The Epstein exceptions

From The Hill newspaper, ‘The Epstein Files Transparency Act’: What’s in it?

The article is the first one that I’ve come across that answers the question regarding the subject that has paralyzed Washington for the past week.

The Act purports to mandate the release of The Epstein Files. The exceptions included in the Act swallow the rule. The Hill reports,

Attorney General Pam Bondi has 30 days to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Offices, that relate to Epstein.”

Unclassified? As I mentioned before, that single word results in the entire exercise being pointless. No classified documents will be released.

Among the unclassified files eligible for release, exempted categories include anything tied to national defense, foreign policy, or ongoing investigations. Will there be anything left that hasn’t already been published?

And note that the law only applies to the DOJ, not to any other federal, state, local, or territorial government bodies, such as the CIA or NSA.

The law seems designed less to put more information into the light of day and more focused on producing future headlines with the name “Epstein.”

In their world, the absence of evidence is simply more evidence of Trump’s guilt.

If it turns out the Epstein files compromise many Democrats instead of Donald, they will have been victims of “information asymmetry”. Trump after all, knew what was in them from the start.

To paraphrase Tom Wolfe, the dark night of Epstein is always descending on Republicans and yet lands only on Democrats. From NBC News,

Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board, Harvard launches probe after release of Epstein emails

Summers served under Democratic Presidents Clinton and Obama and as President of Harvard in the interval in between. He corresponded with Epstein via email as late as July 5, 2019. Remember that date.

Also caught up in the Epstein emails scandal is U.S. House of Representatives Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D) of the Virgin Islands. The U.K. Daily Mail reports,

House Delegate Stacey Plaskett exchanged text messages with the financier in 2019 while former Trump attorney Michael Cohen testified against the President at a committee hearing.

During a floor speech on Tuesday, Plaskett denied wrongdoing and said Epstein was a constituent who lived in the Virgin Islands. She said it was “not public knowledge at that time that he was under federal investigation” and that she was just seeking information.

The words “under” and “federal” are doing some heavy lifting in that nondenial denial. You will recall that Epstein maintained his Bond-villain-island lair in the Virgin Islands. You will also recall some of Epstein’s legal history.

I’m guessing that I first heard of Jeffrey Epstein in 2015, when the first batch of flight logs were released (leaked) to the public. There was much discussion at the time regarding the names that appeared on the manifests and the sweetheart deal Epstein got in his 2008 plea deal involving child prostitution.

The last known contact between Trump and Epstein appears to have occurred in 2004. Epstein’s legal troubles appear to have begun in 2005 in Palm Beach, Florida, and led to that 2008 plea deal.

Epstein was arrested on federal charges in New York on July 6, 2019 (see above), and died in custody in August 2019.

You will recall that Donald Trump was serving his first term as President during the entirety of calendar year 2019. Nothing appears to have been done with the Epstein Files during the Biden Administration (2021-2025).

Suddenly, in November 2025, more than two decades after it first began, Democrats have discovered a scandal that will finally, once and for all, destroy Trump.

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