In what can only be described as the least surprising plot twist since Donald Trump spent all summer insisting the Epstein files were a ‘Democrat hoax’ he definitely didn’t need to hide from, the Department of Justice quietly scrubbed at least 16 files from its Friday document dump — including, wouldn’t you know it, photographs featuring the president himself.
The DOJ finally released a whole batch of the previously classified Epstein files on Friday, but lawmakers and the public were surprised to find that most of the material, which itself constitutes only a fraction of the actual evidence retained by the FBI, was redacted and censored. Literally hundreds of pages have been blacked out, with some portions reading like the DOJ just copy pasted a bunch of black rectangle pages to make the dumb look more substantial than it actually is.
Now, to pour gasoline on an already restless crowd — including bipartisan lawmakers in Congress — demanding full transparency, and perhaps to mock the victims even further, it appears the DOJ has been quietly pulling files from the release after the fact. And I know this next bit is going to read like a rejected House of Cards subplot for being too on the nose, but bear with me: The deleted files include two images depicting Trump, one showing him surrounded by women in bathing suits and the other a picture of him standing with his wife Melania, Jeffrey Epstein, and the sex trafficker’s convicted assistant Ghislaine Maxwell.
And the DOJ’s response? “Photos and other materials will continue being reviewed and redacted consistent with the law in an abundance of caution,” the department wrote on X, which is government-speak for “we got caught and just needed to say something to get you off our backs for a little while.”
Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act with the sole intention of forcing DOJ’s hand, setting Friday’s deadline with the expectation that, finally, Americans would get answers about how a convicted sex offender operated for decades among the rich and powerful. What they got instead were heavily redacted documents that amounted to nothing particularly revelatory.
Among the documents that did survive the culling is a court filing (per Al Jazeera) alleging that Epstein once introduced a 14-year-old girl to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, elbowing the future president and asking, “This is a good one, right?” Trump reportedly smiled and nodded in return.
At this point, the administration would’ve been better off keeping the files locked in a vault somewhere. Instead, they’ve given us a masterclass in how to take a credibility problem and turn it into a full-blown crisis of confidence. Congrats, Mr. President, you may have just made the cover-up more damning than whatever’s actually in the files. Unless, of course, what’s in them is exactly as bad as everyone fears.
Published: Dec 21, 2025 01:28 pm