What is in the “Epstein files”? Who created the files, and who owns them (ie, has control over whether or not they’re released?)
And how are they different from the grand jury testimony – whose release was recently sought but denied?
There are many different things which get referred to as “the Epstein Files”, some of which may or may not exist, and which, if they exist, may be in the custody of different entities, or possibly lost (i.e., existing, but nobody knows that for sure, or knows where they are).
I’d expect it to mean the files that the DOJ maintains, from their investigation and prosecution of Epstein.
That would include:
- Epstein’s personal things and records
- Witness interviews
- Other FBI reports, e.g. forensic reports, license lookup results, etc.
- Grand jury transcripts
- Trial documents (I don’t recall if it went to trial before he died, but there was also his earlier plea deal which would have involved a judge and some courtroom visits, I expect)
- Plea documents
- Warrants
- Death investigation records, evidence, and report
But, in general, it’s an Internet term, mostly as a form of gossiping and shooting the shit. It could mean pretty much anything, depending on who you’re talking to.
“The Epstein Files” is a general label for all evidence, interviews, investigator notes, and other associated information held by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) in the investigations (multiple) of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged financial and sexual crimes. This may or may not include the files developed in the Palm Beach County investigations of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell alleged sex trafficking, solicitation of minors, et cetera. The Attorney General of the DoJ has plenary authority to release the files unless there is some national security concern or violation of privacy rights of living people (HIPAA, attorney-client privilege).
Grand jury testimony and evidence is basically a minimum which is required to get a grand jury (which is empaneled to investigate and determine whether criminal charges advocated by a prosecutor should be brought to trial in a court of law) to return an indictment with a recommendation for trial (billa vera), and is generally sealed by law to prevent biasing potential jurists in a jury trial. It is probably some small subset of total evidence that just establishes a likelihood that the allegations have evidential basis to warrant a trial. Given the copious public video and photographic evidence plus the testimony of purported victims, there probably isn’t anything novel in there except perhaps for financial information.
Stranger
As an example - When, let’s say, the police arrested Epstein then raided his mansion - there would be the police reports submitted by the arresting police, the photos of the building as they found it, boxes of relevant material - paperwork, computers, photo albums, whatever that might have a bearing on the case. To arrest him, they had statements from victims, police statements about victims mentioned but not found, aircraft flight logs with passenger lists, maybe surveillance data, business and bank records (that may point to payoffs or proceeds of trafficking), cellphone records, etc. Maybe even dirty laundry… (and records form a laundry service, perhaps) I might even suspect an inventory of women’s clothes found in a bachelor’s house, categorise by size…) Quite often the items collected for a major case are massive; and they may return items like personal papers once they have copied them.
Just imagine if you were writing the script from Law & Order about his case, what you would want evidence of.
Then remember there were charges levelled in Florida, that never were properly addressed. I would not be surprised if the FBI collected those too, when the case was transferred to the feds.
Then when the expletive hit the fan, no doubt raids of the island and similar investigation and inventories there, phone and flight logs, forensics, etc. Plus follow-up to some extent about anyone involved whose name came up that might be connected to illegal activites, sexual or financial. Interviews with some of them.
A documentary I saw about the case mentioned his NYC house wired for video, and several computers with the hard drives removed. It was unclear from the documentary whether the FBI took those or if someone got there ahead of them.
Enough presumably to keep 1,000 FBI agents busy for a long time.
As an example of the type of information in some of these files the Moscow, Idaho released 314 documents developed during the investigation of the murder of the 4 University of Idaho students:
I would expect the Epstein files to include thousand of documents.
But then there’s also the possibility of things like a full client list, including who had sex with whom. Or photographic or video evidence of any of these encounters. Might these things have existed? Epstein’s business model relied at least in part on blackmail, so it’s quite possible that they did. Did law enforcement ever get their hands on any evidence so damning? Not that we know of. Maybe they exist, but Epstein hid them away so well that they’ve never been found. Maybe they did exist at one time, but Epstein or one of his associates was able to destroy them, once they saw the noose tightening. Maybe they never existed, and he was just bluffing about having them when blackmailing his clients. Maybe they exist and law enforcement did find them, but powerful people in the government have “arranged” for it not to come to light. We might say that some of these possibilities are more or less likely than others, but we can’t rule out any of them. And of course, there are some people who make assumptions about that, which is influencing the demands they’re making of the government.
For comparison, when Mary Trump sued Donald and the rest over fraud related to Trump’s father’s will (They settled for peanuts since they were told the estate was only $300M when later estimates put it well over $1B) she eventually gave the NYTimes reporters the files accumulated for the lawsuit. SHe said they were boxespiled up to the ceiling covering a wall of the lawyers’ office. Fortunately, there was a duplicate set, which she was allowed to take.
Epstein’s business records are likely fewer (and more digital) but still, I imagine the financial records alone are a lot.
From what I’ve read, most of the Epstein case files that have been unsealed are heavily redacted, especially anything tied to active investigations or unnamed individuals. The publicly available material focuses on civil suits and prior depositions. A full picture is still elusive, but court orders and FOIA requests keep surfacing new info. The real challenge is separating fact from speculation.
Well obviously, any document or video deposition or such that involved something that may identify a victim would have to be redacted. This means every piece of video testimony from any witness (or transcripts) would have to be scrutinized too, to ensure no offhand detail or remark can identify a victim (i.e. “I dropped her off near her home at 123 Main St.” or “she was working at the Starbucks at…”) Plus bank records, Social Security numbers, or other details. I don’t know if graphic details are typically redacted, but obviously some (many) of his photos would be. Even his cook or dry cleaners, you would have to redact financial records so it does not appear named people were receiving odd payments from him…
Epstein was a serious social climber, he had plenty of high society people to his dinners and parties over the years that had nothing to do with his other extracuricular activities. (As much as MAGA would prefer that they do) I don’t know to what extent innocent third parties are redacted, and what qualifies as “innocent third party”?
I found this in a NYTimes article:
But even that information, though it might have filled in some gaps in the Epstein story, would have been only a sliver of what’s in the F.B.I. files — which include a mind-boggling “300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence,” according to the Department of Justice and the F.B.I.
It’s behind a paywall, but interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/opinion/epstein-files-fbi-trump.html
I don’t know how you account “physical evidence”in terms of data storage but doubtless some of that “300 gigabytes of data“ are videos of interviews and depositions with Epstein where he says (or strenuously tries to avoid saying) some pretty astonishing things. Regardless, hundreds of gigabytes of scanned documents, videos, images, et cetera is hardly “mind-boggling” in the context of a decades-long enterprise of criminal conspiracy.
Stranger
Scanned documents and even images are a negligible fraction of “hundreds of gigabytes”. The only way you can get that much is through video. Some of which, yes, might have been videos of interviews with law enforcement… but it might also be the video evidence that Epstein used to blackmail his clients.
Scanned documents in volume (especially legal documents and financial records) can easily make up many tens or hundreds of gigabytes of data, especially if it is also OCR’d. I can attest to this personally because I work with archives of scanned contract and technical data (almost no video or audio, mostly textual data and still images) that is several tens of terabytes in size.
Stranger
Right, as I understand it, they seized videos from Epstein that had Evidence tape on them. That is, Epstein put that tape on there himself, probably because he thought it was funny, but it sure is suggestive.
I have always thought of the important files as strictly the records that Epstein & company kept. Who was at each party and who did they boink. Who was recruited to be a concubine and who recruited them and how.
If that sounds silly remember that other famous “madam” cases have found just such records: July 5th, 1985, John Doe Smith requested Alice No 2 for one hour, preference for anal sex in doggy position.
This lets the madam select other women the client might like.
And blackmail. Don’t forget about the blackmail.