Epstein Files Review Was Totally Chaotic

Welcome back to another edition of FOIA Files! I can’t ignore a 3 million page document dump. Of course, I’m referring to the Department of Justice’s recent release of its voluminous investigative files on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. According to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, it’s the last release. We’ll see about that. The cache includes a dizzying array of details. My eyes gravitated toward the Freedom of Information Act requests Epstein filed over the years, including one with the Central Intelligence Agency, in which he sought documents that would show he had an “open affiliation” with the CIA between 1999 and 2011. In another one, Epstein asked the National Security Agency for documents “relating or referring to himself.” Epstein didn’t receive any records. Instead, he got GLOMARs (neither confirming nor denying the existence of records). But it’s not Epstein’s FOIA requests I want to dive into this week. It’s the documents from the trove that shed light on how the government reviewed and redacted them.

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