{"id":231675,"date":"2026-03-30T16:37:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/an-abomination-how-the-epstein-files-exposed-victims-instead-of-perpetrators\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T16:37:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:37:43","slug":"an-abomination-how-the-epstein-files-exposed-victims-instead-of-perpetrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/an-abomination-how-the-epstein-files-exposed-victims-instead-of-perpetrators\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAn Abomination\u201d: How the Epstein Files Exposed Victims Instead of Perpetrators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In court filings, the department conceded its \u201cinherent limitations\u201d but made no mention of how those leading the department might have contributed to an even more \u201climited\u201d effort. A former prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney\u2019s Office told me that \u201cwhen prosecutors resign\u201d\u2014as many DOJ attorneys did throughout 2025\u2014\u201cthey leave behind their case files and investigations, and unless new hires are made at the same rate of departures, those left behind might be forced to take on heavier caseloads.\u201d The resources are typically available at DOJ for a large-scale project like this, adds a former senior official in a federal prosecutor\u2019s office, but if assistant US attorneys have full caseloads, \u201cit does not give you the bodies to put on the case. Or at the very least, the attention of those assigned is diverted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The DOJ may have been shorthanded thanks to the Trump administration\u2019s approach to HR, but it wasn\u2019t just the reduced workforce. The monthslong campaign to delay and then entirely block the release of the files\u2014combined with the DOJ\u2019s prior claims that it possessed thousands or hundreds of thousands of Epstein documents, not six million\u2014contributed to the House Judiciary Committee\u2019s belief that the department should be granted just 30 days to review and release the documents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">But with the limited time and resources the department <em>did<\/em> have, one area where it excelled was in shielding the names of those with great influence. Khanna referred to this practice of protection based on class as a \u201ctwo-tiered system of justice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-eRToSp bruPnK paywall blockquote-embed\" data-testid=\"blockquote-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"BlockquoteEmbedContent-hsbhfe eNwNaS blockquote-embed__content\">\n<div class=\"GenericCalloutWrapper-loJzHJ fANPZG\" data-testid=\"GenericCallout\">\n<aside aria-hidden=\"true\" data-testid=\"pullquote-embed\" class=\"PullQuoteEmbedWrapper-sc-efqGLV cDZhZJ\">\n<div class=\"PullQuoteEmbedContent-sc-fzpWpD jMBYKx\">\n<p>&#8220;It does not give you the bodies to put on the case.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The names of various billionaires including Leslie Wexner, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, and Trump confidante Tom Barrack were redacted throughout the department\u2019s original 3.5 million-page document drop. They were later uncovered through congressional pressure or corrected filings. (A spokesperson for Wexner told the BBC that he has no knowledge of, and did not participate in, Epstein\u2019s illegal conduct.) Wexner, Sulayem, and Barrack have not been charged with any crimes, and certainly, the appearance of one&#8217;s name in the Epstein files does not by itself constitute evidence of wrongdoing. However, the act of shielding the names of billionaires while failing to protect victims\u2019 identities carries its own implications.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">On March 5, the department released previously unseen documents from the Epstein files that included summaries and notes from interviews the FBI conducted with a South Carolina woman who made allegations against both Epstein and Trump. In a statement posted to X, the department said some of the newly released documents were initially withheld because they had been \u201cincorrectly coded as duplicative.\u201d White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the woman\u2019s allegations against the president as \u201ccompletely baseless.\u201d Trump has denied any wrongdoing related to the Epstein allegations, and the claims in these newly released files are uncorroborated. But the fact remains that those documents were not released with the others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">A legal term, <em>res ipsa<\/em>\u2014Latin for \u201cthe thing speaks for itself\u201d\u2014seems fitting for the Epstein files release process. All of these decisions were made under the leadership of an attorney general who was previously one of Trump\u2019s personal defense lawyers. So was Blanche, the deputy attorney general, who told the public that no new investigations would be opened or prosecutions pursued based on the contents of six million pages of documents related to an international sex trafficking operation. Then, weeks later, Bondi told a House committee that nearly half of the six million documents were being withheld in part to \u201cprotect investigations.\u201d But when asked this month to confirm whether there are any open investigations related to Jeffrey Epstein, Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the DOJ, pointed <em>Vanity Fair<\/em> to the \u201cAG and DAG\u2019s public comments.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/story\/epstein-files-redactions-victims\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In court filings, the department conceded its \u201cinherent limitations\u201d but made no mention of how those leading the department might have contributed to an even more \u201climited\u201d effort. A former prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney\u2019s Office told me that \u201cwhen prosecutors resign\u201d\u2014as many DOJ attorneys did throughout 2025\u2014\u201cthey leave behind their case files and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2266,57,842,11861,3293],"class_list":{"0":"post-231675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity","8":"tag-department-of-justice","9":"tag-fbi","10":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","11":"tag-pam-bondi","12":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}