What to Expect When You’re Expecting the Epstein Files

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I want to say in the record here that the subject line of the calendar invite for this recording session is FOIA Colin Epstein/Santa. It makes me wonder, like, what in that just be the ultimate kick in the face of 2025 that Santa Claus is on the Epstein list?

Well, for the record, we're not talking about Santa right this second.

That's a different episode. I want to talk about how the FBI turned over dozens of emails to me that revealed details about how hundreds of the bureau's special agents and personnel from the Freedom of Information Act Office reviewed and processed the Epstein files earlier this year. Plus, the best chance for getting the Epstein files released.

Let's go! I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold, I spend most of my days getting documents from the government. Learning that topic and I fight them in court to open their files when they don't want to. From Bloomberg and No Spiral, this is Disclosure, a podcast about flying loose government

secrets, the Freedom of Information Act and the unexpected places that takes us. Now before we get into the documents, I recently tried to lose and the rest of it, let's just recap what happened in Epstein land these last few weeks. So Matt Congress has now passed a bill which is called the Epstein files Transparency Act that compels the Department of Justice to release their files on Jeffrey Epstein within

30 days. And President Trump has already signed that into law. Yeah, it's not that the speculation about what Trump signed in and out, what's kind of funny is like he has the power himself to put it. Yes.

Yeah, DOJ to release this. He doesn't need Congress in order to do that. It seems like it's taking an act of Congress to make them do it.

It always felt a little weird to me like he's he's signing a bill that's saying do what

you ought to be doing. Yeah, he could have released this at any time by just calling for the Justice Department to release it, which is exactly what he has done on other high-profile political matters earlier this year. Donald Trump has just said that he's going to release the files around the death

of President JFK. Tomorrow, the Trump administration has gone public with more than 230,000 pages of records related to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's assassination. But what's interesting about this, the Sepstein Transparency Act, is what it allows the Justice Department to do.

And it allows them to withhold certain information, particularly information within these files that could interfere with an ongoing law enforcement investigation, which in FOIA land, Matt, we'd like to refer to as the B7A.

“Well, B7A, but the investigations that would be the predicate for that are what?”

Like the President did requested that Attorney General Pam Bondy opened some investigations into Bill Clinton and some other Democrats or democratically incline people that I believe the truth-social poster, whatever it was he posted in, specifically referred to Democrats.

And that's surprisingly, they're going to do that, it seems.

But that directive by Trump came one week prior to the passage of this bill, and what

“we don't know is, "What is an investigation like that look like?”

What are they going to investigate?" So Trump delivering this directive via truth-social to Pam Bondy. So that means that whatever Epstein files they may have that relate to these folks could arguably be with help. Yeah, I mean, I think that if they pull that, there's a lot of angry people already

about all this. If they now pull the rug out again and say, "Oh, you know, hardly release anything because of these ongoing investigations." I don't know what's going to happen. I think there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be very upset about that.

So Matt, this kind of gets at a fundamental question when we talk about the release of the Epstein files.

When we say Epstein files, what are we actually talking about?

This is a guy who is investigated by federal authorities starting around the mid-2000s. He signed a controversial plea deal and did some light prison time, and then he was arrested

“again in 2019 and accused of sex trafficking minors.”

The idea is that those investigations threw up a lot of paperwork, presumably about interviews with victims, evidence, names of associates, and co-conspirators. So now, with the Epstein files Transparency Act, there's going to be a lot of discussion of what gets released and what may get with help. So the point of this, Matt, is that over the past year, I've been doing some document requests

and following some other FOIA actions related to Epstein, and it all helps us get a handle on what's in the Epstein files and how the government has been handling them. And as you know, Matt, this has been building since Trump took office again in January. A lot of Trump supporters want this information out in the public and Trump seemed to say during the campaign that he'd do that.

But by the summer, that was looking less likely. So in July, the Justice Department and FBI released a joint statement that said, it is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted. Q the outrage.

Yeah. Right.

I mean, there are a lot of people for whom this is the most important issue in American

politics right now. Well, and you're just telling them, yeah, we changed our mind. There's nothing to see here, move on. Yeah. And this is the biggest political story of the year.

So earlier this year, I found a wide-ranging FOIA request for everything related to the processing of the Epstein files. I was really interested in how the records were processed and I was even more interested within the context of how everything went down with the rollout of the Epstein files earlier this year.

What I was hoping was to get a look at what was going on behind closed doors with the Epstein records going back to the beginning of the new administration.

“And remember that, just a few weeks after Trump was inaugurated, back in February, his brand”

new attorney general, Pam Bondi, calls a group of right-wing influencers to the White House for an event because she has something to give them. They walked out of the White House holding binders and hands them binders, look at what we got today. Let's say Epstein files.

Phase one. See that right there? That's the Epstein files. Bondi has this kind of grand rollout. So shortly thereafter, I mean, I wanted to say more, like I'm almost immediately thereafter.

The maga crowd goes nuts. We frankly assume this had at least some smoking guns. And now it's a backlash. That's not what's in this binder at all. It's a backlash against Bondi, it's backlash against the FBI.

It is the biggest disappointment that you'll find. Because it turns out that these documents that were in the binder had been previously released in court cases and previously released by the FBI. So it ignited a firestorm. This is kind of their own folks, right?

They invite all these people that are kind of from the maga world and they think they're so stupid that they're not going to realize that these documents have already been out there. I mean, of course, folks are going to pick over every document and like, was this just incompetence, or was it, did they really try to pull a fast one or well, I don't think

they actually pull the fast one. I don't, I just don't think they actually even looked at any of the files they were going to release. And so what happened after that is Bondi who had been really embarrassed by this fire's awful letter.

In a letter to FBI director Cash Patel, the AG demanding the release of the bureau's full and complete Epstein files. So she's thrown Cash Patel kind of under the bus here, like, hey, what are you guys doing?

Exactly.

And she kind of blamed him for this.

“She says, I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive”

to my request and actually later explains on Fox News, you're looking at these documents going, these aren't all the Epstein files. Bondi's letter to Patel goes on to say that she knows there are more Epstein documents. She writes she has a source in the FBI field office in New York who told herself. And so a source said, whoa, all this evidence is sitting in the Southern District of New

York shock. So she then tells Cash Patel that he has until February 28th to have the FBI deliver the full and complete Epstein files to her office. And we got hopefully all of them, Friday at 8 a.m., thousands of pages of documents. She goes on to say that she wants a full investigation as to why her order to the FBI

originally wasn't followed.

Cash is going to get me and himself really a detailed report as to why all these documents

and evidence had been withheld. And, you know, we're going to go through it, go through it as fast as we can. So Matt, as you know, I actually asked for that detailed report, but they would held it under a FOIA exemption. But as I reported earlier this year for Bloomberg, after all this happens, Cash Patel

directs FBI agents from the New York field office, the Washington D.C. field office, and personnel from the records information dissemination section or rids, those are the folks that process FOIA requests and they were all hold up in a facility in Virginia, which is called the Central Records Complex. So what do I mean by processing?

FOIA officers have to determine what can be released and what needs to be withheld using nine exemptions under the FOIA.

For example, they would withhold information based on someone's personal privacy or an ongoing

“investigation, and they begin processing these Epstein files, right?”

They're pulling all nighters, they're working 20-hour shifts just to process the Epstein files. So I was really interested in what was taking place behind the scenes. How these requests were processed? How much money they spent on FBI personnel?

So this is like a, this is like a meta request, right? Like your tests. You're trying to get, it's a FOIA about a FOIA. Yes. So most agencies are processing requests, they have some kind of a database that they keep

track of all the steps received request forwarded to analysts, analyst, ran search, 42,000 search results, narrowed with search terms, sent extension letter to request you're like all those little details from a lot of agencies get tracked and some kind of a centralized database. And we usually refer to those as processing notes.

And that's informative because you sort of learn how these requests are processed. And maybe even, you know, learn about a record-keeping system. So I find that to be good information to get insight into how the agency is handling a FOIA request. It kind of reminds me of like the updates or texts I get from United Airlines about what's

going on with my check-to-back, like it'll say like it's like, it's actually green, it's

“been loaded out of the plane, it's like it's in the cart, you know?”

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And recently, the FBI released about 60 pages of emails and other documents I asked for

So what you got, we have a bunch of emails, and they're kind of heavily redacted, but

there is still a lot of info in here. And there's some real interesting takeaways here. So let's go through the timeline here. So where does the story of the emails begin? It begins in March, early March, 2025 this year.

There's an email here from the Assistant Director of the Information Management Division. It's dated March 10th, and it says that we are prepared to receive boxes tomorrow. As New York agents are traveling to the Washington Field Office in the morning, and will arrive to Winchester, that's the location of the Central Records complex, where they will start photographing, and we will start scanning and processing the physical files.

“Why do you think that they were photographing the files?”

Well, that's interesting, because regular paper documents you would think they would

just scan them, you wouldn't need a photograph them. It suggests that potentially there's some things that aren't like documents, like there could be physical evidence, right? There could be a manual, it could be anything, it could be a beer bottle, it could be a hairbrush, you know, whatever. They might be taking photos of those physical items that you can't scan, but we're just

kind of guessing at that, at least for now. Yeah, the email goes on to say, once I see the volume, I'll have a better estimate of processing times, although I suggest we do a rolling delivery to further demonstrate the FBI's commitment to delivery and transparency. Yeah, interesting, I mean, I think that's just funny, because the FBI wants to demonstrate

to the DOJ that it's commitment to transparency. It also says, by the way, in this email,

and again, this very early is March 10th, so it says that, you know, in a meeting with the criminal division in New York and Washington field offices, there were questions on the types of redactions, the FBI should apply to these files, and then there's like, just a really long redaction box. So do we know anything from these emails about like, what kinds of records the FBI was

reviewing? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we do, and it's kind of fascinating. So on one page, they're discussing FBI search warrant execution photos, FBI interview videos, gelane Maxwell's prison security footage, time-lapsed video footage from an office.

And in parentheses, it says, no person's identified and no crimes observed, street surveillance footage, aerial footage from FBI search warrant execution, police interview videos, and you're just salivating, see, you're like, oh, man, oh, yeah, I got to get this stuff. And marketing videos, marketing videos, marketing videos, marketing videos, I mean, this is what's, who this is what's identified here.

Do we know? No, I don't know. Marketing videos.

“Yeah, it's, uh, it's like, is that Mr. Epstein's, like, come visit my island?”

Kind of marketing videos? I don't know. I mean, I'm trying to figure out what you're getting videos. Yeah. Oh, actually, the other thing that's here is they're discussing the prison video of Epstein

before he was found dead, and after he was found dead, and they discussed this video and eight terabytes of data related to Epstein. So that is something that they were looking at as well. So do these documents tell us anything about sort of the interactions between FBI and DOJ?

Cause like, you know, this is a little bit of a tense. This is after the binders that really weren't anything new, right? So like, you got a little bit of a awkward relationship between the FBI and the DOJ.

“Are they communicating with each other at all here?”

Great question. I mean, in these records, it does not appear that they're communicating. And in fact, there's one email that asked the question of, did you happen to send the results of the below review to DOJ at any point? And the response is we definitely did not provide anything to DOJ just to HQ headquarters.

So it doesn't appear. And this just may be the fact that it's early, at least in these documents that the FBI released, that there's, there's no communication with DOJ. But I also want to know that the FBI did withhold 160 pages in its entirety. Okay.

So not a ton about the DOJ FBI relationship.

Like, how did they structure the, the processing?

Yeah, I see reference to like phase one and phase two. Yeah. And another document here, you know, again, this is all in, in March.

“And I think what's not where it is, the bulk of the work was taking place in March.”

You know, almost a thousand FBI agents in personnel working during the month of March, just plowing through these records. You know, there's an email on Sunday, March 23rd, 2025, 643 PM. So you can already see that they're working on the weekends, right? Just standby, we have identified more files requiring phase one review.

Please continue to refresh as files will be populated momentarily. So do we know anything about what those phases mean?

No, unfortunately, the documents don't describe what, what those phases refer to.

What, what, what it actually means. And it looks like so then a pond completion of phase two, the FBI is going to provide what they call C through redaction files for DOJ review, which, to me, reads like FBI is doing the work of identifying what to redact, but they're giving it to DOJ. So DOJ can see what the plan is, is that how you read that.

That's how exactly how I read that.

“So Jason and March are doing all this processing.”

So what's the next kind of big thing that happens? Well, the next big thing, at least according to these emails is April 15th, tax day. And email goes out to FBI personnel that says Cash Patel, quote, asked for status of all remaining Epstein related reviews. Makes sense?

Yeah, makes sense, but there's no response to that email.

But the tell is way in and, right? The director of the FBI wants an update. Where are we at? Yeah, with the Epstein files. So when do they finish the review?

So it appears around May 2nd is when they kind of wrap things up. The FBI employee from the New York field office sends an email and attached a document titled Epstein Overview Final that summarizes their work. Well, do we, what does it say? Unfortunately, you know, the FBI withheld the attachment.

No. So they withheld those attachments citing a number of different FOIA exemptions such as attorney employee and privilege, the deliberative process and others. So they're taunting you. They're taunting you by telling you what's there, but that you can't have it.

Can I tell you that as I'm reading these files and the subject lines refer to a PowerPoint or a document, I'm like clicking, I'm clicking to see if there's any chance that, like, it will magically open up. Um, any luck? It did not, it did not, bummer, but importantly to me, like this is the biggest standout

on these records. So I asked how much money they spent on overtime, for example, for agents who are tasked with processing these records. So go to page 14 of the release. Okay.

So I'm looking at it. It's a chart and then the division name column says business strategy, analytics section, counterintelligence division, counterterrorism division, criminal investigative division, cyber division, directorate of intelligence, EAD information, and technology branch, finance and facilities division, human resources division, and then everything else is with

held for secret investigative techniques that if released would harm some future investigation. So these are all the divisions that were involved in the review of the Epstein files. And how do we know that? Because the government released an index of what I requested. And the, the FBI document types is how they refer to it. And this is a resource planning office.

That's an office within the FBI report that documents the premium pay hours. And premium pay is overtime, nighttime differential hours. But more or less you could think of it as overtime.

“And it's the number of hours they recorded on this project, right?”

That's how they refer to it. The Epstein files they refer to is as a special reduction project. And it's during the period of March 17th through March 22nd. So five, five or six days, right? So they're withholding from you the total amount of pay across each of those, right?

But they are giving you the grand total of employees worked premium pay hours total and premium expenses. So that they just don't want to give you the breakdown. I guess on the theory that somehow you could interfere with an investigation if they knew the specifics of how they staffed this up. But at least know the total.

There were nine hundred and 34 employees that were involved in the processing and review the Epstein files. Fourteen thousand and 278 premium pay hours worked for a total of 851,344 dollars that the FBI spent on premium pay. During the March 17th and March 22nd review of the files. I mean, that's a lot of money. It seems like a ton of money to me for the FBI to spend on this.

I mean, it wasn't a national emergency. Well, it depends who you ask. Yeah, true. I mean, there's a sizable number of people.

“And I think they probably are skewing towards Trump supporters for whom, like, this is, like, right?”

So I'm not going to think these numbers I'm seeing are 850,000 and that's just the overtime. So, you know, it's possible that the overtime might only be like, maybe half of the total cost.

So you could easily be looking at like a couple million dollars, right?

The people are just working, which means they're not in the field investigating crimes. They're not in the office, processing Jason's other FOIA requests, like it's sort of, they drop everything. This is what they're doing. This work gets done, and then Pam Bondi says there's nothing to see here, so nothing more

is going to get released. Right. So it sounds like by May 2nd, they've pretty much wrapped up, and then in May, DOJ tells Trump that his name appears in the documents. Yeah, that's the timing of it.

And shortly thereafter, you know, we have this unsigned memo saying that they collected 300 gigabytes of data, which is video photographs, actual documents, and none of that. Not a single document from that trove can be released. All right. Well, the clock is ticking on the 30-day Epstein Transparency Act deadline.

So I guess that work wasn't a waste, because it's going to probably come in pretty handy pretty quickly. Something that they already did all this back in the summer, hopefully we'll be seeing some more stuff. Hello, I'm Michelle Hussein, and for more than 20 years, I was at the BBC.

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to help make sense of the world. So please join me, listen, and subscribe to the Michelle Hussein Show from Bloomberg Weekend. Well, my mother, you get your podcast. It doesn't really ask interesting questions. I want to segue into what may be in the Epstein files.

So earlier this year, I wrote about the under the radar freedom of information act lawsuit that was filed back in, I think it was 2017, to nearly nine-year-old lawsuit, that an attorney named Dan Novak filed on behalf of a reporter for what was radar magazine at the time. This FOIA lawsuit that he filed, they were trying to get, at that time, all of the FBI's

Epstein files. And in this lawsuit that had been going on now for nearly nine years, the FBI released about 1,200 pages of documents. And these are the 1,200 pages more or less that have been screen-shotted and shared on social media.

Is this the same stuff that was in the famous vendors, yes? Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Who've been following this?

What is this trash? We've already seen this. Right. That's exactly right. So here's what happened.

I dig into this case, and the FBI and the Justice Department, essentially, withheld the vast majority of records, at least 10,000 plus pages, because of an ongoing investigation.

First, I should go back and say, they denied the request before they moved to a lawsuit.

“They said to the reporter that you need to have a privacy waiver.”

You need to get Epstein to sign a privacy waiver before we turn it off. And he's still alive, then in 20, 20, 20. He's still alive.

They sue, and so you know how it is.

I mean, we both know how it is. This is drag and out for a while, but this is really long. This is really long. The next thing you know what happens is fast-forwarding here, but Epstein gets arrested. And so now everything is being withheld under B7A and ongoing law enforcement.

Right. So they're not getting anything. They're still arguing, going back and forth. So these folks just continuously hit roadblocks and roadblocks and roadblocks, and they're just unable to find anything loose.

But they're fighting. They're continuing to fight, right? I respect that. That's nice to hear you not be mad at other people, making FOIA requests and filing lawsuits.

Yeah. I mean, I like one other people, file FOIA requests and lawsuits, as long as it's not for the same records I want. Fair. So I go into the docket of this FOIA lawsuit that radar filed trying to make these

Epstein documents public, and on the docket is what's called a "von index." This specific document is very important as far as the Epstein files are concerned.

“But before we get into that, Matt, can you explain what a von index is?”

On the old FOIA lawsuit that gave rise to it? Yes, Jason. It comes from a case called "von versus Rosen" in, I think, kind of like the 1970s. And what used to happen is agencies would withhold a bunch of stuff. And then they would just dump all the documents on the court in the lawsuit.

And be like, here you go, court, you tell us, it's called in-camera review, like, where the court in chambers, not in public reviews. These documents. So agencies were just kind of like dumping all this stuff. And eventually, the courts are like, yeah, we're not cool with that.

You've got to make an index of what all these documents are, describe them, at least in some level of generality, and identify the specific exemptions that you're claiming for each one of those. So that has become known as a von index. So it's what it sounds like.

It's a listing of all the documents. And sometimes the von index can have a whole lot of interesting information, even if you can't get the documents. Right. And we've received many von indices in our FOIA lawsuits.

Yeah, routinely. Yeah. And they're extremely, to me, an extremely valuable, just to even have a general overview of what the documents are that they're worth holding. So it's talking to who, and when they're talking, like, even if you don't know what

they're saying, it can be really interesting, like, oh, if this person was involved. Or, huh, that timing is really interesting to when things were happening, you can usually get those kinds of details. Yeah. And I feel like they're newsworthy, and you can write a story out of it.

You have written stories out of it. Oh, yeah.

“I thought this one was really important.”

It doesn't seem like anyone, you know, even knew it was out there. It had some pretty damn good detail of what the documents are that the FBI had as it relates to Jeffrey Epstein. And obviously, it's a sliver, but what would be in the Epstein files that are now supposed to be released?

And the index says that the FBI processed, but withheld, information, it obtained from confidential sources, letters addressed to then US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta.

He was the one that ultimately authorized that non-rossicution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein,

Sapina's to my space. Remember my space? Oh, yeah. That's specifically in this Vaughan index. The handwritten notes of FBI agents, photographs, grand jury, Sapina's all listed out

in the Vaughan index. Yeah. The records, communications with foreign government agencies. I thought that was really, really interesting. Of course, there are 302s, tell the one of the FBI 302s.

FBI 302 is a summary of the FBI interview with someone.

“So in this Vaughan index, that's why I counted, right, because it describes the 302s here.”

And mind you, this index relates to the investigation that the Justice Department of the FBI took on between 2006 and, you know, when absolutely guilty in 2008. So I counted, and it reveals that the FBI conducted, at least according to this Vaughan index, 55 interviews with witnesses, victims, potential investigative targets, and importantly bank records.

So, you know, I'm hoping we get a chance to see those.

But here's what I, like, really zeroed in on, is that it shows that some of the documents

that were processed and withheld from radar magazine are from 2011, and include dozens of photographs and agents, interviews, summaries of third parties, and documents provided to the FBI by confidential sources. That's 2011. 2011.

So we'll get searched in 2019. No. So we're only talking about the first investigation, right, 2006 through 2008. But it looks like the FBI never really closed it, is that it remained active because

So I just wanted to get your take on this, because we've dealt with the FBI a lot.

“Do you think that people may have just been coming in and just collecting evidence and submitting”

it to the investigator file, or could this be kind of evidence that the FBI still had an active investigation in 2011, three years after Epstein had pled guilty, and at that point was already out of jail? I mean, that's pretty hard to tell. I mean, wouldn't surprise me if victims and others continued to come to the FBI for good

reason to satisfied with the minimal punishment that he had gotten to that point. And whether the FBI did anything with that, we really don't know unless the Von Index shows like more activity at the time. But if all you have is like a listing of a bunch of three-o-two's of witness interviews, it's hard to really say if they were actively investigating or just sort of passively receiving

information. Right. Yeah. And based on my reporting, the FBI doesn't typically close investigations. They're sort of keeping it open.

That would make some. That would make some. Right. For these circumstances, I would make perfect sense. Yeah.

And I didn't see anything in the Von Index that indicated there was like a case closing memorandum, an actual document there. So I dug into this over the summer, this was during that time where everyone was just kind of clamoring these Epstein files because this was immediately after the Justice Department FBI said we're not going to release anything.

So now, radar magazine is eight years into its lawsuit to get the Epstein records. At this point, they know the FBI has reviewed the records. And the FBI and the DOJ say they're not going to release more records. So the radar lawsuit has some new urgency.

“It looks like they have a pretty clear path to say you have to release the records.”

But then, Jelaine Maxwell appeals her case. Jelaine Maxwell be now seeing that her attorney renewing his request for the Supreme Court to overturn her conviction. So there's radar magazine again with like, oh, man, this is still an ongoing law enforcement proceeding.

They still can't get anything, and now that the Supreme Court has rejected Maxwell's

petition, Dan Novak and radar magazine is now appealed to the second circuit.

And so there's a oral argument set for January 28th. So I still think that I just want to see what you think. This FOIA case is the best, actually, the best chance of getting anything from the Epstein files versus Congress's Epstein files transparency act. Yeah, I think for a couple reasons, I mean, first, I think that the Von Index is going

to be a check on whatever gets released. Like if you see that there's things on the Von Index that don't get released, then there's some spleen in to do, right? But the lawsuit also has teeth. The Epstein Act has no teeth.

If DOJ decides to violate it, there's no private cause of action. You and I can't file a lawsuit over that. You need to have a FOIA case. And so that case could end up being the legal vehicle by which the Epstein Act release actually gets challenged.

I mean, there's so many twists and turns to this. And like people get charged and people die and it impacts what can be with held or not. And it's up and down on appeal and all this stuff going on. And so that's got to be frustrating to go off for that long. But now it's, it's, it's, it almost turns out it does turn out that like it's great.

Exactly. There is a live active FOIA case right now that can be the vehicle by which if the DOJ

“is trying to get away with withholding things, that's how they can be held accountable”

for that and how we can courts can guarantee in the public and guarantee that they're actually releasing everything that they're supposed to release. Because the track record ain't that great so far. That's kind of how I felt as well as like this is really the best course of action for the public to kind of see what's going on.

That will be interesting if the government argues that, well, Donald Trump is now called for an investigation into Democrats. So we're going to keep withholding is because of an ongoing investigation. Yeah, and that's, you know, I mean, it depends on how bold they are on trying to make those withholding.

And I think they're given the memo from July that was representing you right now in a case on this and they said, Oh, well, there's these investigations. I think you can make the argument that's a sham. They already said that there isn't any predicate to investigate anybody else. That's right.

And DOJ and FBI said in their joint statement from July, quote, there was also no credible evidence found that Epstein black belt prominent individuals as part of his actions.

We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third

part. So the fact that they're now claiming they're going to do investigation, it's not

So it doesn't count per FOIA purposes. That's how I would argue it. I don't know.

“Some, you know, I think there's a fair chance is exceeding on that, but no guarantees.”

I mean, the timing couldn't be better for radar magazine, right? They filed this back in 2017, so they're coming up on nine years. That's a really long time, but man, the fact that they're still fighting at this very moment where the FC and files have become the biggest political story of the year, that's wild.

So as I mentioned, there's a hearing in the second circuit and oral argument that's scheduled

for January 28th. And let me just let me just explain. So that's the court of appeals that covers the trial courts that are in New York and some other adjacent states. The country is divided into a series of different regional courts of appeals.

So it's above the trial court and it's before the Supreme Court. And oral argument, explain it, Matt. Oral argument is the parties have filed their briefs and then they come in and they answer the judges' questions and they make their arguments. Those are open to the public.

I got a feeling that's going to be a packed court room with overflow rooms. Yeah.

And it's interesting because it's coming, you know, it's happening right after the deadline

for when the Justice Department is supposed to turn over everything in the FC and files. So I just want to ask you this question, Matt. So let's say the Justice Department does turn over everything in the FC and files to Congress as they're required to do under the law.

“Would those same records be responsive to this FOIA lawsuit?”

Well, the scope of that request was like all records from the FBI's investigation, right? All documents relating to the FBI's investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein. They made the request in 2017. Yeah. There could be a dispute about whether documents after that date get included or not.

I mean, it certainly would be cut off at whatever point the FBI searched that would typically

be the cut off. And sometimes it's the data that requires sometimes it's whenever they do the search. So there could be some later stuff like, you know, because he wanted to die 2019. Yeah, so there's a couple years there's a little bit of the media a little bit of the Delta.

Well, I guess we'll see what happens whether or not the Justice Department releases the Epstein files to Congress. And I guess we'll see what happens in late January in the radar FOIA lawsuit for the FBI's files in Epstein. From Bloomberg and no smiling, this is disclosure.

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