President Donald Trump's administration is now formally seeking to unseal grand jury testimony related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — but there's a catch.
Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney reported Friday that even if the motion to unseal the Epstein materials, which was filed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, is granted, a lot of information will remain secret. Cheney posted a snippet of the motion and called attention to a "huge caveat," in that any "personal identifying information" would be redacted from the materials.
"Transparency in this process will not come at the expense of our obligation under the law to protect victims," the motion read.
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The news was met with widespread skepticism on social media. Journalist Marcy Wheeler called the motion a "distraction" and added that "any journalist who doesn't call it out as a limited hangout [a strategic leak of information that leaves out key information] is dumb." Author and writer James Surowiecki referenced a previous report about hundreds of gigabytes of data of unreleased Epstein-related material the FBI has in its possession, along with "physical evidence" that still has yet to see the light of day.
"Those are the "files" ... people want released - not just transcripts," Surowiecki wrote, noting that victims' names should still be redacted.
ABC News reported Thursday that some of the other Epstein-related materials the FBI is sitting on include documents pertaining to his "Little Saint James" and "Great Saint James" islands, the former of which housed the convicted child predator's private compound. According to the network, there is a "logbook" of people who visited the Little Saint James compound along with a log of boat trips to and from the island.
"The evidence also includes multiple lists, one vaguely described as a 'document with names' and an employee contact list," ABC reported. "Investigators also recovered pages of handwritten notes, multiple photo albums, an Austrian passport with Epstein's photograph and more than a dozen financial documents."
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