When the Department of Justice released 3.5 million pages of Epstein-related documents late last month, it was heralded as an unprecedented moment of transparency. But for those who have been continually investigating this case, the release confirms rather than contradicts what we already knew: the government continues to protect powerful individuals while creating the appearance of openness.

In my three-part analysis of the Epstein case published last summer, I detailed the troubling questions surrounding Epstein’s death in custody, the extensive evidence of Epstein’s intelligence connections, the more than $1 billion in trafficking-related financial transactions, the international scope of his criminal enterprise, and the systematic failure to prosecute co-conspirators and facilitators. Nothing in the recent document release alters that picture. Instead, it reinforces the central conclusion that this case has been suppressed to protect powerful actors and governments that benefited from Epstein’s operation.

The recent release does, however, reveal something new and deeply troubling: the DOJ appears to be in willful violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, engaging in systematic redactions that the law explicitly prohibits.

Before examining the legal violations, we must understand that the reporting and discussions on this case continue to mischaracterize the nature of Epstein’s operations. The fixation on Jeffrey Epstein remains anchored to the lurid details of underage sex involving powerful men.

This narrow focus obscures the fundamental nature of his operation. Epstein wasn’t primarily running a sex trafficking ring—he was running an information operation. The young women and underage girls were tools in a much larger enterprise, not its purpose. He got away with his illegal activities for so long because law enforcement agencies, or their superiors in their governments, benefited in some way from these larger operations.

Epstein’s business was selling information to people with money—whether wealthy clients seeking business intelligence or governments of multiple countries seeking information on or leverage over targets. He obtained this information through the extensive network of relationships he cultivated with sources across business, government, academia, and finance. Some information came from leverage he held over compromised individuals, but most came from a simpler mechanism: people doing him favors, and Epstein returning those favors to maintain the relationships.

He invited guests to his multiple luxury homes to hang out with other well-connected elites, or he threw lavish parties and paid attractive women—sometimes underage girls recruited from around the world—to entertain them. The entertainment created an atmosphere of glamour and excess, likely including whatever the guests desired. This raises an obvious question that rarely gets asked: where do aging billionaires find the young arm candy they parade at social events? Do they meet these women at church? How exactly did Epstein develop his close friendship with Jes Staley, the JPMorgan Chase executive who suppressed more than a billion dollars in suspicious activity reports? Did they bond over weekend football games?

And why hasn’t Staley been prosecuted? JPMorgan settled a class-action lawsuit brought by Epstein’s victims for $290 million, acknowledging the bank “enabled and financially supported his sex trafficking operation” by failing to report $1 billion in transactions flagged as indicative of human trafficking. Yet no criminal charges have been filed against the executives who decided to suppress those reports. Why?

The answer lies in recognizing that Epstein’s operation served the interests of multiple overlapping networks—intelligence agencies gathering information for multiple purposes, including blackmail; wealthy businessmen seeking inside information and competitive advantages; and organized crime syndicates laundering their proceeds. All of them benefited from keeping Epstein’s operation running, and now they have an interest in keeping the full truth buried.

What exactly is being hidden?

So far, I haven’t found answers to these questions in the 3.5 million pages of released documents.

Since my earlier three-part analysis, I’ve been able to document more thoroughly the organized crime connections of the Mega Group, the secretive organization of Jewish billionaires founded in 1991 by Leslie Wexner and Edgar Bronfman, Sr. This group, established ostensibly to advance Israel’s interests, served as a critical nexus between Epstein, intelligence agencies, and organized crime networks.

U.S. Treasury Bureau of Narcotics records from the 1960s identify Joseph “Scarface Joe” Bommarito—described as “the most prominent numbers operator in the Detroit and downriver area of Michigan”—as holding business interests in multiple Detroit-area oil companies, including “Aurora Gasoline royalties.” Aurora was Max Fisher’s refinery and marketing company. Fisher was an early member of the Mega Group.

Bommarito’s criminal history dated back to 1926 and included arrests for armed robbery, murder, extortion, carrying concealed weapons, and violations of Prohibition and gambling laws. He was a leading figure in Detroit’s organized crime family and an associate of the notorious Purple Gang, which controlled bootlegging operations in Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo during Prohibition. When a known organized crime figure holds a financial interest in a business—particularly a local or regional oil distribution business—it’s not merely an investment. The mob controls not only the business but also its management.

This wasn’t an isolated connection. Charles Bronfman, Edgar’s brother and another Mega Group founder, came from a family with well-documented ties to organized crime. The Bronfman fortune stemmed from bootlegging during Prohibition, and the family maintained business relationships with Meyer Lansky, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and members of the Purple Gang.

Given Fisher’s documented business partnership with a leading Purple Gang associate through Aurora Oil and the Bronfman family’s documented relationships with the same criminal network, allegations that Fisher served as a courier between the Detroit mob and the Bronfman operation during Prohibition become considerably more plausible. Whether or not that specific role can be proven, government records establish that at least two of the small number of founding members of the Mega Group had direct connections to organized crime networks.

You are known by the company you keep.

Despite—or perhaps because of—these organized crime connections, Fisher operated at the highest levels of US-Israeli relations as an unofficial adviser to every president from Eisenhower through George W. Bush on Middle East policy. He maintained “almost unlimited access” to both U.S. presidents and Israeli Prime Ministers. Significantly, Fisher deliberately avoided official government positions that would have required Senate confirmation hearings and FBI background checks. His authorized biography explains that he recognized that an informal adviser status gave him greater operational flexibility.

A more likely explanation is that a formal appointment would have exposed his organized crime background to public scrutiny and triggered a disqualifying investigation.

Fisher’s Aurora Oil Company maintained full-capacity gasoline stocks throughout World War II despite federal rationing—an impossibility without access to black market supply chains controlled by organized crime. His progression from an oil business financially connected to the Purple Gang to becoming an informal presidential adviser on sensitive Middle East issues, and finally to co-founding the Mega Group in 1991, the same year that Robert Maxwell—confirmed as a Mossad agent and a close business associate of several Mega Group members—died under mysterious circumstances, reveals a pattern repeated throughout Epstein’s network: individuals who operated at the intersection of organized crime, legitimate business, political influence, and intelligence work.

The Mega Group wasn’t merely interested in growing wealth—they sought to expand their influence over governments. Epstein aided both goals. This was his business model: leveraging information and relationships to serve clients operating in environments where the boundaries between legitimate business, intelligence operations, and organized crime were deliberately blurred, making it nearly impossible to determine where one ended and the other began.

When Epstein entered this world through his relationship with Leslie Wexner, he wasn’t simply gaining a wealthy client. He was plugging into a network that had spent decades building relationships between organized crime, intelligence agencies, and political power. Wexner gave Epstein full power of attorney over his finances by 1991, the same year the Mega Group was founded. I don’t think this was coincidental. But I’m not sure yet what it means.

The recent document releases provide no information about Epstein’s relationship with the Mega Group beyond his connection to Wexner, that I could find so far.

Where are the investigative files examining whether Epstein worked on behalf of the group’s interests? Where are the financial records showing payments between Epstein and other Mega Group members? Where are the communications detailing the services Epstein provided?

The answer, again, is that such disclosure would reveal the justification for protecting Epstein’s operation. It served the interests of intelligence agencies and powerful businessmen simultaneously, with organized crime networks providing the infrastructure and muscle to make it work. Exposing the full truth would most likely require acknowledging that our intelligence agencies have been working alongside organized crime for decades, using the same networks and often the same personnel.

This could be why the DOJ violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It could be why government officials’ names remain redacted. It could be why no co-conspirators have been prosecuted despite overwhelming evidence. The Epstein case isn’t about one man’s sexual depravity—it’s about the systematic corruption of American institutions by networks that operate above the law because they serve those institutions’ interests.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law in December 2025, is remarkably specific about what must be disclosed and what redactions are permitted. Section 2(a) requires the Attorney General to publicly release all unclassified Department of Justice and FBI records related to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, including flight logs, the names of all individuals connected to Epstein’s activities, internal DOJ communications regarding charging decisions, all immunity deals, complete documentation of Epstein’s detention and death, and any communications about document destruction.

But the heart of the statute lies in Section 2(b), which could not be clearer:

“No record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

This provision was included because Congress anticipated that the DOJ would seek to protect powerful individuals. The law explicitly prohibits it.

The permitted redactions are narrowly defined: victim personally identifiable information, child sexual abuse materials, ongoing federal investigations (narrowly tailored and temporary only), images depicting death or physical abuse, and properly classified national security information with declassification required “to the maximum extent possible.” Notably absent from this list are the names of government officials, decision-makers in the case, or anyone who communicated with or about Epstein in an official capacity.

Perhaps most significantly, Section 3 mandates that within 15 days of release, the Attorney General must provide Congress with all categories of records released and withheld, a summary of all redactions with the legal basis for each, and “a list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials, with no redactions permitted.” The law doesn’t merely permit Congress to know who these officials are—it affirmatively requires their disclosure in an unredacted public accounting.

The most blatant violation involves redacting the names of government officials throughout the documents. In my examination of released emails and communications, I found that the names of government workers—those who were decision-makers in the case or merely communicated about it—were systematically blacked out.

This directly violates Section 2(b)’s prohibition against redactions based on “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity” to government officials. More fundamentally, it violates Section 3’s affirmative requirement that the Attorney General provide Congress and the public with “a list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials, with no redactions permitted.” The law doesn’t merely forbid hiding these names for improper reasons—it explicitly mandates their disclosure.

U.S. Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) confirmed this problem after reviewing unredacted versions at DOJ facilities on February 10, 2026. They identified approximately 20 improperly redacted names, including at least six “elite, powerful men” in government, finance, real estate, and technology. Following public complaints, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed the DOJ “un-redacted all non-victim names” from the challenged documents—but provided no explanation for why those illegal redactions existed in the first place.

Congressman Khanna revealed that many files arrived at the DOJ attorneys’ office already redacted by the FBI or derived from grand jury materials. This creates a convenient loophole: the DOJ can claim it’s releasing what it received, while the FBI—also part of DOJ—has already censored the files. But the Act anticipated this maneuver. It requires the FBI to provide unredacted materials before the Attorney General’s review. The systematic pre-redaction of files represents a coordinated circumvention of the statute.

Beyond the illegal redactions, several required categories of materials appear to be missing from the release. Where are the internal DOJ memos explaining why Jean-Luc Brunel, who supplied numerous victims to Epstein, was never charged despite clear evidence of international trafficking? Why were no charges filed for crimes committed between 2006 and 2019, despite ongoing, known trafficking? What documentation exists regarding U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta’s reported statement to colleagues that Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and “it was above his pay grade”?

JPMorgan Chase flagged $1 billion in Epstein-related transactions as indicative of human trafficking between 2003 and 2019. The recipients of these payments—thousands of individuals and entities—should be identified in the materials. Where are the investigative files analyzing these transactions and the interview reports from the recipients of the funds? The DOJ acknowledges Epstein “harmed over one thousand victims.” Where are the memos from all victim interviews? Where are the reports from interviews with Epstein’s staff over the years, or the detailed interview with Epstein’s pilot of 20 years about what he witnessed?

I can’t find any of this information in the files. At least not so far.

Evidence shows victims trafficked from France, Eastern Europe, and other locations, yet charges in both 2008 and 2019 were limited to U.S. domestic victims from 2002-2005. Where are the investigative files on international trafficking? The Act requires a comprehensive report listing “all categories of records withheld,” but the DOJ has not provided this inventory. Without it, we have no way to know what’s missing—and that’s precisely the point.

As someone who has spent decades conducting investigations, including as Chief Investigator for the Illinois Legislative Investigating Commission, I can distinguish between incompetence, isolated corruption, and coordinated obstruction. What we’re witnessing is the latter.

The law is unambiguous. The statutory language prohibiting redactions of government officials’ names is explicit and clear, with no room for misinterpretation. Yet the systematic redaction of government officials’ names across 3.5 million pages of documents requires deliberate policy, not individual mistakes. Having one DOJ component—the FBI—redact files before sending them to another—the AG’s office—constitutes intentional circumvention of the statute’s requirements.

Shortly after the initial release, the DOJ removed the ability to download complete datasets, making systematic verification by researchers nearly impossible. This technical decision serves no legitimate purpose beyond obstruction. Rather than providing Congress with complete, unredacted copies as the law requires, the DOJ forces members to view files on computers in a DOJ reading room, where they cannot bring staff, use electronic devices, or make copies, and must schedule appointments 24 hours in advance.

The release of 3.5 million pages serves multiple purposes. It creates the appearance of transparency while burying key information in sheer volume. It overwhelms researchers with unindexed, disorganized materials, especially after removing the bulk download option. It provides plausible deniability—”We released millions of pages, what more do you want?”—while making it difficult to identify what’s missing without an official manifest.

This sophisticated obstruction technique gives investigators everything and nothing simultaneously.

When U.S. Representatives Massie and Khanna announced they’d found six “likely incriminated” individuals after reviewing unredacted files, it made headlines. But for investigative purposes, this kind of disclosure is worse than useless—it’s actively misleading.

Names without context in the specific documents are meaningless. Investigators need the complete communication threads to identify relationships and understand the nature of interactions. They need full email header information with dates and times to establish patterns; cross-referenced documents to verify information; context to assess the significance of each mention; bank records showing financial relationships; and interview reports providing sworn testimony.

Random names disclosed in press conferences provide none of this. They generate headlines but prevent meaningful analysis. You cannot establish criminal patterns, verify claims, or assess credibility.

This creates the appearance of transparency while ensuring that the actual investigative work remains impossible. Congress members can appear tough on corruption while the underlying evidence that would enable prosecution remains sealed.

For most interested parties, this release is only marginally better than receiving nothing—and, in some ways, worse, because it creates a false confidence that the truth is now available.

In any complex investigation, you need complete communication chains, including full email threads, not isolated messages with key participants redacted.

You need financial transaction records that show the full trail of payments, including all recipient identities.

You need comprehensive witness interviews, with reports from all victims, staff, associates, and witnesses—not selective excerpts.

You need internal investigative memos detailing what agents found and recommended, prosecution decision memos explaining why charges weren’t brought, and cross-jurisdictional coordination records documenting how authorities cooperated or failed to do so.

What we actually received were scattered photos of Epstein’s properties, partial emails and communications with names redacted in violation of the statute, no systematic organization or indexing, no official manifest listing the categories of materials or those withheld, no bulk download capability to enable comprehensive analysis, and random document selections that cannot be verified as complete.

The comparison to my earlier investigation is instructive. I compiled a detailed three-part analysis of Epstein’s intelligence connections, his relationship with the Mega Group, his international trafficking network, his financial crimes, and the government’s systematic protection of him—all from publicly available information and civil litigation records. This supposedly comprehensive release of 3.5 million pages of official government files adds virtually nothing to that analysis, primarily because they are so heavily redacted. That fact alone demonstrates its worthlessness for investigative purposes.

In my three-part report on the Epstein case, I concluded that three possible explanations existed for the government’s failure to properly investigate and prosecute the case: incompetence of investigative and prosecutorial authorities, corruption by those authorities, or intelligence agency intervention on national security grounds. I ruled out incompetence because federal law enforcement agents rank among the best in the world. I ruled out isolated corruption because too many people across too many agencies would need to be compromised. That left intelligence agency intervention as the only logical explanation.

The recent document release and the DOJ’s systematic violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act don’t change my earlier conclusion. The pattern of obstruction is too coordinated, too sophisticated, and too resistant to both congressional oversight and statutory mandates to be anything but intentional suppression.

So far, I have found nothing in the recent release that contradicts the evidence I detailed regarding Epstein’s role in the Iran-Contra and Al-Yamamah arms deals, where he helped create the financial structures that enabled operations involving the CIA, MI6, Israeli Intelligence, and Saudi Intelligence. The fake Austrian passport found in Epstein’s safe—with entry and exit stamps matching locations involved in the Al-Yamamah arms deal—remains unexplained. Only intelligence services could provide such documentation.

Alexander Acosta’s “above my pay grade” comment remains unchallenged. The U.S. Attorney who gave Epstein the sweetheart 2007 deal reportedly later told colleagues that Epstein “belonged to intelligence.” The extraordinary 2007 Non-Prosecution Agreement, which protects unnamed co-conspirators, still suggests protection of intelligence assets, not just wealthy criminals. The hidden surveillance cameras installed throughout Epstein’s properties after Ghislaine Maxwell entered his life remain consistent with a blackmail operation, not personal pleasure. The systematic recruitment, training, and deployment of young women to powerful men continues to mirror intelligence honeypot operations rather than typical trafficking for profit.

The recent releases provide no meaningful new information about the $1 billion in suspicious transactions that JPMorgan Chase identified as trafficking-related but suppressed reporting until after Epstein’s death. Who received this money? The recent release doesn’t tell us—those names remain redacted or absent. Epstein’s client list for J. Epstein & Company remains unknown beyond Leslie Wexner. The payments through Jean-Luc Brunel’s MC2 and Massimo Parisi’s Baltic Model Management remain unexplained. Leon Black’s $170 million in payments to Epstein between 2012 and 2018 for “estate planning and tax structuring” lacks any detailed accounting.

Despite clear evidence of international trafficking, neither the 2008 nor the 2019 prosecutions included any international charges. Where are the investigative files detailing Jean-Luc Brunel’s procurement network? Did federal agents track down and interview the women Brunel supplied from Europe? How did Epstein bring 15-year-old Nadia Marcinkova from Slovakia to the U.S. on a “modeling visa” and have her live with him for years? What immigration records exist explaining how she later obtained pilot licenses and started an aviation business?

If victims were flown from overseas to the U.S., they went through Customs—how did 12-, 13-, and 14-year-old girls explain traveling to America without parents? The managers of Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, Brice and Karen Gordon, vanished after his death and remain missing. Did the DOJ seriously attempt to locate them? The release provides no answers that have been revealed so far.

The starkest way to understand the inadequacy of this release is to compare what I documented from public sources with what 3.5 million pages of official government files added. From public sources alone, I documented Epstein’s role in arms deals, his relationships with arms dealers and intelligence-connected figures, the timing and nature of Ghislaine Maxwell’s involvement, the establishment of surveillance systems, connections to the Mega Group and its organized crime roots, the Towers Financial Ponzi scheme, Harvard relationships and the Zorro Ranch eugenics plan, financial relationships with billionaires, the 2007 agreement’s extraordinary protections, evidence of blackmail operations, procurement networks, JPMorgan’s billion-dollar suspicious activity reports, and the systematic failure to charge co-conspirators.

From 3.5 million pages of official DOJ files, I learned that Dataset 1 includes photos of Epstein’s New York home (which I already knew existed), that some government officials’ names are redacted (confirming their involvement), and that the DOJ is willing to violate federal law to protect these individuals. The fact that publicly available information compiled through diligent research provides more usable intelligence than millions of pages of official government files is no coincidence—it’s the entire purpose of this release strategy.

The Epstein case represents one of the most serious failures of justice in modern American history. A sex-trafficking, blackmail, and international business-corruption operation that abused more than 1,000 victims, involved billions of dollars in financial transactions, spanned multiple countries and decades, and had connections to intelligence agencies and the highest levels of business and government has resulted in the prosecution of exactly two individuals—one of whom died before trial.

For those of us who investigate corruption and have spent careers trying to hold powerful institutions accountable, this case serves as a stark reminder. Without transparency, there can be no accountability. When the government can violate transparency laws with impunity, accountability becomes impossible.

The question now is not what the Epstein files reveal. We know what they would reveal if released in compliance with the law. The question is whether the American people will accept this blatant defiance of a federal statute or demand that their elected representatives use every tool at their disposal—including contempt citations, defunding, and impeachment—to compel compliance.

In my earlier report, I quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

“Not to act is to act. Not to speak is to speak.”

The DOJ has acted by violating the law. Congress has the power to act by refusing to accept the DOJ’s defiance.

The question is whether they will. If they don’t, the Epstein case will stand as permanent evidence that our government can violate federal law with impunity to protect powerful criminals—and that in America, some people truly are above the law.