Conspiracy theorists, amateur investigators, and online cranks of all sorts were livid on Thursday as they came to realize that documents related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein released by the Trump administration in a highly publicized spectacle contained zero new information — despite promises of bombshell revelations. Their shock resembled nothing so much as Charlie Brown’s surprise when Lucy pulls the football out from under him yet again.
Largely overlooking Trump’s own long and well-documented friendship with Epstein, the wealthy financier who died by suicide in 2019 after he was arrested and charged with the sex trafficking of minors, the president’s conspiracist supporters have spent years clamoring for supposed materials proving that liberals and Democratic politicians were clients of his sex trafficking operation and, potentially, targets of alleged blackmail schemes. There is, as yet, no evidence that such a “list” exists.
But that has left MAGA diehards, particularly those with a paranoid worldview informed by QAnon-style fantasies of a secret child-abuse cabal, to run wild with speculation about names that they believe will appear on the so-called “Epstein list,” whenever it becomes public. In an attempt to satisfy their unrealistic demands, alongside the declassification of files related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., the White House and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hyped the release of Epstein files they claimed would shed more light on his crimes. Bondi teased the document drop last week, saying that she had them “on her desk,” and on Wednesday evening stopped by Fox News to announce that the “pretty sick” documents, which contained “a lot of information,” would be out on Thursday.
In addition to posting the files online, the Justice Department printed and bound them in binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase One,” which it then distributed to a handful of loyalist Trumpworld influencers and misinformation superspreaders, including the individuals behind the far-right X account DC Draino and Libs of TikTok, Pizzagate promoters Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec, and former OANN anchor Liz Wheeler, who recently suggested that Covid-19 vaccines cause AIDS. It soon emerged that what they had received in an Oval Office meeting with Bondi, Trump, Vice President JD Vance and FBI Director Kash Patel was far from revelatory: the partially redacted pages were well-known logs from Epstein’s private jet, which shuttled between homes in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, and his private island, Little Saint James, and contacts from Epstein’s address book, which has been public since 2015. Julie K. Brown, who has covered the Epstein case in painstaking detail for years at the Miami Herald, pointed out on X that you can currently buy a copy of this notorious “little black book,” which includes entries for Trump, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz and Alec Baldwin, among many other recognizable names, on Amazon.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, chairwoman of the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, was among the first to cry foul. “I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today,” she wrote on X, noting that a New York Post article “just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein’s phonebook. THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment. GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!” Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer was similarly incensed at what she saw as an empty stunt. “THE BINDERS ARE PROPS,” she raged in a post on X. “EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE RIGHT WING PAID INFLUENCERS LIED TO ALL OF YOU TODAY! THEY ENGAGED IN DECEPTION TO RUN COVER FOR PEDOPHILES!!!”
While a few influencers dutifully tried to spin the documents in the binders as a meaningful disclosure, they were met with harsh criticisms of how the rollout had been handled and irate questions as to why Bondi had not made them available online, even though the DOJ had. (Chaya Raichik, the woman behind Libs of TikTok, worked with Loomer to scan and upload them to a file-sharing site, while Loomer continued to falsely attack Bondi for not doing so herself — and observing that she had been the state Attorney General of Florida from 2011 to 2019, a period when Epstein’s flight logs and more evidence of his crimes came to light.) Wheeler, meanwhile, was candid as to what a letdown the binder had been. “We’re all waiting for juicy stuff,” she said in a livestream about court documents pertaining to the sexual abuse of hundreds of underage girls. “And that’s not what’s in this binder. That’s not what’s in this binder at all. And that’s exactly how the attorney general presented it to us.” She told her viewers that they “should feel frustrated.”
The far-right X account “End Wokeness,” which has been linked to Posobiec, vented that frustration by posting a picture of a skeleton at a laptop with the caption “Waiting for Epstein clients to face justice.” The author of the account also proposed dispensing with the publication of client list and having the Justice Department “hunt down and round up Epstein clients like they did to January 6ers.” Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy took to X to ask, “Why is the release of the Epstein list always a shit show?” A large cryptocurrency-promoting account that endlessly praises Elon Musk (and is often amplified by the billionaire in the bargain) shared a meme that depicted Trump as a grim reaper that, after killing “illegal immigration” and “bureaucracy,” was now doing the same to the fabled “Epstein files.”
Even the author of a prominent misinformation account on X said of the phone contact pages: “I’m pretty sure we’ve seen all this… but there’s nothing incriminating. These names should not be portrayed as a client list.” Elsewhere, like many others, they took aim at the influencers selected to receive the binders, some of whom had posed with them for photographers outside the White House, writing, “imagine holding in your hands a binder with horrific pedophile crimes and you’re smiling like you’re going to prom.”
Amid all this consternation, the official account for Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee attempted to make light of the situation with an X post that blared, “#BREAKING: EPSTEIN FILES RELEASED.” The link that followed redirected to the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” — an internet bait-and-switch prank called “rickrolling” that was popular in the in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The gag drew further outrage from right-wingers and accusations that the GOP was failing in its commitment to transparency while treating the horrific Epstein saga (and his victims) as a joke.
Perhaps anticipating the negative reactions to “The Epstein Files: Phase One,” Bondi also circulated a letter she sent to Patel at the FBI on Thursday, in which she alleged that the bureau had withheld more documents when she initially made her request for them, before he had assumed the role of director, and handed over only what eventually appeared in the binders. “I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request and was repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents,” she wrote. “Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files. When you and I spoke yesterday, you were just as surprised as I was to learn this new information.” The letter goes on to demand delivery of “all records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients” to Bondi’s office by 8am on Friday.
In a response on X that did not directly mention Epstein, Patel wrote, “The FBI is entering a new era—one that will be defined by integrity, accountability, and the unwavering pursuit of justice. There will be no cover-ups, no missing documents, and no stone left unturned — and anyone from the prior or current Bureau who undermines this will be swiftly pursued.” He further vowed to “bring everything we find to the DOJ to be fully assessed and transparently disseminated to the American people as it should be.”
Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee also advanced the narrative of a coverup within the FBI, sending Bondi a memo in which he said he would take legislative action to protect any Epstein files. He wrote that “upon hearing reports that certain FBI agents are allegedly attempting to destroy critical records, I am currently drafting legislation entitled the Preventing Epstein Documentation Obliteration Act, or the PEDO Act.”
It seems, then, that Trump officials and Republicans on Capitol Hill have arrived at a nice excuse for the latest “Epstein list” debacle: nefarious deep state agents are, according to people who control the entire government, holding the most explosive content hostage in some hidden archive, and the MAGA faithful will have to embark on a wild goose chase to find it. Too bad for those impatient to learn more sordid details and see new prosecutions: this could take a while.
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