Days after an explosive meeting at the White House Situation Room last July to address a crisis threatening to engulf the Trump administration, FBI Director Kash Patel sought clarity on how the scandal might implicate powerful men linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
Addressing Patel as “Boss” and citing a prior discussion between the two, an FBI official from the bureau’s Information Management Division responded by sending the director an email with a collection of spreadsheets named “Flagged Items Lists.”
Based on guidance calling on FBI personnel tasked with redacting materials from the Epstein files to “flag items of interest for discussion with DOJ attorneys,” the FBI official informed Patel that “the list included public figures, potentially classified information, potential CSAM [child sex abuse material], etc.”
The guidance to flag these sensitive items from the Epstein files came from the Department of Justice, Assistant Director Shannon Parry informed Patel. Heading the effort for the Department of Justice was Todd Blanche, then the deputy attorney general and formerly President Donald Trump’s criminal defense lawyer. Blanche is now awaiting confirmation as attorney general from the U.S. Senate.
The email from Parry and other documents about sensitive items flagged for review by the DOJ, including references to public figures, was quietly released by the FBI last week and are being reported here for the first time.
The materials in the “Flagged Items List” had already been turned over to the Department of Justice four months earlier, Parry told Patel in the July 21, 2025 email.
“These items were produced as part of the approved Project Plan per DOJ’s guidance to flag items of interest for discussion with DOJ attorneys as we redacted."
The internal discussion at the FBI about public figures potentially implicated in the scandal was starkly different from an awkward public memo jointly released with the DOJ exactly two weeks earlier that cited “an exhaustive review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein” and the federal agencies’ “commitment to transparency.”
The materials, the agencies said, “did not expose any additional third parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing” and “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
A DOJ spokesperson told Raw Story that “any guidance on how or what to flag was given for the purpose of general awareness in preparation for disclosure.”
The spokesperson’s statement is jarringly at odds with the July 7, 2025 memo that was a product of the document review. The memo specifically stated that it was the “determination” of the DOJ and FBI “that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”
The DOJ did not respond to a request for clarification on the statement.
Two weeks after the release of the DOJ and FBI memo attempting to put concerns about Epstein to rest, Parry was forwarding Patel materials specifically flagged so top administration officials could scrutinize possible links between powerful men and the notorious sex trafficker’s most heinous crimes.
The email included a list of six criminal cases linked to Epstein, among them an FBI investigation launched by the Miami Field Office in 2006. That case file includes a video file capturing a 2009 FBI sting operation resulting in the arrest of Alfredo Rodriguez, the former house manager for Epstein’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, on suspicion of selling a so-called “black book” containing phone numbers of young women and girls that Epstein abused.
A description of the video capturing the conversation between Rodriguez and an FBI undercover employee that was flagged for the DOJ’s review contains just the sort of details about potential involvement by Epstein associates that Trump’s supporters had avidly sought.
“The two talked about the girls (victims), others employed by Epstein and Epstein’s associates,” the description reads. “The two discussed things that happened between the girls (victims) and Epstein’s associates. There are associates named during the conversation.”
Aside from Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, the description does not name any of the associates cited by Rodriguez. But when the video was released along with millions of other records through the Epstein Files Transparency Act in January 2026, the associates mentioned by Rodriguez were revealed to be former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and attorney Alan Dershowitz, among others.
“Here, Mr. Epstein says, ‘Mr. Barak, I’ll fly you to New York.’ And some of the girls that came along the way,” Rodriguez says in the video, which Raw Story reviewed. “You can bring this guy down like in no time.”
Barak told the Wall Street Journal in 2023 that he met with Epstein at his various mansions, but “never participated in any party or any other ‘inappropriate’ event with him” and “never met with girls or minors, not even with adult women in the context of any inappropriate behavior.”
Rodriguez told the FBI undercover employee that Dershowitz would typically sit at the pool with a glass of wine. Although there was “hanky-panky” upstairs, Rodriguez said he never saw any indication that he took part, although there were sometimes naked or topless girls around the pool.
Rodriguez was convicted of obstruction of justice in 2012 for hiding the “black book” and attempting to sell it. He died from cancer in 2014, after serving his sentence.
“Rodriguez’s testimony has been completely discredited,” Dershowitz told Raw Story. “He was a criminal. I never saw any females at the pool — naked, topless or otherwise. Complete fabrication.”
Dershowitz was also flagged by the FBI as a public figure linked to Epstein around the time of the controversial memo and the meeting of top officials at the Situation Room to strategize about how to insulate Trump from the furor surrounding the administration’s handling of the Epstein files.
Leslie Backshies, a special agent in charge at the New York Field Office sent an email to FBI colleagues on July 10 alerting them that Dershowitz was “referenced in the Jeffrey Epstein child sex trafficking investigation” in two FBI witness interviews. Minutes later, Charles Yarbrough, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, forwarded the email to Patel.
“Dershowitz was not considered a subject in this investigation and no evidence was uncovered during the investigation to suggest Dershowitz was involved in the abuse of minors,” Backshies wrote. She went on to summarize the two witness interviews.
In one, a former employee of Epstein’s said Dershowitz received a massage from an unnamed person, but that the massage was considered “to be more professional and different than the massages the girls provided.”
Another witness told the FBI that they met Dershowitz at Epstein’s home when he was alone without his wife and he received a massage — in contradiction to a public statement previously made by Dershowitz.
“Both proffers are provably false,” Dershowitz told Raw Story. “I never had sexual contact with anyone other than my wife since the day I met Jeffrey Epstein. I never did anything improper with regard to Epstein. I have been the victim of disprovably false accusations. I asked the FBI to investigate the false allegations against me.”
The FBI did not respond to a detailed set of questions for this story.
Blanche, who is up for confirmation as attorney general, wrote in response to a question posed by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) that “the FBI pursued all investigative leads in its investigations into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.” To Hirono, Blanche wrote: “Consistent with the long-standing principles of federal prosecution as outlined in the Justice Manual, several experienced prosecutors and investigators have reviewed the materials and determined that additional prosecutions are unavailable at this time.
In response to questions from senators, Blanche refused to comment on whether the Department of Justice has initiated any new investigations related to Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
The documents were released by the FBI in in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Democracy Forward Foundation.
"Despite the Trump-Vance administration's attempts to forestall transparency into its handling of the Epstein files with delay tactics, Democracy Forward will keep fighting in court to ensure the public has access to more of these important documents," said Dan McGrath, special counsel for oversight at the nonprofit.
