Internet users were incensed on Thursday after a much anticipated but ultimately disappointing public release of records related to the late financier and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein didn’t yield the clear, damning list of names many right-wing influencers had been expecting.
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“The #Epsteinfiles are a total joke,” conservative political commentator Glenn Beck posted on X, reflecting widespread sentiment. “I know [FBI Director] Kash [Patel], [Attorney General] Pam B[ondi] and The President. This is not the file. [The White House] tells me that they believe the usual suspects FBI/SDNY has the actual #EpsteinClientList and are refusing to turn it over.”
But longtime close watchers of Epstein and his legal ordeal made the case in a series of posts on X that such a list may never emerge.
Julie K. Brown, the award-winning Miami Herald journalist known for her investigations into Epstein and his associates, asserted: “There is no Jeffrey Epstein client list. Period. It’s a figment of the internet’s imagination—and a means to just slander people.”
Brown noted that many of the names of people tied to Epstein are already known. “This list has been public since 2015. All one has to do is Google it,” she said in one post. “Epstein’s black book was public so long ago that it’s even on Amazon,” she said in another.
Brown characterized the underwhelming release on Thursday as a “smokescreen,” but she also said the government does have a known cache of files related to Epstein’s cases that it hasn’t made public and could. “The FBI also has hundreds of other documents in its vault (vault.fbi.gov) that are redacted. The Miami Herald and other media has repeatedly asked the FBI to justify these massive redactions and lift them so the public can judge for themselves how the case was handled.”
Jacob Shamsian, Business Insider’s legal correspondent who has also covered Epstein for years, made similar points. “I should also point out that the ‘Jeffrey Epstein client list’ does not exist and makes no sense on multiple levels (you think he made a list???). But if Pam Bondi wants to prove me wrong, I welcome it,” he posted.
Shamsian shared a thread outlining his previous reporting and explaining how much of what people are asking for has actually already been disclosed in years prior. “The ‘flight logs’ people have asked about have been public for years. Business Insider even cleaned up the data, put it in a searchable format, and made infographics!” he said in one post.
Like Brown, Shamsian also suggested that, while a “list” may not exist, there are certainly many records that have yet to be made publicly available. “They have tens of thousands of pages. They have pictures and probably video,” Shamsian posted.
“I would love it if the Justice Department published records the FBI seized when they arrested Epstein and raided his properties in 2019. I’ve filed FOIA requests for those records and have been denied. Hopefully, @AGPamBondi will make them public,” Shamsian said in another post, admitting, however, that he’s “cynical” it will happen.
Brown also seemed cynical. “You will never see the names of Epstein’s clients. They came from all sides of the political spectrum—and the only thing they probably had in common was their ability to use their wealth to silence the truth,” she responded to a user on X.
Both Brown and Shamsian suggested the pomp surrounding the release of Epstein-related records was a politically-motivated excuse for the Trump Administration to target the Southern District of New York (SDNY), the federal prosecutor’s office that previously investigated Donald Trump.
“It looks like Pam Bondi will instead use the ‘Epstein Files’ vaporware as an excuse to fire a bunch of people from the FBI field office in New York,” Shamsian posted after the Attorney General sent a letter blaming the FBI for withholding records.
“After watching how Fox and MAGA influencers are spinning this Epstein fiasco today—that this may all be a set up to go after the SDNY,” Brown posted. “It’s not as much a distraction as it is an effort to discredit and ‘investigate’ the NY FBI office,” she also posted.
Other social media users agreed with Brown and Shamsian about the likely nonexistence of an “Epstein list.”
Journalist and influencer Yashar Ali suggested in multiple posts that vexation with the media was misplaced, claiming that the demand for such a list—or similar files in other high-profile investigations such as the case against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs—have been drummed up by a “fantasy” of Trump supporters. “Selfishly as a reporter who has long covered sexual misconduct it would be a goldmine,” Ali added. “But sorry, you’ve been misled by people with power and knowledge. And people telling you the reality aren’t involved in covering up, they’re wanting you to come to grips with reality!”
A.G. Hamilton, a pseudonymous commentator and licensed attorney, suggested that the idea of an “Epstein list” was likely spun up as an attention grab, but has no basis in reality: “Have you guys considered that there was never such a thing as an ‘Epstein list’ and some people played it up because a conspiracy that implicates a ton of powerful people has a lot of entertainment value?”
Conservative talk show host Erick Erickson agreed, posting, “Many people will be disappointed and convinced of a cover up because they believed the internet.” He added that much of the online discourse surrounding the so-called “Epstein files” is the stuff of “urban legends sprung to life on social media.”
