Six years after Jeffrey Epstein died in federal custody, the federal government continues to withhold thousands of pages of files tied to the late financier and sex trafficker’s life, death, and network, despite renewed promises of transparency under President Donald Trump’s second term.

The matter exploded into controversy last week when the Justice Department wrote in a two-page memorandum that it would not release any additional Epstein-related documents. What began as backlash over a sloppy “Phase 1” disclosure earlier this year — featuring binders, handed to social media influencers, that were mostly filled with outdated or already-public records — has devolved into rage against Attorney General Pam Bondi by Trump-aligned influencers, frustrated victims’ advocates, and reportedly even top Trump officials.

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Trump issued a brief post on Truth Social on Thursday evening, saying that he’s had enough of the “ridiculous” public outcry. He told Bondi that she could move to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.” The post was immediately met with a response by Bondi on X, telling Trump, “We are ready to move the court on Friday to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”

What Bondi may find, or be able to compel for release, is ultimately unclear at this time, other than the vaguely stated mention of “grand jury transcripts” from Epstein’s closed criminal case. Yet Trump’s remarks follow exceedingly high public pressure after the public’s dissatisfying reaction to the 2-page memo, which affirmed Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell in 2019, and left open more questions when officials claimed for the first time that Epstein had more than 1,000 sex trafficking victims.

Trump told reporters Wednesday that his administration would release “whatever’s credible,” while maintaining his recent claim that conspiracies around the case are a “hoax” not worthy of pursuing any further.

Q: “Will you ask AG Pam Bondi to release more documents..?”

TRUMP: “Yeah. Whatever's credible, she can release… He's dead, he's gone. Republicans got duped by the Democrats, and they're following a Democrat playbook. No different than Russia Russia Russia, the other hoaxes” pic.twitter.com/h2B0XaeXdO

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 16, 2025

“He’s dead, he’s gone,” Trump said of Epstein, going on several days of exhaustion from press questions about the disgraced financier. “Republicans got duped by the Democrats, and they’re following a Democrat playbook.”

But Epstein’s prison death in 2019 and the lingering mystery surrounding it remain a live issue in the public conscience, with civil litigation, FOIA lawsuits, and appeals over sealed court records continuing to uncover new details.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted on Trump’s disinterest in the matter on Thursday, telling reporters that “the president would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That’s how he feels.”

Asked why more of the Epstein files can’t simply be released, Leavitt said that would be up to the Justice Department. If grand jury information is included, “a judge would have to approve it. That’s out of the president’s control,” she said.

The redacted reality

Despite the Trump administration’s repeated vows to deliver on transparency, much of the government’s Epstein case file remains under wraps. The FBI’s so-called “Vault” contains more than 11,000 pages of documents, but nearly all are heavily redacted. Attorneys representing news outlets such as Radar Online have spent years in court trying to unseal those records, only to be met with opposition from the DOJ and Southern District of New York prosecutors, who have cited the now-closed case against Ghislaine Maxwell as justification for continued secrecy.

Radar Online’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, originally filed in 2017, sought the release of Epstein-related records held by the FBI. In 2023, a federal judge sided with the government, ruling that the documents could remain under seal based on declarations submitted by prosecutors — including recently-fired Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey — who argued disclosure could interfere with Maxwell’s pending appeal. That appeal was later rejected by the Second Circuit, and briefing in the FOIA case is set to resume this year, though no oral argument has been scheduled.

A separate FOIA lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch earlier this year is also proceeding through the federal court in Washington, D.C. The conservative group is seeking records not only about Epstein himself but also about internal DOJ discussions surrounding the decision not to release further documents. According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, the Justice Department has yet to produce a single responsive record.

“They say they’re reviewing and searching, even as they tell the public it’s a closed case,” Fitton said. “That’s a contradictory message.”

Does the Epstein ‘client list’ exist? What the government still won’t show

Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald, who spoke to the Washington Examiner, pointed to a vast array of files still shielded from public view, many of which could shed light on institutional failures and potential third-party culpability.

Conspiracy theorists claim Epstein’s so-called “client list” is a document in which Epstein laid out the names of people who engaged in illicit sexual activity with underage girls in his network. But Brown said the list is likely more a term of art than a literal sheet of paper, though she underscored that undisclosed FBI records could elucidate more information about high-profile people potentially involved with his trafficking operations.

“I don’t think Jeffrey Epstein kept a formal client list,” Brown said. “That’s something that kind of morphed out of the black book and the noise around how many powerful people were connected to him. It’s a red herring.”

However, she said “it’s possible” the FBI “compiled a list of names based on interviews with employees and victims. But that’s not the same thing as a ‘client list’ Epstein kept himself.”

Here are the key areas of the Epstein investigation still shrouded in mystery:

• Sealed court filings: Federal judges, particularly in the Giuffre v. Maxwell defamation case and the now-dismissed United States v. Jeffrey Epstein, continue to block the release of filings that may identify powerful individuals implicated by victim testimony.
  
• Department of Homeland Security records: As a convicted sex offender, Epstein’s movements should have been tracked after his 2008 plea deal. DHS has not disclosed inspection records, flight manifests, or compliance reviews. Additionally, U.S. Marshals were tasked with documenting Epstein’s arriving passengers on international flights using special forms. Although some of these records were released following a 2019 FOIA request from the Herald, all names except Epstein’s were fully redacted.
  
• FAA and U.S. Marshals flight data: While fragments of Epstein’s flight logs are public, full manifests and overseas travel records — especially those processed by federal authorities — remain largely redacted. The Federal Aviation Administration denied an information request from Business Insider in 2020, saying that “the responsive records originate from an investigative file” and were, therefore, exempt from disclosure.
  
• Internal DOJ correspondence: Brown said that federal prosecutors could have hit Epstein with charges related to child pornography years earlier. “Bondi says they found thousands of files — so why wasn’t he charged for that?” she said, pointing to ongoing lawsuits by Epstein’s victims seeking to hold the government accountable for inaction.
  
• Ghislaine Maxwell evidence: Hundreds of pages of trial discovery material, including names of alleged co-conspirators and third-party associates, were never introduced in court and remain sealed.
  
• Epstein’s finances: Although Epstein’s net worth was estimated at $560 million when he died, federal authorities have never released a full accounting of how he actually accumulated his wealth, according to an ABC News report. Epstein began his career teaching math at the elite Dalton School in New York but leveraged that role into a job at Bear Stearns. He went on to manage money for billionaires, most notably Les Wexner, the founder of L Brands, who gave Epstein broad control over his financial affairs. Epstein also received $158 million from Apollo Global Management chairman Leon Black for tax and estate planning services, according to the Senate Finance Committee. JPMorgan Chase allowed Epstein to withdraw large sums of cash for years, and Deutsche Bank, which admitted onboarding him in 2013 despite warning signs, later paid $75 million to settle claims it benefited from his sex trafficking operation. Despite these links, the federal government has never fully disclosed Epstein’s financial client list, financial transactions, or how his web of connections may have funded or concealed abuse.
  
• Treasury’s Epstein file: Senate Finance Committee investigators, according to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), reviewed a classified Treasury file showing 4,725 wire transfers, totaling nearly $1.1 billion, linked to just one of Epstein’s accounts. The file, Wyden said, includes additional transactions through Russian banks now under sanction and evidence of payments tied to international sex trafficking.
  
• The eye-raising number of victims: The two-page DOJ memo released earlier this month referenced “over 1,000 victims,” which had never previously appeared in litigation, public records, or compensation program data. Brown said that the figure “jumped out” at her and has not been explained by the government. “It sounds high to me, but it’s not impossible,” she added.

If Maxwell’s appeals were to be exhausted, it might open the door for more records to become public. But that hope may also be foreclosed by the recent memo from the DOJ.

“Trump has put the lid on anything like that,” Brown said. “They don’t feel there’s any ‘credible’ evidence, and now he’s calling it the Epstein hoax. To the victims, this was not a hoax. This destroyed lives.”

Who is responsible for secrecy? The answer is mixed

Some blame the Justice Department. Others point to federal judges. Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, who was accused of abuse by one of Epstein’s accusers but later settled with her, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that the courts are actively keeping Epstein-related documents sealed to protect prominent individuals.

“There are judges who are protecting people. I know that for a fact,” Dershowitz said, pointing to two federal judges in New York without mentioning their names. “Everything should come out.”

Court records show that Judge Loretta Preska has overseen a slow release of Maxwell-related documents, but many remain sealed “to protect third parties.” Other filings from the Southern District of New York’s Epstein case, including grand jury materials and victim compensation records, have never been unsealed.

Adding to concerns about institutional control over Epstein-related documents, DOJ prosecutor Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, was abruptly removed from her position this week. Comey had signed a filing in 2020 seeking to keep sensitive Maxwell documents sealed and drew criticism for her role in the unsuccessful prosecution of Sean “Diddy” Combs, where federal prosecutors failed to convict the celebrity mogul on the most serious charges he faced in the high-profile case this year. Her father is also under investigation by the DOJ along with former CIA Director John Brennan, a pair Trump has railed against for years over the debunked Russian collusion investigation Brennan and Comey helped open just before his first term.

Legal experts described Comey’s firing as “highly unusual,” speculating the reason may have more to do with her father than her track record. “It’s highly unusual and unprecedented. Obviously, there have been prosecutors fired for losing cases. It’s very rare,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said. “The Diddy case, I believe it was mishandled, bungled, botched, whatever adjective you want to use, but they still got a conviction. They are still going to try to get time. I think it has to do with her father.”

Brown said that while the DOJ has faced scrutiny, Trump’s campaign team and subsequent administration politicized the issue.

“There really was no onus on the DOJ to release these files,” she said. “It was Trump’s administration that promised to.”

MAGA backlash and political fallout

The handling of the Epstein files has become a flashpoint inside Trump’s MAGA base. Bondi, long touted by Trump as a valued leader in his administration, has come under fire from right-wing media figures, including Megyn Kelly, Glenn Beck, and Laura Loomer, who claim she botched the rollout of Epstein disclosures and failed to honor the administration’s promises.

Even top Trump officials, including Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, privately expressed frustration with Bondi’s handling of the files in a confrontation at the White House last week. Bongino reportedly even threatened to resign if Bondi did not do so first, although Trump and his senior advisers have stood firmly behind her work in the DOJ.

Amid the public controversy now surrounding the release of remaining Epstein-related documents, Trump’s recent comments suggested he may now be looking to clean up the messaging around the issue and salvage his administration’s credibility on it. “Whatever’s credible, she can release,” Trump said, referring to Bondi. But whatever comes to light next is likely to stem from the transparency efforts that are unfolding outside the DOJ, which have largely sustained blow after blow in court so far.

“There’s no political will to go after them,” Brown said. “But this case isn’t going to die. It’s like the JFK files. It’ll still be unfolding in your lifetime — and maybe long after that.”

Unknown Epstein factors carry similarities to JFK files

The Epstein scandal has begun to resemble other murky chapters in U.S. political history. The CIA’s decadeslong delay in disclosing its familiarity with former President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, did not produce a “smoking gun.” However, the administration’s recent efforts to remove redactions from those files confirmed the agency had monitored Oswald for years and concealed those links from Congress. The belated release of those files still offered the public novel understanding of Cold War-era intelligence and accountability, according to Matthew Petti, an author for Reason‘s “Volokh Conspiracy” blog, who made the case for releasing additional Epstein information.

TRUMP BACKED ‘INTO A CORNER’ ON EPSTEIN FILES AS PENCE AND EX-ADVISER CALL FOR THEIR RELEASE

Interest and inquiry into Epstein’s case have already spanned multiple presidential administrations, and transparency lawsuits continue. For now, access to the full record remains tightly held, not just by federal prosecutors but also by judges, federal agencies, and political actors.

Bondi now appears set on delivering at least some form of satisfying records to quell the public’s concerns.