Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump said he was inclined to release more information from the federal investigations into his former friend Jeffrey Epstein. And on February 21, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she was on the verge of declassifying files on the convicted sex offender, who died in prison while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
“It’s on my desk right now to review,” Bondi said. “That’s been a directive by President Trump.”
Days later, Bondi angered people across the political spectrum when conservative influencers exited the White House brandishing binders filled with what turned out to be previously released Epstein information. Bondi then tried to shift the blame to the FBI’s New York field office. The head of that office, James Dennehy, who had angered the Trump administration for non-Epstein-related reasons, said he was forced to submit his resignation a day later.
So now, the Trump administration is trying to move on from this debacle by swinging far in the opposite direction: Rather than throwing together a binder that contains too little information, the FBI has a jaw-dropping number of agents focused on the Epstein files instead of their regular, extremely important work.
Perhaps you’re picturing 50 or even 100 agents sifting through Epstein documents. But ABC News reports you need to think a lot bigger:
As many as a thousand FBI agents, many of whom are usually focusing on national-security matters, have been enlisted to help with the effort, sources said.
Sources told ABC News that Bondi pressured FBI Director Kash Patel in “tense private exchanges” to prioritize the release of more Epstein files, so now agents are working around the clock to make it happen:
Justice Department officials have made it clear to others throughout the Trump administration that it is now a top priority of the attorney general to sort through the materials related to Epstein and decide what can be publicly disclosed in the days ahead, sources said, and FBI agents have been told to expect to work on this into the early morning hours.
The DOJ and FBI both released statements downplaying reports of tension between the agencies, saying they are working together to deliver “transparency” for the American people.
But Vanity Fair reported that the FBI’s New York office is bearing a lot of the pressure from the Justice Department, with dozens of agents focused on reviewing and redacting sensitive information from Epstein-related documents rather than doing less important tasks, like, say, fighting terrorism and drug trafficking:
“It’s literally all hands on deck,” one source familiar with the matter tells me, adding that dozens and dozens of agents are working around the clock on the case, instead of on their regular duties. “I even saw an agent walking in with a pillow,” the source added.
The New York field office is an epicenter for FBI counterintelligence, counterterrorism, public corruption, international drug trafficking, and financial crime investigations. The redeployment of agents to comb over the file of the notorious sex trafficker Epstein, who died nearly six years ago, is an indication of the Justice Department priorities in this second Trump administration. One FBI veteran calls it a “ludicrous” situation.
But at least this “ludicrous” scramble will pay off when we all get our hands on the fabled “Epstein client list”? Don’t bet on it, reports ABC News:
Sources tell ABC News that the Justice Department’s national security division is devoting many of their resources to the effort, despite some top law enforcement officials believing that the information Bondi is demanding be reviewed contains no new revelations.
In fact, though Bondi has claimed that as a result of her efforts the FBI turned over a “truckload” of evidence on the Epstein case, some doubt that actually happened. Per Vanity Fair:
The FBI veteran noted that this was an odd way for Bondi to describe the matter. “There’s no master file in the New York office. That doesn’t exist,” the veteran added. “There’s not some crusty agent with his feet on bankers’ boxes.”
Obviously, the public has a right to know the full extent of Epstein’s horrific crimes. But perhaps Pam Bondi making huge promises live on Fox News, then having FBI agents scramble to turn her claims into reality, isn’t the best way to go about this.
