'A complete mess': Survivors' attorney slams DOJ's botched release of Epstein files
An attorney for Jeffrey Epstein's survivors ripped into the Department of Justice Tuesday for making "a complete mess" of its release of files about the late sex offender's network.
Congress passed a law last month compelling the release of DOJ investigative files, with redactions of victims' names, but attorney Helene Weiss told "CNN News Central" that documents that were briefly disclosed Monday night were revealing, but not quite what the law requires.
"It's troubling to say the least," said Weiss, whose law firm represents some survivors of Epstein's abuse. "This is a release from the Justice Department that we've been waiting for. As you know, it's a release that we were promised on Dec. 19, and the documents that we received in this release, again, were heavily redacted.
"They included some very inappropriate redactions, and the statement now from the DOJ being on the defensive when it was really their job to release these documents, their job to properly redact victims' names, that they completely failed to do.
"So the statement from the DOJ now, it's a little confusing and concerning in the context of what we're really seeing happening and what the DOJ has delivered to us, which is, quite frankly, a complete mess."
"The Department of Justice has officially released nearly 30,000 more pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein," DOJ said in a statement issued Tuesday morning. "Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election."
"To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already," the statement added.
"Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims."
More than a dozen survivors have already issued a complaint about the redactions accusing the DOJ of violating the law by exposing their names and personal information, but Maria Farmer – the first to file a complaint against Epstein, in 1996 – has said she felt vindicated that her name and complaint were part of the release.
"Maria Farmer, ... she's the exception we received in the batch from Friday, a document that's an FBI report from 1996 that says Maria Farmer reported her child sexual, her sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the FBI," Weiss said. "But this was just one document. We don't have Maria's interview notes, we don't have additional notes from 2006.
"We've received them before, but this new tranche didn't reveal notes. We also know that many survivors have interview notes. Dozens and dozens of survivors have reported that they were talking to the FBI, they interviewed with the FBI. Where are the victim interviews? Where are all of the victim interviews that we were promised?"
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