Feb. 27 (UPI) — Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday released hundreds of government documents related to disgraced wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, though most of them had been previously known to the public.
Bondi, in a statement, acknowledged that the documents, mostly flight logs, had been “previously leaked” but stated they had never before been released “in a formal capacity by the U.S. government.”
The release also included pages of flight logs, an evidence list, a completely redacted list of 254 masseuses and a contact book — though its contents were already publicly known.
Trump had campaigned on releasing government documents related to Epstein, a registered sex offender who was arrested during his first term in office on sex-trafficking charges.
Epstein died of a suspected suicide in August 2019 in a Manhattan Correctional Center cell where he was being held as he waited for his trial.
The wealthy financier was connected to many influential people, including Trump, raising questions about their potential involvement with Epstein’s crimes and leading to various conspiracy theories.
Prior to the documents being released via the Justice Department website, Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel gave a select few conservative political commentators printouts of the documents in white folders. Videos shared online by some of the influencers show the influencers exiting the West Wing smiling and showing of the binders.
“I left with an interesting souvenir,” Chad Prather, host of The Chad Prather SHow podcast, said on X with a picture of himself holding the binder.
However, not everyone was a pleased with the release.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., lamented online that more wasn’t made public.
“THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment,” she said on X. “GET US INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR.”
Bondi on Thursday framed the release of the documents as being a testament to Trump’s alleged commitment to transparency and said more documents would be released.
She suggested that the reason so few new documents were released Thursday was because the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of more documents and had not handed them over.
She said a “source” had told her about “thousands of pages of documents” held by the New York field office and “despite my repeated requests,” it never disclosed to her the files’ existence.
“By 8 a.m. tomorrow, February 28, the FBI will deliver the full and complete files to my office,” she said in a letter to Patel. “The Department of Justice will ensure that any public disclosure of these files will be done in a manner to protect the privacy of victims and in accordance with law, as I have done my entire career as a prosecutor.”
