Trump administration won't release the Epstein files, but what would they contain?

Show Caption

The White House has continued to resist calls from Congress and President Donald Trump's own base to release the FBI's investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein. Instead, it has asked courts to release grand jury testimony and has interviewed convicted Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to try to satisfy demands for transparency.

So far, those alternatives haven't satisfied conservatives who believe − as Trump allies suggested for years − that Epstein was involved in a sex trafficking conspiracy with many other rich and powerful people. Top Trump officials came into office promising a new level of transparency in the Epstein case, and many Trump supporters maintain the administration should release all of the files it has.

But what exactly is in those sought-after files? What would the public learn from their release? To answer those questions, Paste BN talked to former FBI agents and prosecutors. They said the files are likely to be much more expansive than what's in the grand jury testimony, including records on witness interviews and investigative trails.

"It could be an enormous universe of original documents, interview notes, memos of analysis," said Michell Epner, a former New Jersey federal prosecutor who handled sex trafficking cases.

Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, and Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, cosponsored legislation in mid-July to release the government's Epstein records, with redactions to protect victims, active investigations and the national defense. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, announced July 22 that he was shutting down the House early for its summer recess to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files.

Here's a look at what sorts of material the government is keeping hidden and the arguments for and against transparency:

What could be in the FBI's 'Epstein files'?

The FBI's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a Manhattan federal jail cell in 2019 while awaiting a federal sex trafficking trial, goes back decades, and could include a wide swath of material.

Around 2006, federal investigators looked into allegations that Epstein was paying several minor girls to perform sex acts with him. That inquiry led to what many regard as a sweetheart deal for Epstein, in which he pleaded guilty in 2008 to two Florida state prostitution charges, avoided a sex trafficking charge, and served just 13 months in a local jail.

The case related to criminal activities in Epstein's Palm Beach mansion, which was about 2 miles away from Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. The federal prosecutor who negotiated the deal, Alex Acosta, became the labor secretary in Trump's first administration but resigned after fallout from a 2018 Miami Herald investigation that revealed Acosta's role in the deal.

In July 2019, the convicted sex offender was arrested on the more serious charge of sex trafficking a minor. That same day, the FBI raided Epstein's Manhattan mansion, collecting computer hard drives and other potential evidence. After Epstein died, law enforcement also raided his property in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Those investigations would have produced a range of materials and documents, according to former law enforcement officials. It would include records of various witness interviews and details that could span well beyond information that was relevant to the criminal charges brought against Epstein and Maxwell.

"People volunteer whatever they want and and sometimes people are very vocal, and they tell you personal things that have nothing to do with the investigation," said Katherine Schweit, a former FBI special agent and former Illinois state prosecutor.

That could mean the files contain information or allegations dealing with third parties who have never been charged with a crime.

In a news release in February, the Justice Department said it planned to release "thousands of pages" of never-before-disclosed documents after reviewing and redacting them to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims.

In a memo in July, however, the department reversed course and said no further disclosure was warranted.

Trump was reportedly told in May that he is named multiple time in the files. Trump and Epstein were friends for many years, living near each other and partying together as far back as the early 1990s. Archived video footage and photos revealed by CNN July 22 show Epstein attending Trump's wedding to his second wife, Marla Maples, at the Plaza Hotel in 1993.

The two men's friendship ended in about 2004, around the time they battled over an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion, according to The Washington Post. Trump recently said he banned Epstein from his Florida Mar-a-Lago club because Epstein "stole" staffers from the spa, including Virginia Giuffre, a well-known victim of Epstein who died by suicide earlier this year.

Will grand jury transcripts cover the Epstein files?

The grand jury transcripts requested by the Justice Department probably amount to just a sliver of what the FBI has in its possession, Epner said.

"Grand jury testimony – while it could be, in theory, very broad – in this case, is very narrow," Epner said.

A federal judge in Florida already rejected the Justice Department's request for the release of grand jury transcripts from around 2006. Two separate requests for the grand jury transcripts that led to charges against Epstein and Maxwell in New York more than a decade later are still pending.

Epner explained that grand jury materials are just a subset of the work product the FBI and DOJ likely put together in the course of their Epstein-related investigations. And the Justice Department isn't even seeking all grand jury materials – only the grand jury transcripts. That wouldn't include, for instance, bank records obtained through a grand jury subpoena.

Theoretically, a list of grand jury witnesses can be long. Prosecutors may call many witnesses before a grand jury so they can be confident of what the witnesses will say under oath at trial. Some grand juries also conduct investigations and call a wide range of witnesses for that purpose.

But that's not what happened in Maxwell and Epstein's New York criminal cases. Only two witnesses testified before the grand juries, according to the Justice Department. They were an FBI agent and a New York police detective who, at the time, was working with the FBI's Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. Those witnesses summarized what interview subjects said.

That means the transcripts wouldn't include direct testimony from victims. It also suggests the grand jury processes in the two cases were streamlined rather than sprawling.

In addition, if the Manhattan federal court agrees to release the transcripts, the Justice Department has said it plans to redact not just victim-related information, but also "other personal identifying information." That may mean blocking out identifiers for third parties tied to Epstein – the type of people whom members of the public may want to investigate as potential clients of Epstein.

"I don't think the people that are behind all this, people that are have so much of an outcry about this, that they're going to be satisfied with just grand jury information, unless they don't know what it is," said Rick Smith, a former FBI special agent who now provides investigative services to law firms.

That doesn't mean the grand jury transcripts couldn't contain revelations. Schweit noted that court rules that restrict testimony at trial are relaxed before grand juries, so the jurors who charged Maxwell and Epstein may have heard things that weren't discussed at Maxwell's public trial in 2021.

"You might include in a grand jury somebody's criminal background, or ask questions about where they went to college and who their roommates were, and did they know this person or that person? Some things that in a regular court might be hearsay, it might be secondary information," Schweit said.

Why not release the files?

There are arguments against releasing the files. The Justice Department has said its review of the files didn't produce evidence to justify investigating anyone who hasn't been charged already. Assuming that was a fair assessment of the evidence, releasing the files could unfairly tie third parties to Epstein's suspected crimes.

"The thing that happens with something like this is there are a lot of people out there that are scared to death of this thing, who had nothing to do with anything untoward," Smith said.

Trump isn't the only famous person who has been tied to Epstein in ways that fueled speculation – without proof – of Epstein-related criminal conduct. Former President Bill Clinton flew repeatedly on Epstein's private jet, according to flight logs reported on by The Palm Beach Post. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with Epstein dozens of times and also took flights on the jet, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. Others may simply have been present at one of the many glamorous parties Epstein attended in his social heyday.

If the Justice Department one day finds new evidence and concludes investigating someone else is appropriate, releasing the evidence it has could jeopardize that investigation. There is no statute of limitations that would restrict federal prosecutors from going after someone else for suspected sex trafficking.

"We want to ensure that we can continue to truthfully look for whether somebody is guilty or innocent, whether further investigation needs to be done," Schweit said.

Still, releasing the files also could clear people who have come under suspicion in some corners of the court of public opinion. Actor Kevin Spacey, who – according to Law & Crime – acknowledged in court testimony flying on Epstein's plane along with Clinton, wants the files released so he can clear his name.

"Release the Epstein files. All of them," Spacey, 65, posted on X July 15. "For those of us with nothing to fear, the truth can't come soon enough. I hate to make this about me – but the media already has."

And part of what makes the Epstein-related investigations different is the level and spread of conspiracy theories surrounding how Epstein died and who may have also been involved in his crimes. Several members of Trump's own administration fanned the flames of those conspiracy theories for years.

Now, those same officials are facing a wide segment of the public that doesn't trust that all investigative leads have been followed.

"If there wasn't so much of an outcry that there was a conspiracy, I don't think we'd be where we are right now," Smith said. "But now that the people that had the most say about it are in the position to do something about it, it becomes a problem."