Desperate to put a lid on the Epstein files for good, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s DOJ has sent a slapdash letter to Congress. This was presumably intended to answer all outstanding queries, but it has already prompted a new set of questions.
In an effort to fulfill the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Department of Justice sent a six-page letter to Congress, which contains—per the act’s requirements—a list of “all government officials and politically exposed persons” mentioned in the Epstein files.
While the list of roughly 130 individuals contains those who have already been associated with the deceased sex trafficker—including Donald Trump, Les Wexner, and Steve Bannon—it also contains a roll call of Trump’s greatest foes, plus a sprinkling of seemingly randomly connected people.
Former presidents Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama are all included on the list, but so too are Keir Starmer, George Clooney, and Elvis Presley.
The Transparency Act, signed into law by Trump (who was under pressure to do so) in November, required that the DOJ report to Congress all categories of information released and withheld, a summary of redactions, and a list of all those named in the files.
In the letter, co-signed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the list is explained as comprising anyone who is a government official or public person whose name appears multiple times, which is where the cloudiness of the list begins.
These mentions could be in direct conversations with Epstein or his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, or simply from someone they spoke to, offering no indication of the extent of their relationship.
This wide-net approach means that Janis Joplin and Marilyn Monroe—who died in 1970 and 1962, respectively—were both included on the list and serve as examples of people who, critics argue, were included to complicate discernment of culpability.
“The DOJ is once again purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email,” Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna said in response to the letter.
“To have Janis Joplin, who died when Epstein was 17, in the same list as Larry Nassar, who went to prison for the sexual abuse of hundreds of young women and child pornography, with no clarification of how either was mentioned in the files, is absurd.”
“Release the full files,” Khanna continued. “Stop protecting predators. Redact only the survivors’ names.”
Khanna is one of the co-sponsors of the Transparency Act alongside his Republican counterpart, Rep. Thomas Massie. Both are named on the list.
The letter comes days after Bondi was grilled in a House Committee Hearing over her handling of the files’ release on Wednesday. In a wild display of fealty to Trump, a combative Bondi shouted MAGA talking points at Judiciary members and refused to answer questions while several of Epstein’s victims looked on.
The shocking outburst prompted even conservative commentators to call for Bondi’s resignation.
On Jan. 30, the DOJ released approximately 3.5 million files on Epstein, which they claimed would be the final round of disclosure, despite there reportedly being as many as 3 million more documents that have not been made public.
Blanche stated that the DOJ now considers its obligations under the Transparency Act fulfilled, with the list of names sent to Congress today meeting the Act’s 15-day deadline for publication.
However, that release has been branded an “abject failure” by critics, who have questioned why the documents are riddled with black-line redactions.
The law allows for redactions only to protect the identities of victims. However, the DOJ’s process has, in fact, revealed the names of many victims while protecting the names of the perpetrators.
This was a point raised by Massie with Bondi on Wednesday, whom she branded a “failed politician” and a “hypocrite” for his efforts.
“This is bigger than Watergate,” Massie told the AG. “This cover-up spans decades, and you are responsible for this portion of it.”
Bondi’s own hypocrisy was not helped after a 2014 campaign ad resurfaced online in which she promised to defend abused women and children.
“I’ll fight to put human trafficking monsters where they belong: behind bars,” Bondi says in the video.
More than a decade later, when asked to apologize for failing Epstein’s victims, she refused.
The Department of Justice did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
