The FBI has redacted President Donald Trump’s name from the notorious Jeffrey Epstein files, sources familiar with the matter told reporters.
The bureau’s FOIA team blacked out Trump and other public figures before higher-ups concluded that releasing the documents “would not be appropriate or warranted.”
The files include grand jury testimony, prosecutor case files, and tens of thousands of investigative records spanning nearly two decades.
DOJ and FBI officials applied FOIA exemptions to justify the redactions.
Exemption 6 shields individuals from “a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” while Exemption 7(C) protects personal information in law enforcement records.
“The appearance of Trump’s name or others in the Epstein files is not evidence of a crime or even a suggestion of wrongdoing,” a source said.
The decision sparked fury among Trump supporters, who saw the redactions as a deliberate cover-up, per Bloomberg News.
Pam Bondi, who currently serves as attorney general, criticized the move last year.
“If people in that report are still fighting to keep their names private, they have no legal basis to do so, unless they’re a child, a victim, or a cooperating defendant,” she said.
Bondi previously hosted a public event to release roughly 200 pages of the files, claiming they would contain “previously undisclosed details about Epstein.”
The rollout failed because most documents had already been made public during Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, including Epstein’s “black book” containing Trump’s name.
FBI director Kash Patel previously promised the Senate that the public would see “the full weight of what happened.”
Yet the redactions indicate the administration fell short of that pledge.
FOIA employees reportedly combed through more than 100,000 documents, working around the clock to determine what could be released. Michael Seidel, chief of the FBI’s Record/Information Dissemination Section, opposed some of the directives and quietly retired under pressure.
This is not unusual for high-profile figures. DOJ and FBI have historically redacted the names of public officials in law enforcement files unless disclosure is necessary to prove government misconduct.
Experts say Trump’s name is unlikely to be unredacted unless he waives his privacy rights or eventually passes away.
Trump has publicly pushed back.
On Truth Social, he blamed Democrats for the “fake Epstein scandal” and accused the administration of “gaslighting” his supporters. Influential podcaster Joe Rogan also called the redactions a cover-up, stoking anger among the president’s base.
The Epstein saga continues to stir controversy but the FBI’s decision underscores that even the sitting president can be shielded by privacy exemptions in law enforcement records.
“While we have labored to provide the public with maximum information regarding Epstein, it is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,” a joint DOJ-FBI statement said in July.
The files’ release or continued secrecy will remain a hot-button issue as the debate over transparency and presidential privacy intensifies.
The post FBI Redacted Trump’s Name From the Epstein Files appeared first on Resist the Mainstream.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Anthony Gonzalez
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://resistthemainstream.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
