The DOJ's mishandling of the Epstein files release, including missed deadlines, redactions, and political interference, has eroded public trust. This follows a history of failures in the Epstein case and recent politicization under the Trump administration.
Key Takeaways
•The DOJ failed to meet the legal deadline for releasing Epstein-related files, with flawed partial releases and unexplained document removals.
•Public and political trust in the DOJ is declining due to perceived politicization, including appointments and investigations aligned with Trump's agenda.
•Historical failures in the Epstein case, such as delayed investigations and a sweetheart plea deal, contribute to current skepticism.
•The Trump administration's efforts to politicize the DOJ have led to legal setbacks and reduced judicial trust in government lawyers.
•Politicians and Epstein victims have criticized the DOJ's handling, with potential contempt of Congress actions against Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The department is unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt for its handling of the recent Epstein-files release. Mandel NGAN / AFP / GettyThis is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
This past Friday was the legal deadline for releasing files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the Justice Department blew right through it.
In an interview Friday morning, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged that not everything would be ready by the deadline. Even the partial release was flawed. As my colleague Charlie Warzel reported, the first tranche is full of extensive redactions. Although Congress required by law that the documents be released in a searchable form online, the function wasn’t working right. The materials released on Friday included many references to and photos of former President Bill Clinton but conspicuously few inclusions of President Donald Trump, who was once a close friend of Epstein’s. Then, on Saturday, at least 16 documents initially included in the dump were suddenly removed. (At least one, including a photo with Trump in it, has been reinstated.)
Good explanations might exist for all of these things. Processing such a huge number of documents—hundreds of thousands, according to the DOJ—is a huge challenge under any circumstances, and these files are especially sensitive because they likely contain information about underage victims of sex crimes. Congress also granted the DOJ discretion to withhold documents related to ongoing investigations. Blanche said yesterday that the DOJ would not redact any information relating to Trump.
But the Justice Department is unlikely to receive much benefit of the doubt in this case. Representatives Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, who spearheaded the effort to force the files’ release indicated yesterday that they might seek to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt of Congress for not releasing all of the documents. Epstein victims have also blasted the administration, my colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick reported. “I feel really disappointed,” Sharlene Rochard told her. “America is getting a look tonight into how we have all felt for years.”
A series of compounding failures led the DOJ to this moment. For years, the federal government failed to act effectively to stop Epstein’s crimes. One of the documents included in the Friday release was a 1996 complaint to the FBI alleging that Epstein possessed and distributed child pornography. The DOJ finally got around to investigating Epstein a decade later, only to let him strike a sweetheart plea deal. The government seemed to finally be pushing harder in 2019, but then Epstein died, in what was ruled a suicide, in a federal facility.
The Trump Justice Department has done more damage just in the past few months. Blanche took the highly unusual step of interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted accomplice, earlier this year; she was soon moved to a cushy prison for reasons that have still not been satisfactorily explained. Last month, under pressure because of his own ties to Epstein, the president ordered investigations into relationships between Democrats and Epstein. Such probes are welcome—no one should be above the law—but also obviously political.
The Trump administration’s central goal for the Justice Department, in fact, has been to politicize it. This hasn’t been a secret. In Project 2025, which has served as a blueprint for Trump, the former DOJ official Gene Hamilton argued for political appointees to be flooded into “every office and component across the department” and for all decisions to “to be made consistent with the President’s agenda.” Hamilton has gotten his wish. Trump has fired even the lowest-level prosecutors, forced out career officials, appointed his personal attorneys to key positions, and pursued investigations and indictments against political enemies.
The DOJ has never been wholly apolitical; John F. Kennedy appointed his own brother to lead it. But both presidents and attorneys general have understood the value of appearing to be at least somewhat insulated from politics, especially since Watergate. That’s why DOJ leaders have at times clashed with the White House over decisions. Attorneys general appointed special counsels, from Lawrence Walsh to Robert Fiske to Robert Mueller to Jack Smith, in order to show and maintain their distance from highly political cases. Alberto Gonzales, an attorney general under George W. Bush, resigned after the revelation of political pressure on U.S. attorneys. That scandal seems almost quaint today; now the president attempts to appoint underqualified aides to conduct prosecutions that he orders on his Truth Social account, and Bondi leaps to enable him.
Turning the Justice Department into an arm of the MAGA agenda is producing lots of unwanted side effects, though. Government lawyers are finding that federal courts no longer grant them the presumption of trust. Attempts to indict former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James have come a cropper; judges and grand juries both have so far been skeptical. Now the DOJ’s fumbling of the Epstein files won’t receive much forbearance from politicians or the public. Trump and those around him grasped that the DOJ could be a powerful political tool for a president. What they didn’t understand was that keeping the Justice Department’s hands clean of politics is a way of protecting a president too.
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