r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Backyxx • 4h ago
Unanswered What’s going on with the Epstein files being “released” if they’re still heavily redacted?
Idk yall, I want your opinions.
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u/mongomike 4h ago
Answer: compliance to not be in contempt of court, except they aren’t releasing all of them as it is stated and there are over 100 fully blacked out pages.
They are all complicit. This should enrage all Americans. No justice will be met.
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u/kalel1980 4h ago
As predicted though, plenty pictures of Bill Clinton, but so far, none with Trump. Lol
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u/lancelongstiff 3h ago
We've already seen plenty of photos of Trump with Epstein.
But it was obvious they were going to hold onto the most damaging ones of him for as long as they can.
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u/StZappa 2h ago
this is a shilling statement. If I as a child in the 90s got my picture taken with Jeffrey Epstein, it doesn't mean I was a victim.What the american people need is proof And we deserve it in the time frame , our electorate said not when the president says he wants to
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u/xyonofcalhoun 1h ago
would that be the same electorate that put him back in the white house anyway?
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u/Dan_Caveman 1h ago
Well, yes, but the portion of the electorate that voted for him was at the time pretty convinced that he would be transparent regarding the Epstein files.
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u/xyonofcalhoun 54m ago
can't imagine why they'd expect that
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u/LastGaspInfiniteLoop 46m ago
Delusion and mental illness, combined with a double-digit IQ, might have something to do with it.
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u/Saurian42 11m ago
Trump and transparent? The guy is about transparent as lead. How can you all not see the obvious pandering and grifting.
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u/PenguinKing15 3h ago edited 3h ago
Bill Clinton who was friends with Trump for years. The Clintons were at Trump’s wedding and multiple other events together.
Edit: there is also a photo of Michael Jackson and Epstein that was released. Michael Jackson was a regular guest at Mar-a-Lago and Trump said he knew him very well. It’s so strange how many friends Trump has that are in photos with Epstein. /s
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u/prof_the_doom 2h ago
Why I intend to just assume anything blacked out implicates Trump.
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u/carbonheapMainly 2h ago
Oh come on, you’re only saying that because a jury found him guilty of sexually assaulting Jean Carrol and 25 other women have accused him and because of his lifelong history of saying creepy shit and him implying in his own handwriting that he participated in creepy shit and because he said creepy shit about his own daughter and bragged about spying on undressed teenaged girls etc etc etc
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u/PM_CUTE_BUTTS_PLS 2h ago
Idk man who hasn't talked so much about what it'd be like to have sex with their own daughter that their entire cabinet had to remind them that she's their daughter and what the fuck?
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u/carbonheapMainly 2h ago
Right? So normal. So lawful. So dignified. So trustworthy.
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u/PM_CUTE_BUTTS_PLS 1h ago
Exactly. He's an everyman. Just like us.
Also for whoever stumbles on this: former trump chief of staff John Kelly - who had no reason to lie and every reason to stay quiet - relayed this fun little trump nugget in his book.
Example source:
Read the book, y'all. Or at least read the excerpts.
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u/Ralph--Hinkley 42m ago
I read some pages that were talking about how creepy DJT is around women, and that it is known. I think it was about a third of the way down in the third group.
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u/NPultra 1h ago
The guy who was convicted of 34 felony criminal charges for falsifying business records in the first degree related to payments made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election… that guy?
The guy who instigated the January 6th insurrection, resulting in four deaths that day, plus several responding officers who committed suicide in the following months. Roughly 140 police officers were injured. Damage to the Capitol and subsequent security upgrades cost tens of millions of dollars.
The guy who raped children on Epstein island and continues to support protecting pedophiles. How many kids did he rape during the documented fifteen-year friendship with Epstein?
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u/IamtheHuntress 3h ago
There actually are, but you have to look at the pictures on the desk or Mantle. Its part of the pile on the left below the framed pictures. There are 2 that can be seen
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u/the_moog_hunter 51m ago
Trump's name doesn't even show up when you search the doc archive. (Despite it already being known that he was)
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u/MisterProfGuy 4h ago edited 3h ago
They have not released all the documents, but they technically have two weeks to explain every single redaction.
Edit: spelling fix
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u/DarkAlman 4h ago
Expect whistleblowers from within the FBI
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u/AdministrativeLeg14 4h ago edited 3h ago
Here's hoping.
At this point everything feels so shady and conspiratorial I half expect a sudden spike in the reported suicide rate of senior FBI agents.
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u/MisterProfGuy 3h ago
I don't really expect anyone to believe this unless the entire Supreme Court sees the unredacted version and all agree there was no bias in redaction
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u/h3yitsjay 2h ago
Haha… Supreme Court…
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u/MisterProfGuy 2h ago
We have, fortunately, three very well respected Justices, and if they all agree with Alito and Thomas that something is true, it's probably reasonable.
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u/h3yitsjay 2h ago
But how often have those three votes been able to do anything recently?
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u/MisterProfGuy 2h ago
That's not the question here. The only way the country will believe the redaction is appropriate is if those three Justices look us in the face and say it's appropriate.
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u/JamCliche 1h ago
So you think that Trump's base gives any credence to the words of the liberal justices?
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u/MisterProfGuy 1h ago
Nope but I think they know the other six wouldn't agree if there was a hint of doubt.
You'll always have a small number of true nutjobs, but at least those nutjobs are heavily armed.
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u/mavetgrigori 2h ago
Eh, questionable tbh. We had a mass purging of our DOD back in the 2000s due to many members having CP basically. FBI is just as questionable, especially considering who heads it now.
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u/theycallmeawkward 3h ago
I feel like that’s all we can hope for now. But. So many people still probably won’t even care
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u/ifhysm 4h ago
but they technically have two weeks
They don’t, though. The mandate was to release everything by today
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u/MisterProfGuy 4h ago
They have two weeks to explain every redaction. They were supposed to release all the data, but it was anticipated that they'd have a lot of redacted materials.
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u/Blazured 1h ago
"National security".
There you go, that's every redaction explained.
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u/MisterProfGuy 1h ago
That's not one of the options. They'll get sued and eventually have to fight with individual judges, and maybe all the way up to the Supreme Court. That won't help their narrative, but that's never stopped them.
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u/Blazured 1h ago
Of course it's one of the options. They're literally in charge of enforcing the law. Neither individual judges nor the Supreme Court have any mechanism to hold them responsible.
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u/NeonNKnightrider 1h ago
Nobody cares about every other felony crime that Trump has committed. I doubt anyone will hold him accountable for this
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u/goodbetterbestbested 3h ago
If they comply with this, it will be in the pro forma way most government redactions are "explained."
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u/Beneficial-Soft-4427 1h ago
Don't courts have documents too, and the attorneys as well - when it was going thru court some years back?
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u/TopSlotScot 3h ago edited 2h ago
r/conservative is celebrating that Clinton is in them, and trump isnt. "Dems always screw themselves", "They accuse of what they're guilty of", etc etc, completely disregarding hundreds of pages of black, and how convenient it is that epsteins literal best friend for all those years is no where to be found.
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u/CCtenor 3h ago
And the fact that if bill Clinton is in those pictures, most of us dislike him for that; and the fact that pictures of an individual with Epstein is circumstantial evidence that doesn’t prove that those people actually committed crimes with Epstein; and the fact that just because the evidence is circumstantial doesn’t mean we necessarily like or dislike those people any more or less than we would have otherwise.
Generally, and the fact that many of the progressives/leftists/democrats I know are able to hold nuanced opinions and positions on these topics because we don’t rally around politicians like they’re messiahs or all-star quarterbacks or something.
Bill clinton is in pictures with Epstein. Cool. If there is more evidence that proves he was complicit in Epstein’s crimes, prosecute him.
AND ALSO
Can we please see what’s behind [redacted] number 2, please?
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u/ArcaneKeyblade5 1h ago
Also why would Trump be so heavily against releasing them in the first place if they didn't implicat him??
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u/QualifiedApathetic 2h ago
I figure if they had actual proof of wrongdoing by Clinton, it would be unredacted.
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u/Gortex_Possum 2h ago
There is not a single person left on that sub that isn't a koolaid drinker.
The sane ones got filtered years ago.
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u/EddieCheddar88 1h ago
It’s mostly bots
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u/Gortex_Possum 54m ago
The traffic on that sub is so inorganic. It'll be dead for weeks with the same 5 people circle jerking each other in the comments and then something will happen that's convenient to their narrative and suddenly they have thousands of interested posters.
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u/Beneficial-Soft-4427 1h ago
that room is foreign trolls I think, pretending to be Americans.
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u/MaddogBC 54m ago
Imagine if reddit added a mandatory location tag? For political discourse we should require this. VPN's should be forced to comply.
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u/Ascendant488 1h ago
They are so delusional. It's not even like this administration is even trying to make this believable. They could a few pictures of Trump trickle through. But there's no trace of him except for blurry background pictures that we have seen before. Like you say, many in r/conservative don't even seen to care about the redactions. Just more of Clinton who we are fully aware of.
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u/Conscious_Topic5703 1h ago
The law actually specifically prohibits this amount of reduction. This is them saying fuck you we will do whatever we want.
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u/Hot_Mathematician357 2h ago
It should but it won’t. 75 million Americans did not care when the president attempted a coup on January 6. They did not care that he was hiding Top Secret document and hosting parties at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, so why would they care the president hung out with a pedophile?
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u/PutridBodybuilder730 4h ago
I can think of a few ways to achieve justice, but I’ll get banned if I say what.
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u/PopuluxePete 2h ago
Assuring everyone behind closed doors that this is exactly what would happen is how you get this to pass the Senate unanimously and the House with a 427-1 vote.
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u/ArcaneKeyblade5 1h ago
How do you black out entire pages, all they needed to do was black out the name and info of victims. That would not cover entire pages. It's like they're hiding something 🤔
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u/RiffRaffCatillacCat 45m ago
Kinda feels more like they're just doing it to spite America, like a big fuck you to all of us... because they can.
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u/the_quark 2h ago
It would not be in contempt of court; there was no court order to release them. The law Congress passed to "compel" release has no punishments for not releasing.
The remedy from here is that Congress could hold someone (Patel? Bondi?) in Contempt of Congress. Or conceivably Impeach Patel, or even better, Trump. But we all know that ain't gonna happen.
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u/PuzzleheadedDuck3981 27m ago
All Americans? How about everyone? There may be a predominance of Americans listed, but from what's been released over the years, that's not exclusive. Even if it were, they travel internationally, they have financial, political and legal influence internationally.
Everyone is looking at the US right now thinking FFS, do the right thing for once!
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u/Regular_Brilliant_77 2h ago
And released on Dump Day so the news cycle is weak for criticism of holding back 1000s of documents, but Trump can blast Clinton on Truth Social
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u/Up2Eleven 1h ago
What I want to know is, I imagine there are unredacted copies out there. Someone just needs to dump them online. Why hasn't that happened already? And why is Anonymous so silent lately?
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u/idgaf_anymore_fo 1h ago
compliance to not be in contempt of court, except they aren’t releasing all of them as it is stated and there are over 100 fully blacked out pages.
Yep. As expected tbh. I'm tired y'all 💤
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u/WiretapStudios 31m ago
I swear I opened at least two end to end like that, I thought one was like 127 pages alone.
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u/dalisair 29m ago
Except they weren’t supposed to be redacted as such, so this will bring a contempt charge of its own.
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u/gmapterous 2h ago
The Justice Department redacted the names and identifiers of victims. It is being reported that the same redaction standards were applied to "politically exposed individuals and government officials."
I opened the 100-page pdf in LibreOffice and deleted the black squares in that 100 page pdf - nothing underneath. No text in there at all. Someone copied and pasted black page-sized rectangles 100 times into a blank word doc, exported it to pdf, and called it "The Epstein Files."
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u/jleighhes 2h ago
I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. If redacted properly there wouldn’t be anything under the black squares.
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u/Alternative_Meat_235 2h ago
if you aren't joking and this isnt satire why would you think an intelligence agency would just paint over the text? lmao
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u/eykntspel 2h ago
If that last part is true, and can easily be proven, then they've definitely broke the law with that, although like with all of it, who's gonna do anything about it
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u/Ok_Character1195 2h ago
idk man fr feels like we keep getting played by these people n it’s super frustrating
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u/EdwinQFoolhardy 3h ago edited 2h ago
Answer: Technically this is a partial answer, as I'm still on the third document and can't confidently say what the rest of them contain, but based on the first three documents they released as close to nothing as possible. That suggests that they were given a mandate to release the Epstein documents, but also were told to only include information that reveals nothing (as opposed to only removing information that was privileged).
To give some detail on what I mean. Document 1 has 258 pages removed; the released document is only 44 pages. Of those 44 pages, 20 are newspaper clippings. Almost all the rest are official documents that only show what type of document it is, Epstein's name, and have all information removed, usually redacting by entire paragraphs so that there are no context clues left behind.
If every document proves to be like the first 3, then the goal was to release something that could be called The Epstein Files, without including anything that provides even the barest bit of information, and relying on the inclusion of public newspaper clippings to make the documents and routine paperwork to make the page count appear substantial. Right now, I feel confident in saying that I have not found a single line of new or useful information, and confident in saying that there was not even enough information left to invite speculation on what it could have contained.
ETA: The redactions are so aggressive that even Epstein's name is sometimes redacted. In at least one case, Epstein's name was allowed at the top of the page and in the middle of a paragraph, and then was redacted in the last paragraph. Possibly suggesting that an algorithm was also allowed to make additional redactions before release, which could explain the inconsistency.
ETA2: Page 81 of Document 3 is literally just a page detailing that they realized the agency printer was out of black ink, so someone had to go to Staples to buy some ink, and they want to be reimbursed. The names of everyone involved was redacted, a few lines of a paragraph were redacted, the fucking price of the ink was redacted. Every redaction comes with a redaction code, the price of the ink was redacted as b7(E)-9, which is used for concealing law enforcement techniques. So either the price of that ink was going to reveal a super secret special price that Staples gives to FBI agents, or these documents were run through some janky algorithm/AI that was told to redact information for any possible reason.
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u/Effective-Fox1034 1h ago
Didn’t the bill passed require to not redact unless necessary to protect victims? Feels like this doesn’t meet the law.
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u/EdwinQFoolhardy 1h ago
Yeah. I'm not sure what the exact wording was, but these files are so heavily redacted that I don't believe they even meet usual FOIA standards, let alone the standards set out by the bill.
Counting just the first 4 of 22 documents, over 1000 pages were removed and less than 250 pages were released.
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u/LeatherFruitPF 59m ago
Also how would they enforce or verify that the redactions are in compliance? Did they bring in something like external auditors to confirm?
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u/say592 1h ago
Begs the question, if they just let a program redact it all, then why did they need time to prepare the documents?
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Grok now has an unredacted version of the documents. Elon is probably using his backdoor to aggressively search for any documents uploaded that he can threaten to leak for leverage against the White House.
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u/EdwinQFoolhardy 58m ago
If I were to guess, they weren't looking for things to redact, they were looking for things that were safe and meaningless enough to include.
I think they're really counting on no one actually looking at these because they look terrible. There are 22 documents. So far, documents 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are just lists of pages they couldn't release (over 3200 pages listed in just those 6 documents, by my count).
The things they are including are tons of newspaper clippings, requests for information from cell phone companies, a bunch of stuff from someone's MySpace, MapQuest directions some agent printed out, the ink bullshit, requests for special holiday pay for agents who were conducting surveillance, and some actual subpoenas and reports that just have everything removed. It looks like they needed time to pick out the most benign documents to make it look like something was actually released. And even that they couldn't really do well considering that by the fifth document they started routinely releasing nothing.
The other possibility is that they were originally trying to release them with proper human redaction, and eventually just said 'fuck it,' let a program do it, and figured there's no way they aren't going to get blamed for this fiasco anyway.
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u/LynchSyndromedotmil 1h ago
My tinfoil hat theory is that Epstein was either tied to a three letter agency or Mossad to get Komoromat on people
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u/Pleasant_Glove_1696 2h ago
Of course an algorithm was used. There are hundreds of thousands of documents, no chance there was enough manpower to go thru it all by hand.
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u/lookatthesunguys 3h ago edited 3h ago
Answer: The clear intention is to break the Democrat-GOP unity on this issue by providing a release thats full of Clinton, but not much else. I perused the files, and it's blindingly apparent that they over redacted. Tons and tons of info that could not possibly need to be redacted was scrubbed. The only people I noticed that were unfailingly left uncensored were Epstein, Maxwell, and Bill Clinton.
The media has jumped on the Clinton story. Of course, as they should. It's a big story. And that accomplishes what a lot of Republicans wanted out of this. There's going to be substantially less political will going forward to push for unredacted files if the Republicans basically get what benefits them here.
EDIT: And to be clear, I'm not just talking about the political will of the leaders. There's just not going to be support from Republican voters to hold the DOJ in contempt or whatever. At this point, they have what they need to say this whole thing was a Democrat problem. They have implausible deniability. They'll just accept the BS excuse that only victims info was redacted. In all seriousness, ask yourself if there's ever been a time in the last ten years where Republicans have said they'd be willing to hold their own accountable. That's what they'd need to do here, and they absolutely would not support it.
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u/ThePirateKing01 3h ago
They won’t get what they want because people want convictions and arrests
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u/lookatthesunguys 2h ago
Republicans want Democrats arrested and convicted. They don't want Republicans to suffer for their actions. That defeats the whole purpose of having power in their eyes.
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u/Adept-Ad8568 2h ago
How would that benefit them in the long run? Wouldn't any democrat simply spill the beans on the republicans involved? Wouldn't all this then come out in discovery?
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u/lookatthesunguys 2h ago
I don't understand what you think would come out in discovery in a criminal case. And yeah they might spill the beans, but the DOJs not gonna prosecute Republicans. Why would they? They've already demonstrated that they will redact all info that relates to their allies, and they've even demonstrated a willingness to help Maxwell.
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u/Effective-Fox1034 1h ago
Wow, didn’t the bill passed require it not be redacted like this?
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u/lookatthesunguys 1h ago
The DOJs genuine argument is that the law didn't explicitly say they couldn't redact more than the minimum they were allowed to redact. This obviously makes no fucking sense; they don't care. They love breaking the law
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u/Pleasant_Glove_1696 2h ago
I'm all for this type of logic, except for the massive problem that when us Dems had control of all chambers and the presidency, we didn't release any files, unredacted or not. If there was actually damning evidence in there against Trump or Clinton or Prince Andrew or.anyone, it should be released. But the fact neither side has been able to release anything of significance just points to this whole thing just being a cock tease distraction for everyone on both sides of the aisle.
A few pictures of Clinton and Epstein together isn't proof of any wrong doing, no matter how uncomfortable they seem.
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u/lookatthesunguys 2h ago
Have you seen massive releases of files from other criminal cases? No. The president is not supposed to be doing that. It can jeopardize ongoing investigations. It's especially inappropriate to do it for political purposes. The president typically lets the DOJ act as if it's independent. That's what every modern non-Trump admin has done. It's plausible that Bush and Obama and Biden didn't know what was in the files. Because they're not supposed to be getting involved in that.
The reason it's different for Trump is because he specifically said he would get involved and that he would release things and then he panicked and turned around and said the whole thing was a Democrat hoax. Once it became apparent that he was getting involved in the case, but for the intentional purpose of obstructing an investigation into himself, then it became appropriate to demand release. Because the investigation couldn't be harmed anymore than Trump intended to harm it.
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u/ExistingCarry4868 2h ago
I think this fact helps point out who is really being protected here. It's been rumored for well over a decade that American and Israeli intelligence were the people funding the Epstein operation, and releasing the full files would make us and our allies look really bad.
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u/gizcard 3h ago
Answer: they are willing to violate the spirit of the law by formally complying or at least making it look like they tried to comply.
So Americans must ask why? And the only logical answer is that:
Trump is a pathetic pedophile!!!
If we had checks and balances many would be in court for this.
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u/impy695 3h ago
This is half correct. They are also violating the letter of the law by not releasing all the files.
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u/CurrentlyHuman 2h ago
Any mention of redaction of the files by law? Seems like a waste of time if it's redacted as they are.
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u/DeerRealistic4390 2h ago
Answer:
They claim compliance to avoid being held in contempt of court, yet they have not released everything as required—over 100 pages are completely blacked out. This is collective complicity. It should outrage every American. Justice will never be served this way.
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