FOIA analysis reveals 'chaotic' and 'frenzied' Epstein files review process

Footage of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at a party at Mar-a-Lago in the 1990s (Image: Screengrab via NBC News)

The release of the latest tranche of the Epstein files has been marked with controversy over questionable redaction practices, with sensitive information about victims left untouched, while other whole pages were blacked out for no clear reason. According to an extensive breakdown by Bloomberg, there is evidence that the disclosure process was "frenzied" and "chaotic," with government employees at one point pressing for clearer guidelines for redaction.

Bloomberg's Jason Leopold published the breakdown on Friday, as part of his ongoing "FOIA Files" newsletter series. In it, he explained that certain files in the latest Department of Justice release detail the processing of the files themselves and reveal a great deal about how things went.

"I zeroed in on a subset of 2025 emails and slide decks from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that lays bare additional details about the agency’s frenzied handling and processing of the Epstein files, which I’ve written about over the past year," Leopold detailed.

Crucially, some files in the latest release show emails in which employees tasked with processing documents can be seen "begging for guidance" on how redaction was supposed to be done. These messages date to March, many months before Congress compelled the release of the DOJ's Epstein files. One email from March 17 requested "clear and specific guidance" on how to handle photo redactions and what names needed to be hidden, noting that photos in the materials they were seeing contained "victims, unknown-unidentified females and males, former U.S. Presidents, Secretary of State, and other celebrities."

In the absence of guidance, other staffers made "an executive decision" and decided that all names not pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell would be redacted.

"As we were not provided with a list of names to be redacted, all names, phone numbers, DOBs, and email addresses were redacted, except for those relating to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,” an email from March 12 read. “Attorney names and other organization names were also redacted. Sensitive law enforcement techniques were also redacted.”

Elsewhere in the new files, Leopold determined that employees from the FBI's Freedom of Information Act offices were brought to train processing staff on how to handle and redact materials properly. The training materials Leopold found detailed how these employees were taught to redact things using Adobe Pro, which the reporter determined to be a notable piece of information in explaining why some important things were not redacted.

"I found some of their training slides in the trove, which helps explain why it was easy to remove some of the redactions after the first release in December: the redactions weren’t saved in Adobe," Leopold wrote. "Whoops."

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