Trump DOJ team shred 'huge amounts' of files at Epstein lockup after death: Prison guard

Just six days after Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York, a Bureau of Prisons “After-Actions team” swept the jail and shredded “huge amounts of paperwork,” recruiting the help of at least two inmates to dispose of the files in a dumpster, a newly unearthed FBI report suggests.

Flagged by famed Epstein reporter Julie K. Brown, the FBI report is a crisis intake form, in which an FBI official documented claims made by a federal corrections officer, who contacted the agency via phone to report misconduct. The correctional officer’s name is redacted in the report, which is dated Aug. 16, 2019, just six days after Epstein was found dead in his cell, with his death controversially ruled a suicide.

“[Redacted] has never seen this amount of bags of shredded documents coming out to be put in the dumpster at the rear gate of the MCC,” the report reads, drafted by an FBI official whose name was also redacted. “Last week Epstein hung himself, and there is an ongoing investigation. There was a [Bureau of Prisons] After-Actions team that come, and they are supposed to review what happened.”

According to the correctional officer, at least one inmate was recruited to help with the disposal of documents, tasked with helping move “bags of shredded documents into the dumpster.” The inmate’s name was also redacted in the report.

“[Redacted] was bringing back bags of shredded papers, around 4 or 5 bags, and caller brought them into the gate to throw into the dumpster. [Redacted] told caller that the after-action team is shredding huge amounts of paperwork,” the report reads.

“Caller found it suspicious that an after-action team charged with investigating would be shredding huge amounts of paperwork with all of the officials from the [assistant inspector general], FBI and [BOP] in the building in the middle of an investigation. Those giving instructions to [redacted] said, ‘Make sure you get that box too.’”

The BOP is a subdivision of the Justice Department, which at the time would have been a part of the first Trump administration.

The Trump DOJ was reported to have directed New York Police Department investigators in 2019 to “stand down” in their criminal probe into Epstein five days after his death. The Trump DOJ also asked the New Mexico Department of Justice to halt its own investigation into Epstein’s infamous Zorro Ranch property, which is alleged to be the burial site of “two foreign girls,” according to a recently unearthed FBI tip.