Everyone Take a Victory Lap… and a Breath

I’m off to San Francisco and banging this out quickly in the airport lounge, so excuse both the brevity and the inevitable errors!

First of all, what seemed impossible is now about to become law. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, made possible by a skin-of-our-teeth discharge petition with exactly 218 votes, passed the House nearly unanimously (we see you, lone holdout Clay Higgins), then by unanimous consent in the Senate. Trump has said he will sign it. I almost dare him to veto it!

This shows that Trump and the GOP can be beaten through tenacious insistence. Four unmovable GOP signatories on the petition led to Trump giving up his campaign to prevent their release, and with his blessing the GOP piled on so that they wouldn’t get clobbered as “pedophile protectors” in the midterms next year.

But but but… he’s never going to actually release the documents! He’ll start a new investigation! He’ll tamper with the files and remove his name from everything!

These are common concerns, some more valid than others. I am pretty sure Trump’s game plan is to use newly announced investigations into Bill Clinton, Larry Summers and Reid Hoffman, whose names also appear in the Epstein files, to argue that nothing more can come out, or to redact the files so heavily as to be unintelligible.

My somewhat counterintuitive response is, “Good.”

Let Trump appear once more to be thwarting the will of the people, and this time the entire Congress. Let it seem like he is still trying desperately to hide what is in those files, which must be really, really bad if he’s this freaked out. Instead of ripping off the band-aid, a prolonged fight over the files’ release will keep this in the headlines as victims sue for their release, hold press conferences and demand accountability.

Let this split MAGA asunder.

The Act itself only permits withholding or redaction of files if their release “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.” Notice that last part. That’s where the heat will be if Trump tries to keep evidence of his involvement out of public view. Wholesale redactions or withholding of files aren’t likely to qualify as “narrowly tailored”—and if things drag out for too long, not “temporary.”

On the question of Trump or the FBI tampering with the files (e.g., deleting instances of Trump’s name, removing video evidence, destroying images), I have significantly less worry about this than most.

Why? The “Epstein Files” isn’t some centralized database. They comprise a host of electronic and physical evidence collected by the FBI, held under seal by the courts, used in civil proceedings, and held by third parties. The core investigative files, gathered by the FBI, are subject to strict chain-of-custody controls, meaning they have electronic timestamps, evidentiary IDs, digital authentications and audit trails. That’s very hard to mess with, at least not without someone noticing.

The Epstein files are also not centrally located, but rather exist in multiple forms across multiple facilities, often sealed by court order. And there are working copies out there, as well as logs of who has what.

I very much doubt Kash Patel—who can’t even avoid headlines for using the FBI jet to visit his girlfriend—could tamper with gigabytes of cryptographically encoded, read-only data without triggering alarms and landing in prison. Anyone asked to assist in such an endeavor knows the chances of being caught are quite high, while the chance of succeeding is low.

So while it’s understandable for folks to raise the alarm about the Epstein files being messed with before they are produced, my real concern is over-redaction or withholding of key items, not actual evidence tampering.

I hope that’s helpful information to keep this in perspective. I may ask Joyce Vance on Thursday to speak more about this, because as a federal prosecutor she would know better than I how difficult it would be for tampering to occur undetected. We’ll be speaking in a livestream on Thursday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET if you’d like to tune in! A reminder email will go out at the launch of the stream so you can join us for what is bound to be a lively discussion.

Jay