Mystery surrounds Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata after Bondi claims ‘tens of hundreds’ of movies

The remark, made to reporters on the White House days after the same comment to a stranger with a hidden digital camera, raised the stakes for President Donald Trump’s administration to show it has in its possession beforehand unseen compelling proof.

That process is all of the extra urgent after an earlier doc dump that Bondi hyped angered components of Trump’s base by failing to ship new bombshells and as administration officers who had promised to unlock supposed secrets and techniques of the so-called authorities “deep state” wrestle to meet that pledge.

Yet weeks after Bondi’s remarks, it stays unclear what she was referring to.

The Associated Press spoke with attorneys and regulation enforcement officers in felony circumstances of Epstein and socialite former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell who mentioned they hadn’t seen and did not know of a trove of recordings like what Bondi described.

Indictments and detention memos don’t reference the existence of movies of Epstein with kids, and neither was charged with possession of kid intercourse abuse materials despite the fact that that offense would have been a lot simpler to show than the intercourse trafficking counts they confronted.

One potential clue might lie in a little-noticed 2023 courtroom submitting — amongst a whole lot of paperwork reviewed by the AP — wherein Epstein’s property was revealed to have situated an unspecified variety of movies and images that it mentioned may comprise baby intercourse abuse materials. But even that continues to be shrouded in secrecy with attorneys concerned in that civil case saying a protecting order prevents them from discussing it.

The submitting suggests a discovery of recordings after the felony circumstances had concluded, but when that is what Bondi was referencing, the Justice Department has not mentioned.

The division declined repeated requests from the AP to talk with officers overseeing the Epstein evaluate. Spokespeople didn’t reply an inventory of questions on Bondi’s feedback, together with when and the place the recordings have been procured, what they depict and whether or not they have been newly found as authorities dug by way of their proof assortment or have been recognized for a while to have been within the authorities’s possession.

“Outside sources who make assertions about supplies included within the DOJ’s evaluate can’t converse to what supplies are included within the DOJ’s evaluate,” spokesperson Chad Gilmartin mentioned in a press release.

Bondi has confronted stress after first launch fell in need of expectations

Epstein’s crimes, high-profile connections and jailhouse suicide have made the case a magnet for conspiracy theorists and on-line sleuths searching for proof of a coverup. Elon Musk entered the frenzy throughout his acrimonious fallout with Trump when he mentioned with out proof in a since-deleted social media publish that the rationale the Epstein recordsdata have but to be launched is that the Republican president is featured in them.

During a Fox News Channel interview in February, Bondi prompt an alleged Epstein “consumer listing” was sitting on her desk. The subsequent day, the Justice Department distributed binders marked “declassified” to far-right influencers on the White House, nevertheless it shortly turned clear a lot of the data had lengthy been within the public area. No “consumer listing” was disclosed, and there isn’t any proof such a doc exists.

The flop left conservatives fuming and didn’t extinguish conspiracy theories that for years have spiralled round Epstein’s case. Right wing-personality Laura Loomer known as on Bondi to resign, branding her a “whole liar.”

Afterward, Bondi mentioned an FBI “supply” knowledgeable her of the existence of hundreds of pages of beforehand undisclosed paperwork and ordered the bureau to supply the “full and full Epstein recordsdata,” together with any movies. Employees since then have logged hours reviewing data to organize them for launch. It’s unclear when which may occur.

In April, Bondi was approached in a restaurant by a lady with a hidden digital camera who requested concerning the standing of the Epstein recordsdata launch. Bondi replied that there have been tens of hundreds of movies “and it is all with little children,” so she mentioned the FBI needed to undergo each.

After conservative activist James O’Keefe, who obtained and later publicised the hidden-camera video, alerted the Justice Department to the encounter, Bondi informed reporters on the White House: “There are tens of hundreds of movies of Epstein with kids or baby porn.”

The feedback tapped into long-held suspicions that, regardless of the discharge through the years of hundreds of data documenting Epstein’s actions, damaging particulars about him or different outstanding figures stay hid.

The state of affairs was additional muddied by latest feedback from FBI Director Kash Patel to podcaster Joe Rogan that didn’t repeat Bondi’s account about tens of hundreds of movies.

Though not requested explicitly about Bondi, Patel dismissed the potential for incriminating movies of highly effective Epstein buddies, saying, “If there was a video of some man or gal committing felonies on an island and I’m in cost, do not you suppose you’d see it?” Asked whether or not the narrative “may not be correct that there is video of those guys doing this,” he replied, “Exactly.”

Epstein took his personal life earlier than he might stand trial

Epstein’s suicide in August 2019, weeks after his arrest, prevented a trial in New York and lower quick the invention course of wherein proof is shared amongst attorneys.

But even in a subsequent prosecution of Maxwell, wherein such proof would presumably have been related given the character of the accusations towards an alleged co-conspirator, salacious movies of Epstein with kids by no means surfaced nor have been a part of the case, mentioned one in all her attorneys.

“We have been by no means supplied with any of these supplies. I think in the event that they existed, we’d have seen them, and I’ve by no means seen them, so I do not know what she’s speaking about,” mentioned Jeffrey Pagliuca, who represented Maxwell in a 2021 trial wherein she was convicted of luring teenage women to be molested by Epstein.

To make certain, images of nude or seminude women have lengthy been recognized to be a part of the case. Investigators recovered presumably hundreds of such footage whereas looking his Manhattan mansion, and a video recorded walk-through by regulation enforcement of his Palm Beach, Florida, dwelling revealed sexually suggestive images displayed inside, courtroom data present.

Accounts from multiple accuser of feeling watched or seeing cameras or surveillance tools in Epstein’s properties have contributed to public expectations of sexual recordings.

A 2020 Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility report on the dealing with of an earlier Epstein investigation hinted at that chance, saying police who searched his Palm Beach dwelling in 2005 discovered laptop keyboards, screens and disconnected surveillance cameras, however the tools — together with video recordings and different digital gadgets — was lacking.

There’s no indication prosecutors obtained any lacking tools through the later federal investigation, and the indictment towards him included no recording allegations.

An AP evaluate of a whole lot of paperwork within the Maxwell and Epstein felony circumstances recognized no reference to tens of hundreds of movies of Epstein with underage women.

“I do not recall personally ever having that sort of dialogue,” mentioned one Epstein lawyer, Marc Fernich, who could not rule out such proof wasn’t situated later. “It’s not one thing I ever heard about.”

In one nonspecific reference to video proof, prosecutors mentioned in a 2020 submitting that they’d produce to Maxwell’s attorneys hundreds of photos and movies from Epstein’s digital gadgets in response to a warrant.

But Pagliuca mentioned his recollection was these movies consisted largely of recordings wherein Epstein was “musing” right into a recording gadget — “Epstein speaking to Epstein,” he mentioned.

A revelation from the Epstein property

Complicating efforts to evaluate the Epstein proof is the amount of accusers, courtroom circumstances and districts the place authorized wrangling has occurred, together with after Epstein’s suicide and Maxwell’s conviction.

The circumstances embrace 2022 lawsuits in Manhattan’s federal courtroom from an accuser recognized as Jane Doe 1 and within the US Virgin Islands, the place Epstein had a house, alleging that monetary companies large JPMorgan Chase didn’t heed crimson flags about him being a “high-risk” buyer.

Lawyers issued a subpoena for any video recordings or images that might bolster their case.

They informed a decide months later the Epstein property had alerted them that it had discovered content material that “may comprise baby intercourse abuse imagery” whereas responding to the subpoena and requested a protocol for dealing with “video recorded materials and pictures.”

The decide ordered representatives of Epstein’s property to evaluate the supplies earlier than producing them to attorneys and to alert the FBI to doable baby sexual abuse imagery.

Court filings do not element the proof or say what number of movies or photos have been discovered, and it is unclear whether or not the recordings Bondi referenced have been the identical ones.

The property’s disclosure was later included by a plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jennifer Freeman, in a criticism to the FBI and the Justice Department asserting that investigators had failed through the years to adequately accumulate potential proof of kid intercourse abuse materials.

Freeman cited Bondi’s feedback in a brand new lawsuit on behalf of an Epstein accuser who alleges he assaulted her in 1996. In an interview, Freeman mentioned she had not seen recordings and had no direct data however wished to know what Bondi meant.

“I need to know what she’s addressing, what’s she speaking about — I’d wish to know that,” she mentioned.