5 Rules for Reading the Epstein Files

A very predictable feeding frenzy is upon us as the deadline arrives for the Justice Department’s production of the so-called Epstein files. A little guidance is in order for those trying to follow along and make sense of it all.

The law signed by President Donald Trump requires DOJ to release the files by Friday. The administration could flout the law, of course, but even fully complying could take days or weeks because of the sheer volume of documents to release. The government reportedly has more than 300 gigabytes of data in its possession from the investigation, including data from dozens of electronic devices, paper documents, flight and boat trip logs, financial records and other documents produced in response to subpoenas. On top of that are hundreds of pages of FBI interview summaries, as well as internal DOJ communications and correspondence. (The Justice Department has also said a sizable portion of the material retrieved from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his devices also includes child pornography and child sex abuse material, which will not be released.)

The release of raw files from a years-long, high-profile criminal investigation is an unprecedented event and will mark the latest turn in an erratic, eyebrow-raising approach from the Trump administration. It’s worth pausing to consider what we may be getting, what the limitations of that material are and, more broadly, how we should responsibly approach it.

Whatever emerges is unlikely to put an end to the endless swirl of Epstein-related conspiracy theories. After all, there are still substantial numbers of Americans — 20 percent based on a 2023 poll — who believe that the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, despite a thorough investigation by one of the most well-regarded government commissions in modern American history. Indeed, it is possible that this release will only perpetuate those conspiracy theories and provide fodder for even more of them for years to come.

With that said, below are five basic rules to help you navigate the potentially explosive episode headed our way.

Rule #1

Don’t Read the Files

If you’re reading this, you might be eager to dive in and rummage around for salacious nuggets of information when they land, but have you ever considered simply not doing that?

As an investigative matter, it is perilous business to pluck information — even something as simple as an email communication — from a large body of material and assume that you can fully understand it.

Before jumping to any definitive conclusions, you would ideally want to review the full tranche of communications between the individuals during the relevant period. You would also want to speak to the individuals on the communications (and perhaps those whose conduct may be referenced in those communications). And you would want to undertake efforts to corroborate events of interest through additional outside evidence, including other witnesses and documentary evidence. Otherwise, you run the risk of misinterpreting or over-interpreting the limited information available to you

You obviously cannot do all that, so your best bet is to trust serious reporters and media outlets with a track record of reporting deeply and responsibly on Epstein. They are far better positioned than most to put the information in its proper context (both temporal and substantive) and to accurately integrate it into the voluminous information that we already have about this grim saga.

On a related note, avoid random social media accounts and screenshots. We may see people deploy this material for craven political and personal purposes, including to destroy reputations through selective or misleading extracts. We could even see people doctor documents or produce entirely fake ones to take people down.

Rule #2

Understand What Kind of Documents You Are Reading

After House Democrats recently released some Epstein emails, one of the more bizarre features was seeing so many people take Epstein’s own words at face value.

Some particularly seized on an email that Epstein sent to the writer Michael Wolff in 2019 stating that “of course he [Trump] knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.” This may or may not be true, and Wolff hasn’t responded to questions about it, but Epstein is literally the least credible person possible on this topic, and at the time, he had plenty of reason to put Trump (then the sitting president) in the blast radius in the event of his arrest.

In other words, it’s important to understand your factual sources, their biases and their limitations. That’s particularly important depending on the type of document you’re reviewing.

The documents likely to attract some of the closest attention are the FBI’s interview memos — known as 302s in law enforcement parlance — but you cannot simply presume that their contents are true.

These memos summarize what witnesses told the FBI in voluntary interviews, and although the witnesses can be prosecuted for perjury if they lie, it is difficult in practice to do this. On top of that, people are very eager (for obvious reasons) to point the finger at others and to downplay their own potential involvement in the conduct at issue. They are also free to speculate.

In short, the FBI’s interview memos are supposed to be straightforward accounts of what the witnesses said — not whether those things are true or not. They typically do not include credibility determinations, even if the government believes that the witness was lying or otherwise unreliable. They also do not typically contain annotations that note contradictions even with evidence that is already in the government’s possession. And they do not specify whether the government attempted — and perhaps even failed — to corroborate the witness’s claims. This is one reason why 302s are not typically released to the public at all.

Tread carefully.

Rule #3

Remember: Sleazy Behavior Isn’t Criminal

There is a difference between being liable for criminal conduct and engaging in embarrassing, even morally offensive conduct.

The principal purpose of releasing the files was supposed to be to reveal the elites who participated in Epstein’s crimes but evaded accountability — but already, we are very far afield from that concept. You may detest former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers or find his sleazy behavior sleazy, but there is no reason to believe that he engaged in criminal misconduct.

That distinction is worth maintaining. You are free to harshly judge Summers — or anyone else for that matter — for being close with Epstein, particularly after his 2008 conviction, but being friends with a felon is not a crime. If someone was aware of Epstein’s continuing misconduct and did nothing about it, that would be terrible as a matter of basic human decency, but that is a heavily fact-dependent analysis, and even so, it would not rise to the level of criminal misconduct unless that person knowingly facilitated or concealed the misconduct.

There is a potent risk of literal guilt-by-association that is important to avoid.

This is not an idle matter, or part of some effort to downplay what might be revealed in the days and weeks to come. This is about maintaining the integrity of the American legal system, which Trump has corrupted all year by repeatedly calling for the prosecution of his political opponents on grounds ranging from tenuous to nonexistent. Trump has already pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi to launch criminal investigations of adversaries for their alleged dealings with Epstein, which she agreed to with alacrity.

The fact that some of Trump’s efforts to abuse the criminal justice system have been so professionally inept that they are already imploding is not terribly surprising, but it is important to remain vigilant on this score. The government should not be prosecuting people — or threatening to prosecute people — who did not commit actual crimes.

Rule #4

Be Skeptical of the Early Releases

It’s critical to remember that there’s nothing that prevents the Trump DOJ from trying to manipulate the flow of information — for instance, by frontloading early releases with material that is particularly harmful to Trump’s political opposition.

The administration could also produce seemingly damaging information about people early on, only to release exculpatory material later in the process — after much of the damage will already have been done — and could selectively withhold material on the grounds that it would impede an ongoing investigation or harm national security.

The Trump administration has forfeited the benefit of the doubt here given their months of reversals, hemming, hawing, backtracking and deflecting.

Trump, Vice President JD Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel and other Trump administration officials fanned the flames of the Epstein conspiracy theories for years. They did that again after entering office, only to reverse course in July with a terse memo that concluded that there was no Epstein “client list” and that Epstein had killed himself — in the process, effectively debunking themselves.

In the meantime — and perhaps not coincidentally — Bondi reportedly told Trump at a briefing in May that his name appears multiple times in the documents, and more new information emerged in public tying Epstein to Trump. Trump made transparent efforts at deflection — claiming falsely that Democrats and the media had created the frenzy around Epstein — and the DOJ wasted both time and taxpayer dollars interviewing Epstein co-conspirator and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in prison.

More recently, Bondi agreed at Trump’s direction to open a criminal investigation into Epstein’s ties to prominent Democrats. This is despite the conclusion from the joint DOJ/FBI memo in July that they “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” Somehow, Bondi said recently, they had discovered “new information.”

These are not the hallmarks of an earnest effort to provide the public with accurate and comprehensive information untainted by politics.

Rule #5

Ask Yourself: Where’s Trump?

Last but most certainly not least, ask yourself where the material is that refers to Trump himself.

Ironically, this is the material that — on the merits — could be released the earliest. That is because Trump and Bondi have made clear that Trump is out of the scope of whatever constitutes the DOJ’s new criminal investigation; they have no legal basis to withhold information that pertains to Trump because doing so would not impede any investigation.

On top of that, FBI agents were reportedly instructed this year to flag any references to Trump in the files. If that is true, that should make it a very simple matter to pull and produce this material to the public with appropriate redactions to protect the privacy of victims.

Needless to say, we should not expect the Trump administration to prominently produce this information given their handling of all this to date — as well as Bondi’s own, over-the-top personal and political dedication to Trump. For all we know, they may never produce it — or at least not all of it. (Yes, the law mandates this disclosure, but there are plenty of laws that the Trump administration has simply decided to ignore.)

If material pertaining to Trump is not produced early, there is reason to believe that the Trump administration is engaged in a (continuing) cover-up of information that would be harmful to the president. That is reason alone to be cautious about jumping to conclusions about other political and media figures.

If we are going to render judgments about the proximity of prominent figures to Epstein, the place to start is with the most powerful person in the world.