DOJ Releases 3M Pages in New Epstein File Tranche (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The U.S. Department of Justice says it's released another tranche of documents, three million pages worth, related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The U.S. Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, has been holding a news conference in the last hour and said 2,000 videos and 180,000 images have been released. A small portion of what's known as the Epstein files was released by the DOJ back in December of last year, following a congressional bill signed into law to make the files public within 30 days. However, until now, fewer than 1% of the files on Jeffrey Epstein have been made public. Well, our teams are going through the latest batch that's been released by the Department of Justice released in the last hour. We'll bring you the latest details in a moment, but let's start this hour hearing from the Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche.

[00:00:52] Speaker 2: I'm here today to talk about the Department's compliance with its production obligations under the Act. Around, I think, right now and continuing throughout the day-to-day as the indexing and uploading completes, we are producing responsive materials under the Act. Today, we are producing more than three million pages, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. In total, that means that the Department produced approximately three and a half million pages in compliance with the Act. Just a quick note about the videos and images. The 2,000 videos and 180,000 images are not all videos and images taken by Mr. Epstein or someone around him. They include large quantities of commercial pornography and images that were seized from Epstein's devices, but which he did not take or that someone around him did not take. Some of the videos, though, and some of the images do appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or by others around him.

[00:02:02] Speaker 1: Well, that was Todd Blanche in the last hour. We'll talk to Gary O'Donoghue in a moment, but I'm going to take you to the White House because Donald Trump is having a live event there at the moment talking about a range of issues. I think he's still talking about Iran, so it's a good time to actually just hear a little of what the U.S. president is saying.

[00:02:25] Speaker 3: Well, thank you, Mr. President. This is a really amazing time for us as a company to support the 250th anniversary for the country.

[00:02:38] Speaker 1: Well, as always, Donald Trump flitting between subjects. We will keep an eye on that. We'll leave it on the screen. So if he talks about Iran again, if he talks about what we've just had at the Department of Justice or any of the other main stories, we'll return and catch a little of what Donald Trump says to reporters. But let's bring in our chief North America correspondent, Gary O'Donoghue. And Gary, getting back to that tranche of material that's been released by the DOJ, give me your assessment, first of all, in terms of just the amount of material that's been released.

[00:03:12] Speaker 4: Well, it's vast. I mean, it's absolutely vast. It's going to take a long time for people to go through it. It is to some degree searchable, but not easily searchable. People will be looking to try and find if there's any new information in there. A lot of these documents will be similar types of documents to the ones we've had before. So things like flight logs on Epstein's plane, photographs. There are videos as well. Interestingly, which I don't think was true before Christmas, you had to sign a waiver to look at these documents, a kind of age related waiver, which suggests that there may be some myriad material in there that they believe could be difficult or unsuitable for children to look at. And he did mention in his press conference, Todd Blanche, that some of the material might be pornographic. We don't know to what degree that would be redacted. Certainly he's redacted or they're redacting all the pictures of women in these files. But they've also said there could be mistakes because of the sheer amount of material. And they have this email address where people who feel their images or their material has been released erroneously can kind of email in. So it'll take a long time to assess the nature of this dump. It does comply finally with the bill that was passed in Congress. It's late, but it does comply. There is a small number of documents that may still be being held back at the moment in the Southern District of New York. That seems to be related to a particular court order there. And I think people will just start trawling through to see if there's anything new. It's worth pointing out that as far as we know, there are no active criminal investigations into others in terms of Epstein, who's dead, of course, and Ghislaine Maxwell, his co-conspirator, who's in prison. We don't know of any other investigations relating to his activities. And in terms of President Trump and other high profile figures, none of the victims have ever made an accusation against Donald Trump, nor Bill Clinton, indeed, who has featured heavily in some of the previous releases.

[00:05:30] Speaker 1: Yes, and we heard within that news conference, Todd Blanche, say they rejected really, really strongly the Attorney General and himself that they don't take child sex trafficking seriously. You mentioned the President at a different stage. He also said we did not protect Donald Trump in the release of the Epstein file. So cutting to obviously some of the accusations that have been made over the years, despite no evidence being put forward.

[00:05:59] Speaker 4: That's right. And in some of those documents that came out in that big dump, these things happened on Fridays. It happened on the Friday before Christmas. We've got a Friday today. And then the other big one where I was involved was two days before Christmas, the day before Christmas Eve. That was the one that contained suggestions by some agents who were investigating Epstein that Donald Trump, the President, had been on Epstein's plane more than had previously been thought back in the 90s. Again, no particular, well, no allegation attaching to that, certainly by the investigators in that document. And also those documents before Christmas indicating that there were others, you know, potential co-conspirators that the Justice Department were looking at, maybe as many as 10, six of whom had had subpoenas. Now, again, no one's been charged. There's no indication anyone is being investigated actively at this point in time. And to be honest, I mean, it wasn't asked of the deputy AG during that press conference as far as I heard. But the obvious question is, while you were reviewing all this stuff for redactions and for publication, were you doing a sort of process of review in terms of whether you should be going after anyone else? That question we haven't had answered as far as I know yet. But all the indications are that they aren't at this point. He kept saying, if evidence comes to light that anyone should be investigated, prosecuted, then we'll do so.

[00:07:25] Speaker 1: Yes. Just a brief final thought, Gary. Where do you think then we are with this story? Because certainly for the MAGA base, they have been furious at different stages that the Epstein files weren't released right on day one of this administration and at various stages along the way in terms of Donald Trump being able to push this out of the headlines. Again, where do you think we are?

[00:07:53] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, this has annoyed them, the base, his support, his core support, incredibly, massively, not least because of the kind of flip-flop on it, you know, the kind of the gung-ho, we're going to release everything, sort of hinting at conspiracies during the election campaign, then, you know, getting cold feet on the whole process, dumping on the idea of this sort of private client list that the base seemed to think there was, that there was a secret list of people that Epstein had kept. Justice Department pushed back on that regularly and again so today. So he will hope that they get a part of this. But the point about conspiracies is that they are, they're not often susceptible to evidence. They get a hold and they retain a hold and there's not much you can do with, you know, core members of believers to actually dislodge that. Gary, thanks very much.