The Trump administration has botched the release of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case files to accidentally expose private information about the victims — something that was clearly carved out of disclosure requirements under federal law, and that the administration itself has said it is working hard to avoid doing.
According to MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin in a post on X Friday afternoon, her network's "initial review of documents just produced in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act indicate that despite a promise (and the obligation) to protect victim-identifying information, the DOJ has revealed the names and other identifying details of known survivors of Jeffrey Epstein."
For example, she wrote, "In at least one case, MS NOW found a driver's license with an unredacted photo among the documents produced today. None of these documents were previously produced in public court filings."
This comes after the Trump administration emphasized in court filings that the reason they had not released all of the files yet, despite it being over a month since the legal deadline to release them all, was that they were exercising due diligence to prevent the leak of private victim-identifying information.
One such filing earlier this month, for example, said the DOJ has "made substantial progress and remains focused on releasing materials under the Act promptly while protecting victim privacy," and that "compliance with the Act is a substantial undertaking, principally because, for a substantial number of documents, careful, manual review is necessary to ensure that victim-identifying information is redacted before materials are released," according to NBC News.
This comes as an explosive new tranche of files released on Friday, including allegations that President Donald Trump had sexual contact with young teens. These allegations were unsourced and did not come with any proof, and were erased from the DOJ website shortly after they went up.