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Its Bloomberg actually.
The FBI Redacted Trumpās Name in the Epstein Files
The bureauās FOIA team tasked with conducting a final review of the records blacked out the names before higher-ups said last month that releasing the documents āwould not be appropriate or warranted.ā
Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000.
Photographer: Davidoff Studios Photography/Archive Photos
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By Jason Leopold
August 1, 2025 at 9:35 AM CDT
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Welcome back to FOIA Files! This week, Iām delving into the Jeffrey Epstein saga: We know from news reports that Trumpās name was in the Epstein files. But what hasnāt been reported is that an FBI FOIA team redacted Trumpās nameāand the names of other prominent public figuresāfrom the documents, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak with the media.
That team, tasked with conducting a final review of the voluminous cache, had applied the redactions before the DOJ and the FBI concluded last month that āno further disclosureā of the files āwould be appropriate or warranted.ā
From the governmentās perspective, Trump was a private citizen when the Epstein investigation took place and therefore is entitled to privacy protections. Read on and Iāll explain. If youāre not already getting FOIA Files in your inbox, sign up here.
ā
Before explaining the governmentās rationale for blacking out Trumpās name, letās recap. Along with aliens and JFKās assassination, conspiracy theories surrounding the life and death of convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein have long consumed MAGA.
Epstein avoided federal sex-trafficking charges in 2008 when he agreed to plead guilty to state charges in Florida for soliciting prostitution. In July 2019, following an investigation by the Miami Herald that also scrutinized the integrity of the governmentās probe, Epstein was indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors. A month later, he died by suicide in his jail cell, federal law enforcement authorities said, while awaiting trial.
Epsteinās death led to a swirl of renewed interest among Trump supporters, which in recent months has verged into an obsession. Last year, while still on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to ādeclassifyā material in the governmentās possession pertaining to Epstein. Before Pam Bondi was nominated as attorney general by Trump, she insisted that the public had a right to know more details about the case. āIf people in that report are still fighting to keep their names private,ā she said on Fox News last year, āthey have no legal basis to do so, unless theyāre a child, a victim, or a cooperating defendant.ā In January, Kash Patel, the FBI director, told a Senate Committee during his confirmation hearing that heād ensure āthe American public knows the full weight of what happened.ā
Then on Feb. 27, during a highly publicized event at the White House, Bondi rolled out what the Justice Department referred to as the āfirst phaseā of the release of the Epstein files. It was attended by former Pizzagate provocateur Jack Posobiec and other far-right influencers. They were given binders labeled āThe Epstein Filesā and āThe Most Transparent Administration in Historyā that contained about 200 pages of documents that Bondi characterized as ādeclassified.ā She also suggested that the records would contain previously undisclosed details about Epstein.
Instead, Bondiās big Epstein files party was a bust. It turned out the documents she called declassified, which included pages from Epsteinās infamous āblack book,ā had been previously released, most recently during the criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell four years earlier. (The black book revealed Trumpās name and the names of his wife, Melania, and other family members.)
A page from Epsteinās āblack book,ā containing the names of various contacts, which included Trump.
Trumpās followers were irate. Bondi was angry, too. She fired off a letter to FBI Director Patel demanding to know why the bureau failed to provide her with the thousands of pages of documents related to the Epstein investigation and indictment she requested. She wanted answers from Patel, and accountability.
Trumpās name blacked out
What happened next kicked off a new phase in the Epstein saga. As I reported in the March 28th edition of FOIA Files, Patel directed FBI special agents from the New York and Washington field offices to join the bureauās FOIA employees at its sprawling Central Records Complex in Winchester, Virginia and another building a few miles away.
They were instructed to search for and review every single Epstein-related document and determine what could be released. That included a mountain of material accumulated by the FBI over nearly two decades, including grand jury testimony, prosecutorsā case files, as well as tens of thousands of pages of the bureauās own investigative files on Epstein. It was a herculean task that involved as many as 1,000 FBI agents and other personnel pulling all-nighters while poring through more than 100,000 documents, according to a July letter from Senator Dick Durbin to Bondi.
Why didn't Biden release it before Trump redacted it
