We’ve talked loads concerning the high-powered attorneys and well-known authorized luminaries who discover themselves within the infamous Epstein information. So it’s solely truthful to level out that we right here at Above the Regulation additionally found ourselves in the Department of Justice’s latest document dump. I assume that’s the kind of participatory journalism you’ve come to expect from us. None of us gushed concerning the notorious pedophile’s events or preened about items the trafficker gave us. Reasonably, an FBI agent obtained a duplicate of our Each day Publication in 2023 that included a narrative about Epstein.
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However our cameo within the highest profile doc manufacturing on this planet ought to elevate a number of questions. Like “why is a publication’s publication within the Epstein information in any respect?” Or “why are they producing paperwork between a 3rd celebration and an FBI agent?” Or, on the danger of being blunt, “why is a request for investigation information producing paperwork from FOUR YEARS AFTER THIS EPSTEIN JACKASS DIED?”
Assuming he’s lifeless, in fact. Which wasn’t something we questioned however now that they’re turning up press releases announcing his death from the day before he died and CBS Information is reporting that the noose collected on the scene wasn’t the one used in hanging, perhaps the conspiracy theorists are on to one thing.
In any occasion, there aren’t plenty of good explanation why this text ended up marked responsive. The Trump administration was directed — by statute — to supply:
all unclassified information, paperwork, communications, and investigative supplies within the possession of the Division of Justice, together with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Workplaces, that relate to… Jeffrey Epstein together with all investigations, prosecutions, or custodial issues.
My piece on AI training data isn’t actually a comfortable match.
However this is identical DOJ that dumped all these information right into a janky database, realizing that they embody discussions concerning the sexual exploitation of kids and gated it with:
Good heavens. Jeffrey Epstein put extra effort into ensuring somebody was 18. There are states with obscenity legal guidelines that might run web sites out of enterprise for such a lax age verification process. However the federal authorities, dealing with investigatory information detailing a toddler intercourse ring runs its age gate on the consideration system.
It’s not like they’ve been rushed both. The statute required manufacturing “not later than” December nineteenth. The information didn’t really present up in any significant quantity until January 30, 2026. In order that they have been six weeks late and appreciable {dollars} brief. Or, perhaps this was a rush job, as a result of the DOJ appeared content material to flagrantly ignore the deadline till ICE brokers began killing harmless individuals on digital camera. Immediately, the salacious doc manufacturing that might occupy the backburner for weeks turned an urgency.
Then we obtained three million pages of fabric delivered with all of the organizational rigor of a monkey smearing feces on the wall to mark its territory. The paperwork aren’t in any clear order or grouped in any identifiable approach.
And the redaction “errors” — oh, the redaction errors. As NPR reported, the identical DOJ PowerPoint presentation seems six instances within the database with completely different redactions utilized every time. That’s not even one of many egregious errors. The primary tranche of paperwork made the redactions incorrectly such that the general public might simply copy and paste the textual content into a brand new doc and see no matter appeared under the black field. The final time somebody was dumb sufficient to do this Saddam Hussein was alive and nicely. It’s an error that nobody makes anymore as a result of everybody discovered the exhausting approach that you would be able to’t use the discount Adobe product to do your redactions. However Elon Musk’s DOGE canceled a bunch of presidency Adobe licenses as a part of the ill-fated finances slashing charade. We’re not saying that straight resulted in these botched redactions however… you recognize.
Then there’s no matter that is:
That’s a redaction of the phrase “don’t.” That wouldn’t appear to be worthy of redaction except somebody dedicated a typo and didn’t embody the apostrophe and software program adopted instructions to get rid of any incidence of phrases with “Don” and “T” showing subsequent to one another (Or “don! w/1 t!” for the boolean heads on the market… I see you). In the meantime, sufferer names have been left catastrophically unredacted, although that’s one of many only a few redactions the statute really allowed.
Then the DOJ published and then quietly deleted a doc that explicitly tagged Trump. It returned as soon as social media known as it out. Not suspicious in any respect.
Which brings us again to the ATL publication from years after Epstein’s dying. In any regular litigation context, this type of overproduction would earn a scolding from the court docket. Dumping thousands and thousands of pages of loosely related materials to bury genuinely responsive paperwork is the sort of basic discovery abuse that Justice of the Peace judges spend their lives swatting down.
Is it truthful to accuse the DOJ of this? Effectively, sure, since they admitted it. From their assertion accompanying this launch, Deputy Lawyer Normal Todd Blanche:
The Division erred on the facet of over-collecting supplies from numerous sources to finest guarantee most transparency and compliance with the Act.
Framing deliberate overproduction as a advantage is daring. And but the DOJ isn’t simply erring on the facet of overproduction, it intentionally beneathproduced as nicely. This Schrödinger’s manufacturing managed to exist in each contradictory states by “over-collecting” newsletters whereas acknowledging that roughly 2.5 million pages of paperwork have been being withheld from the general public. Whereas the statute did embody provisions to forestall the general public launch of some materials, it strains credulity to just accept that nearly half of the corpus of paperwork would fall into these deliberately restricted classes. It could be good to see one thing akin to a privilege log explaining precisely what statutory exception they’re claiming on these pages.
Alas, that might recommend good religion versus the DOJ’s transparency theater.
However hey, we’re within the Epstein information. There’s an achievement I didn’t count on to unlock.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Regulation and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Be happy to email any suggestions, questions, or feedback. Comply with him on Twitter or Bluesky for those who’re taken with legislation, politics, and a wholesome dose of faculty sports activities information. Joe additionally serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
