Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed that the FBI is analyzing “tens of thousands of videos of [Jeffrey] Epstein with children or child porn” and that there are “hundreds of victims” as she addressed concerns about the delay in releasing the case files.
“The FBI is diligently going through that,” Bondi told reporters on Wednesday morning, explaining that the volume of evidence was why more files had not yet been provided.
Epstein, the convicted pedophile financier, committed suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting prosecution on sex trafficking charges. His riches and altruism established him as a prominent figure in politics, academics, and finance.
However, the full nature of his crimes remains unknown, including whether he had any collaborators other than his incarcerated partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, and the new Trump administration has promised complete openness of the Epstein files.
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Rep. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky and the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, had expressed his concern that important Epstein records would have been destroyed prior to the inauguration of the Trump administration.
“The president ordered them released, the attorney general ordered them released, we all know they have not been released,” Comer told The Benny Show.
As a member of the House Oversight Task Force on the declassification of government secrets, which is working on the Epstein files, Comer is a member of the task force. The task force is managed by Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL).
This distribution of information, which has been slower than anticipated, has been subjected to scrutiny from other Republicans and conservative influencers, who have questioned the hold-up.
When it became apparent that the majority of the information contained in the Epstein files was already known, the initial “Phase I” release of some of the files, which took place at the beginning of March, has been met with criticism.
In April, one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, ended her own life after struggling with mental health issues for many years. This turn of events was yet another tragic development in the Epstein narrative. Three children were born to the 41-year-old woman.
“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,” her family said in a statement. “Despite all the adversity she faced in her life, she shone so bright. She will be missed beyond measure.”
Rep. Comer told The Benny Show: “The concern I’ve always had about the Epstein files: Was the government involved? Did the government know? Was the government using Epstein and the videos to blackmail the most influential people around the world?”
Bondi revealed in March during an appearance on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo that FBI agents were working diligently to shield personal, private information related to the convicted pedophile’s hundreds of victims spread over thousands of documents.
“Tens of thousands of pages of documents, and hundreds and hundreds of victims of Jeffrey Epstein,” Bondi said. “So the FBI, they have been working ’round the clock at my directive, at [FBI Director] Kash Patel’s directive, now [FBI Deputy Director] Dan Bongino’s there, who is a great asset for all of us at the FBI as well,” she said.
“But yeah, we have to protect their identity, their personal information to make sure they’re safe. But other than that, we are releasing all of these documents as soon as we can get them redacted to protect the victims of him,” Bondi continued.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal child sex trafficking charges.
The wealthy and well-connected financier, who owned a private island estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has long been the subject of speculation surrounding an alleged “client list” of high-profile figures.
Some have accused authorities of concealing such a list, though multiple sources familiar with both the civil and criminal cases against Epstein say no such list has ever been found.