‘Don’t let this fool you’: Released Epstein files heavily redacted, ‘mostly public information’, GOP smokescreen

Last night, the House of Representatives tried to pour cold water on the raging Jeffrey Epstein fire by releasing 33,000 pages said to be from the “Epstein files”. 10 Epstein victims are currently in Washington, DC meeting politicians, with their harrowing testimony giving Congresswoman Nancy Mace a panic attack and causing her to leave in tears.

The documents, which Congress has made available on Google Drive (seems a little unprofessional, but whatever), consist of court filings related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, bodycam footage from police searches, and interviews. So, celebration time? Has the truth finally been revealed?

Sadly not. Those familiar with the case quickly realized most of these files were already publicly available and provide no new information or revelations. In addition, the few new documents included have been ludicrously heavily redacted:

The House GOP released this page as part of their Epstein file dump

Nothing to hide here! pic.twitter.com/Yg7cOXupBf

— Angry Staffer (@Angry_Staffer) September 3, 2025

Epstein observers online have (correctly) identified this “release” as a smokescreen tactic intended to spoil a cross-party discharge petition from Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie and California Democrat Ro Khanna. That seeks to force the release of all the files, save for redactions to avoid identifying victims and of any CSAM contained within.

Republican committee chair James Comer is now arguing that there’s no need for that discharge petition, a position echoed by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who argues this document release marks the end of the saga and the petition should be scrapped: “It’s superfluous at this point, and I think we’re achieving the desired end here.”

“What a joke”

You don’t have to be a political genius to spot what’s happening here.  Robert Garcia, the top Dem representative on the oversight committee, immediately called this tactic out, saying: “The 33,000 pages of Epstein documents James Comer has decided to ‘release’ were already mostly public information. To the American people – don’t let this fool you.”

That was echoed online as the contents were pored over:

This is beyond parody. One of the "Epstein Files" released is a publicly available court document. And every single page is a separate file. Like, they broke up a single PDF into a bunch of separate files. https://t.co/aWDiykXn1N pic.twitter.com/ISRYrxKOzO

— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) September 3, 2025

❗️NEW: The new batch of Epstein files was released as a single-page image for over 33,000 files, making it nearly impossible for the public to review

The files themselves are also filled with massive redactions

What happened to "transparency"? https://t.co/09EvWqJa7S pic.twitter.com/8OqVETDPgV

— HOT SPOT (@HotSpotHotSpot) September 2, 2025

HOLY COW, BREAKING, ALERT, MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS, CODE RED!!!!! The Epstein Files just dropped, look at the salacious shit the oversight team gave the American people. Pages and pages of this crap. 33k random pages doubled up. What a joke pic.twitter.com/QFyYKGtJUy

— Gary Simmons (@burntreynolds46) September 2, 2025

If Trump, Comer, and Johnson think we’ll be satisfied with this, they can think again. Republicans and Democrats have now met Epstein’s victims, with their testimony only hardening the opinion that the truth must be revealed, no matter how messy and damaging it might be.