Jeffrey Epstein Filed a FOIA Request About Surveillance in 2014
The request to Customs and Border Protection sought documents that would shed light on “how, why, or when Epstein was selected to be a subject of any such monitoring, surveillance, observation, questioning, interrogation, investigation.”
A mug shot of Jeffrey Epstein, 2019.
Source: Kypros/Hulton ArchiveHappy FOIA Friday! This week, I’m returning to the Department of Justice’s Epstein files. Specifically, there’s an interesting set of records that show how Jeffrey Epstein used the Freedom of Information Act to learn whether he was under surveillance by border officials seven years after he pleaded guilty in a Palm Beach County court to solicitation of prostitution involving a minor. If you’re not already getting FOIA Files in your inbox, sign up here.
It’s been a month since the DOJ began releasing the Epstein files in response to legislation passed by Congress on Nov. 18 and signed into law by President Donald Trump. The law mandates disclosure of the records within 30 days, but to date the DOJ has only released a sliver of them: 12,285 redacted documents that total 125,575 pages, to be exact. That’s according to a Jan. 6 letter sent to a federal judge by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton. The officials also revealed that there are now more than 2 million additional documents “that are in various phases of review” with more than 400 lawyers across the DOJ looking over the files.