narratives useful to their purposes.
What is in it for the rest of us? Standard reporting has shown a great deal, particularly recently. The New York Times has been doing a creditable job of exposing how Epstein made his fortune. We have long known of his industrial-scale pimping of children and courting of the wealthy and famous. We have long known that Trump was a good friend of Epstein’s and spent significant time with him. We have long known that Trump felt free to sexually assault women and that he has shown inappropriate affection for his daughter.
We know that institutions protect the wealthy and connected. We know that the wealthy and connected protect each other.
Will it matter if some of the released documents show Trump as a full patron of Epstein’s services? Will that compete with the narratives his followers will derive from their reading of the documents?
I’m not arguing against releasing the documents. We’ve followed that path, and their release can be helpful to the women who were abused, so let’s continue. It is likely to take a long time before anything definitive emerges.
Meanwhile, there’s this from Attorney General Pam Bondi:
