FBI agents who reviewed investigative files in the criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein were instructed to "flag" any information involving President Donald Trump, according to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).
Durbin sent letters Friday to the Department of Justice and the FBI seeking an explanation for allegations about possible mishandling of the Epstein files and findings from a July 7 DOJ memorandum and instructions given to FBI personnel about the matter.
“According to information my office received, the FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD) … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline,” Durbin wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino.
“This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests,” the letter continued.
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned," Durbin added.
Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, pointedly asked Bondi to explain why she had claimed on Feb. 21 that Epstein had compiled a "client list" that she had sitting on her desk, when the DOJ released records just six days later saying such a list did not exist.
"Aside from the negative backlash you received over the February 27 record release, what was the purpose of placing almost 1,000 FBI IMD personnel on 24-hour shifts to review Epstein-related records over the course of a two-week period in March?" the senator asked. "Who made the decision to reassign hundreds of New York Field Office personnel to this March review of Epstein-related records?"
"Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?" Durbin added.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday night that Trump had signed a bawdy letter to Epstein, his longtime friend, in 2003 for his 50th birthday, which the president denies writing, and he threatened to sue the newspaper as questions continue to swirl around his relationship with the late sex trafficker.
The DOJ and FBI kicked off a firestorm in the MAGA movement by publicly disputing conspiracy theories about the client list and Epstein's 2019 suicide in jail as he awaited trial on additional charges.