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Late on the Friday before Christmas, just hours before a deadline mandated by Congress, the Department of Justice released part of the trove of documents known colloquially as the Epstein files. The contents are, at different times, unnerving, enraging, banal, and heavily redacted.
At The Atlantic, we’ve been up, poring over the documents to contextualize what they mean. In this special Galaxy Brain episode, Charlie Warzel is joined by Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic’s executive editor, and Isaac Stanley-Becker, a staff writer, to talk about the document dump. They share their findings, address the political fallout, and explore what, if anything, we can learn from what’s been released.
The following is a transcript of the episode:
[Music]
Charlie Warzel: I’m Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain. Yesterday, conspiracy theorists, politicians, investigative reporters, concerned bystanders—they all got what they’ve long been asking for, at least, partially: The Department of Justice, as mandated by Congress, has released the Epstein files, which is a massive multimedia tranche of documents. They include files, more than 3,000 photos of Epstein’s homes in New York City and in the Virgin Islands, images of his house filled with art and photographs of nude and half-clothed women. There are photos of Epstein’s jet-setting lifestyle, a number of which depict Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell with former President Bill Clinton. In a statement on X yesterday, a spokesperson for Clinton said, “There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first.”
This information that has been released has been held by different sections of federal law enforcement, and for the last month, according to CNN, lawyers at the Department of Justice’s National Security Division have been poring over these files. They’ve been trying to comply with dueling directives to either release the information for public maximum transparency and to protect the executive and legal privacy of victims and those who haven’t been accused of any wrongdoing.
The redaction process has been described by insiders as chaotic, and these files are heavily redacted. Now that it’s here, though, in the public, everyone from vigilante investigators to journalists like myself can pore over this information in an attempt to better understand the life and crimes of Epstein, who in 2019 was charged with operating a sex-trafficking ring that targeted young women and underage girls.
Prosecutors say he was aided by Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate who’s currently serving a prison term. Epstein died in 2019 in his jail cell of reported suicide, and that incident ignited speculation about the particulars of his sex ring and rumors of a reported client list.
It’s worth backing up, though, to briefly explain the timeline of how we all got here. All the way back in February, in an interview with Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked about a list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, and if the Justice Department was planning to release them. Bondi responded, quote, “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.” In May, the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets requested the release of the files in a letter to Bondi.
Bondi did not respond to the request before the May 16 deadline. The story didn’t really heat back up until July, when [Donald] Trump’s Justice Department issued a memo that claimed there was no Epstein client list. Quote, “While we have labored to provide the public with maximum information regarding Epstein and ensured examination of any evidence in the government’s possession, it is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”
Bondi noted that when she said the Epstein list was sitting on her desk, she was actually referring to the DOJ files and not a client list. Around the same time, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s name appeared multiple times in a set of Epstein files currently in possession of the Justice Department. So later, Democrats in the House Oversight Committee, on numerous occasions, released tranches of documents from Epstein’s estate. In September, they released a 238-page PDF. It was a document of the 50th-birthday book to Jeffrey Epstein that includes a prologue by Maxwell and a page allegedly written by Trump, which Trump denied authoring. In November, it released a trove of emails between Epstein and many prominent figures, some of which referenced Donald Trump, though he was not accused of any wrongdoing.
In recent weeks, the committee has released a series of photographs of Epstein and his associates. Some of those photos include close-ups of what looks to be a woman’s body with passages from the novel Lolita drawn on them. In late November, Congress passed legislation mandating Trump’s DOJ release all Epstein files, with few exceptions. They gave him 30 days. Trump signed the bill into law on the 19th of November.
Now files are here. And let’s be clear: For all the chatter and the intrigue around Epstein for his famous associates, the memes, the wall-to-wall coverage, this is a sordid moment in American history. The release of the files is theoretically this moment of transparency, but it’s worth remembering why the files needed to be released. They depict the life and operations of a prolific sex trafficker, someone who was alleged by on-the-record victim testimony to have abused an unknown number of women, some underage. That these files are so eagerly sought is because of how firmly Epstein was ensconced in the social and political and financial dealings of extremely powerful people all over the world, even after taking a plea deal that made him a registered sex offender. His associations known and unknown, the provenance of his great wealth, the extent of his influence—this is what makes Jeffrey Epstein a newsworthy figure more than six years after his death.
That said, the release of the files are a culmination of sorts. They unite an unlikely conglomeration of interests, from QAnon to House Democrats. And in a politics where conspiracy theorizing has replaced scandals of old, the release of these files is an intentional event without much precedent.
The scattershot release offers anyone a choose-your-own-adventure, “Control-F” search bonanza. People have and will continue to post their findings, often without context, to social media and elsewhere. There will be silly, offensive, and irony-poisoned memes. There will be endless pontification, name-calling, political point-scoring. Releasing the files is an act of transparency, but dumping them on a Friday evening during a holiday week is also something of a chaos agent.
And so there’s a lot to take in here. It will likely take reporters and other investigators months, maybe years, to understand the scope. And this isn’t even all of the files. But what we wanted to do today on Galaxy Brain is to try to walk through this as best that we can. Over the last couple of hours, we at The Atlantic have been up and looking over these documents. We’ve been trying to surround them with the appropriate amount of context.
And so joining me today to talk about the files is Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic’s executive editor, and staff writer Isaac Stanley-Becker. They’re going to come on and share a little of what they found and what, if anything, we can learn from what has been released. This is not an exhaustive list of findings. This is an early reaction and a chance to try to ground this extremely grim but important moment, and understand what, if anything, might happen next.
Here’s Adrienne LaFrance and Isaac Stanley-Becker.
[Music]
Warzel: Adrienne, Isaac. It is very early in the morning where I am. It’s light out where you are. Thank you for joining me to talk about the Epstein files, which are now out in the world. They’ve been released for a few hours. We’ve all looked through them in some capacity, and I’m delighted that you’re all here to talk about it with me.
Adrienne LaFrance: Thanks for having us.
Isaac Stanley-Becker: Good morning.
Warzel: Absolutely. Okay, so I think the first thing that I just want to start with is: This is a partial release of the files. There are hundreds of thousands of documents. Supposedly, the Department of Justice has been working, according to reports, for a long time, trying to redact these things, trying to maintain the privacy of the victims and certain people involved in the files.
On Friday, they noted that they weren’t going to be able to release the absolute full tranche of documents. Instead, we have a partial release. How do we feel about this? Has the Department of Justice complied with this investigation? Isaac, do we feel like this is what Congress wanted to some degree, or is this partial release unsatisfying in terms of the Department of Justice actually giving Congress what it wanted?
Stanley-Becker: I think, plainly, the administration has not complied with the legislation that was passed, which required the release of these files, these documents, by yesterday, Friday. And a partial release is a partial release. It’s not a full release. It doesn’t meet the letter of this legislation that was passed. And we’ve already seen members of Congress on both sides of the aisle make this point and discuss various possibilities of steps they might take, whether it comes to the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche or Pam Bondi, the attorney general.
I think there’s been some discussions of contempt proceedings. Certainly, Democrats have used the word impeachment. But I think there’s a lot of anger about what happened here. And these are files that have, as you said, been discussed for months, that the attorney general said that she had aspects of them sitting on her desk. So I think people have a right to be asking why it took so long and what the reason for the delay was and what has been withheld in this initial batch.
Warzel: Yeah, that. Go ahead.
LaFrance: I was going to say it also colors our ability to understand why they released what they released. So it sort of warps the entire thing in that way.
Warzel: Yeah, and just to be clear, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, saying that the files were under desk—that was back in February of 2025. So, you know, this has been dragging out for a very long time. I think a lot of people don’t remember that first part, who have been paying attention to this. And, you know, this is something that really heated up over the summer. And then that really, you know, started this process. But genuinely, this goes back to almost the first days of the administration, all the way back then.
I want to talk about: Most people, I imagine—these were released on a Friday right before the Christmas holiday, sort of later in the afternoon on the East Coast. I doubt most people in the world have been actually sifting through these files in any capacity. We have. And so what I wanted to kind of do for people is talk about the experience, first and foremost, of going through this, right? This is a lot of—even though it’s a partial release, this is a lot of documents. This is kind of a very classic reporter thing of having to comb through this.
And so I just wanted to start first with you, Isaac. Can you kind of walk me through your process of getting these? You know, accessing these files, how you went through them. Like, what is it like to dive into this? Because I—the Epstein files is something that has just been, you know, obviously, shrouded in secrecy, but something, too, that I think people have really kind of, you know, had to imagine in their heads, right? What is this going to be? I think a lot of people thought they were going to be, like, IRS files or things like that—a lot more sort of nitty-gritty stuff. It was very image-heavy.
Starting with Isaac and then, Adrienne, to your experience of it, what was it like going through this?
Stanley-Becker: Well, there was an anticipation that there was going to be some sort of release yesterday. We didn’t know exactly what kind. And our terrific colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick had some good lines into trying to figure out when and what, and what the administration was telling various people about what they were doing. So there was some sense that at some point during the day, and I think even some indication of the afternoon, eventually. And so I think it was 4:30, 4 o’clock—but, as you say—in the afternoon when this dropped, and it was a link on the DOJ website.
And we didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know whether it was going to be transcripts, investigative materials, photos. So we just kind of opened it and started clicking around and seeing what it looked like, even seeing sort of how to divide it among those of us reporters who were looking through it, to do it in a kind of concerted way. And so it soon became clear that there was some material that appeared to be new, some old. So we kind of wrapped our hands around the new material. And it was released in batches, like a set; there were sort of four sets.
And I just downloaded—it was a zip file—and started clicking through, as you say, a lot of images, especially where I started. So images of Epstein, of Ghislaine Maxwell, seemingly in various vacation destinations with friends of theirs. And discussing with colleagues: What here has been released? What’s new? Do we recognize this person?
You know, passing it over to Adrienne, one of the points that she made that I think is so important in how we were processing this and making sense of it was, as she said: There was no rhyme or reason to this release versus what remains held back. And I think that that’s right, but that has fueled so much of the suspicion and the cynicism. Because, say, even if we knew that this was some way chronological—like they were releasing the first batch in the investigations, and they hadn’t yet gotten to the later batch, but there was nothing like that—or this was photos, and they were going to get onto other materials in their possession. But for all we know, they picked and chose as they pleased. So that made, I think, the experience really challenging and grounds for a lot of concern and suspicion.
Warzel: Adrienne, what was your experience of this? You’re helping to direct all of our coverage. What was your experience of looking through this or trying to make sense of it?
LaFrance: Right. Well, I mean, it’s what Isaac said, and it’s really just, as journalists, trying to figure out what’s new. Is there anything in here that’s revealed that changes our understanding of the scope of Epstein’s crimes? Obviously, looking for affiliations to other powerful figures—and we can, of course, talk more about that—including multiple presidents, and just trying to understand: What does it mean, and why does it matter?
Because one of the more complicated aspects of all of this is the collision of actual crime and robust conspiracy theorizing. And I kept thinking about something. So I’ve written a lot about conspiracy theories, as you guys know, over the years. And one of the things that always comes to mind for me is: The more I’ve talked to conspiracy theorists, the more I understand that a lot of what draws them to sort of the work of conspiracy theorizing, if you can call it work, is a lot of what journalists love, like combing through difficult, complicated, limited, redacted documents, trying to find meaning. And so when you sort of unleash a document dump on the public in this really, you know, rich conspiracy-laden environment, while also knowing that it’s a hugely important news story with real crimes and real victims, it’s even harder to sort of disentangle and find meaning. And then you layer on possibly a bad-faith political maneuvering. It’s, I mean, it’s extraordinarily complicated.
Warzel: Yeah, I—go ahead, Isaac.
Stanley-Becker: And in this case, in particular, because: I just think it can’t be emphasized enough that Epstein’s crimes are being arbitrated on the internet because they were never arbitrated in court. And that is one of the many tragedies and wrongs of the fact that he committed suicide in jail, that there was never ever an opportunity to really arbitrate this and get to the facts. And so it’s understandable that people are taking matters into their own hands on the internet, because it was never dealt with carefully and in a methodical way in court. And there’s lots of reasons for that, and lots of failures of our justice system that allowed that to happen. But it just speaks to one of the enduring wrongs and just utter failures of this whole saga.
Warzel: There is a Miami Herald article by Julie K. Brown, who has done a lot of the investigative reporting that broke this story open and really revealed to the public the extent of Epstein’s operation over a long period of time. And she wrote about the files that the House Oversight Committee, Democrats in the House Oversight Committee, released actually on Thursday, just some photographs, but said that, you know, one of the revelations in a lot of these stories is that the FBI never obtained Epstein’s computers in the original investigation, right? That some of what we are seeing here in general, broadly, is stuff that, you know, as you’re saying, Isaac, had the government done its job in other ways, this information would have maybe not been public. But it would have been things that, you know, had been brought to light, at least privately, in terms of the investigation. So I think that that’s a very important way to ground this in general.
I would love to talk a little bit about what’s in here, right. We didn’t get a lot, right? But what did we get?
LaFrance: Well, to your last—
Warzel: Please. Yeah.
LaFrance: Well, to your last point, one of, I think, arguably the most important thing—and forgive me because I have not combed through all 13,000 documents, so we are certainly gonna learn more in the coming days and with subsequent releases—but from what we know now, one of the most consequential things in here is this, I think, 1996 tip from someone who had contacted the FBI, asked them to look into Epstein’s affairs, and has said that the FBI did not even respond to her. And so to see evidence of that early complaint is really shocking. And I think, you know, as this person has told other news outlets, validating for her, but I think it speaks to exactly what Isaac was just describing.
Warzel: Yeah, apparently the FBI did not contact the person who made this complaint about child-sex-abuse material and Epstein for a decade, which, yes, I think speaks very highly to how all this unfolded. So, yeah, so let’s get to what—that was in there certainly. That was, I believe, as people were going through it, myself included, but also reported in other places. That seems to be a real revelation there in terms of: That complaint was unearthed.
It was also, it was something where, the way that these files come out, a lot of them are just images that you are downloading on a zip drive and you are rifling through. And when it’s just an image, it’s actually very easy to process, right? You can just see Jeffrey Epstein is on a Jet Ski, there’s someone in a helicopter, there’s someone on a plane, et cetera. When it is some of the photographs of images, or photographs of documents, rather, it can be kind of hard to see and to know what it is that you’re looking at. So that was definitely a revelation.
But let’s start with you, Isaac. What did we get here, and what did you really take away and notice here?
Stanley-Becker: Well, I think we should also emphasize that in addition to this being a partial release, the materials were also heavily, heavily redacted. And that’s another thing that is fueling a lot of the criticism of DOJ’s approach here.
I think maybe most strikingly, there was one file, a grand-jury file, I believe from New York, that was just entirely redacted. People were pointing out that it’s like one of those memes about nontransparency where just everything, every single line is blacked out. And that was literally what the document was.
I mean, I think, stepping back, I would make a couple points. One is that overall, this does not really add much to our understanding of Epstein’s crimes, of the people who enabled Epstein’s crimes, and of the way in which he evaded justice for so long, with the exception of, I think, the really important document that Adrienne pointed out.
And I think the second point I would make is associated with that: that sprinkled throughout here, there are some really troubling and just, frankly, grotesque details about the way in which he went about abusing young women. And details are hints because, again, it’s really hard to understand the full context because of the redactions, because of maybe some of the missing material. But there are a few documents that record phone calls, messages that were intended for Epstein, and one of them says, “I have a female for him.” Just absolutely chilling. There’s a reference at one point to someone not being available because of soccer, potentially a young person, though it’s not clear. So there are some examples of that, and also images of Epstein with what appear to be young women, though there’s a number of, again, redactions of those faces, in that case, most likely to protect victims.
And then I think the third point I would make is that there’s a lot of Bill Clinton in these images and in these files. And one of the things that we did was reach out to a spokesman for former President Clinton about this. And his office hit back pretty hard in saying that this was selectively released, that it was intended to serve a political purpose and distract from all the ways in which we know that President Trump associated with and was friends with Epstein. And also, an argument that they were friendly, there was some traveling together, but that President Clinton knew nothing of Epstein’s crimes. But again, in the way in which all of this is being used and politicized, we saw immediately an effort by White House officials, people in the communications department, to trumpet the Clinton materials, and arguing that this is what the focus should be. So those are the kind of main takeaways that I had.
LaFrance: Well, and I have to say, too, like, it definitely seems clear that the Trump camp is using this opportunity to politically weaponize the Clinton material. And yet it is shocking in its own right. I mean, just within our newsroom, I think those were the photos that were being passed around first, because it’s legitimately shocking to see a president in that capacity, even someone who you know has had inappropriate relationships with young women before.
Warzel: Yeah, those photos, you know, we talked a lot about, like: Was this the—just chronologically, right—like, the first stuff? Again, there’s so much that we don’t know here. Was this chronologically some of the first stuff there? Was it some of the easiest stuff for DOJ lawyers to clear? Because we don’t know what the actual process was here; we don’t have any insight into that.
What was interesting, to me as someone who was going through it but also observing online, was, you know—I think they were released around 1:00, 1:15 [p.m.] my time, Pacific time, so that would be about 4 o’clock eastern time—within two or three minutes on X, I was seeing multiple accounts of all political persuasions immediately going through and posting the photos of Clinton. One which has sort of become, I guess, infamous at this point is him sort of reclining in what looks like either a hot tub or a pool. There is a redacted black square that I guess represents somebody who’s in there. There was something about that, though, the fact that it was so quick to have that be there that I think it led to that feeling, right, of: Is this being weaponized in some way? This has shown up so quickly. And, you know, his presence is so prominent.
And this feeling of, you know, potential weaponization or using these documents for to score political points, I think, is underscored by the fact that, you know, the White House press secretary is reposting that photo and putting an emoji next to it, and saying, “Oh my!” A DOJ spokesperson tweeted and then deleted the tweet, according to reports from Politico, that said, “I wonder why the Biden DOJ refused to release the files.” It really seems like very quickly this just became another way to, you know, snipe on social media. And I think that lended this feeling that, like, What are we seeing? Has this been released selectively?
Stanley-Becker: Well, there’s also no pretense that it’s anything other than political. President Trump directed his attorney general to investigate as the kind of pressure was intensifying on him related to these files. He directed his attorney general to investigate Clinton’s ties to Epstein, along with a number of other prominent Democrats and people he perceives as his enemies. As in many cases, this president’s actions are, sort of, so out in the open. There’s not an effort to kind of hide the way in which they want to amplify the potential downsides for Democrats in these files.
I think the other thing that struck me about the Clinton material because, again, his people had all sorts of arguments about how this was selective and political. They’ve also said that there’s no wrongdoing on the former president’s part. And certainly these images are unsavory, but there’s nothing in them that shows him in a really compromising position with a minor or anything like that.
Warzel: And I should be clear, he said that they—sorry to interrupt you, but also, the Clinton camp said that this was a relationship that was terminated, his relationship with Epstein, as soon as he knew about any of Epstein’s wrongdoing. That’s just, you know, what was said.
Stanley-Becker: Seems like a sort of low bar. Yeah.
But I think it was one more really graphic illustration of a point that’s been made and written about well recently, just about the way this is such an indictment of a kind of elite class that Epstein managed to wrap around his finger. I mean, he was fantastically wealthy. He had lots of fancy associates. But how was he able to weasel himself in so effectively with people as prominent and important as former presidents? I mean, what was the former president doing associating with this individual? What was he getting out of this relationship? I mean, we may learn more about the facts here, but it strikes me as kind of pathetic in addition to everything else.
LaFrance: Right. And I feel this is a really important point, too, that I think you can hold sort of two things to be true at once—that, like, there are legitimate questions to be asked about Bill Clinton and Epstein’s relationship still. Absolutely. Of course, there are legitimate questions to be asked about Trump’s relationship with Epstein. And also, it seems quite apparent that both sides will try to politically weaponize. I mean, certainly, we see Trump’s side trying to politically weaponize Clinton’s appearance in these files. And so, like, is it extremely creepy? Yes. Is it being politically weaponized selectively? Also yes.
Warzel: Yeah. And, you know, I think what’s interesting and also difficult to hold in one’s head, right, is that some of what we know about some of the releases of information that have been, you know, kind of dripped and dropped throughout the fall have come from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, right? And these are, you know, emails that mention people like Peter Thiel; you know, a lot of correspondence between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon; a lot of mentions from Epstein and other people in Epstein’s circle of Donald Trump.
And then you have the Epstein files released by the Trump administration, which contain very scant mention of Donald Trump. There is, you know, to what I have seen—and again, we’re kind of poring over this—what I have seen at present, there is a photo of Jeffrey Epstein’s desk. And there seems to be what appears to be Donald Trump among a bunch of photos in his desk. There is a complaint from the Southern District of New York, a Jane Doe versus Epstein and Maxwell complaint, that mentions an interaction that Donald Trump had with a 14-year-old girl in the presence of Epstein at Mar-a-Lago. That’s kind of it. There’s not a lot there. And I think that, you know, the fact that you have Democrats on the House Oversight Committee releasing this stuff that shows kind of an extended world or associates of Donald Trump just speaks to the relationships that they have had over the course of their lives, running in similar social circles. And then you have what is supposed to be the be-all, end-all of transparency, and there is this scant mention.
It seems—did that surprise you guys at all?
Stanley-Becker: Makes you think.
LaFrance: I mean, yeah, it didn’t necessarily surprise me, but I do feel that there is more that we’re missing. I’ll also point out that Democrats did not seem interested in the Epstein files at all until it became politically convenient for them, which hurts their credibility now. And then the other thing I think we haven’t touched on that’s really important is this question of sort of, like, to what extent is someone guilty by association? Especially when we don’t exactly know what the association is.
Our colleague Liz Bruenig wrote a really thoughtful piece about how there are, you know, because of the sort of dynamic you’ve described where Epstein seemed to sort of collect famous, powerful figures in his life, there are lots of well-known people who have encountered him. And from the very limited information that the public has, it’s really hard to know, is it that Epstein was just wheeling and dealing, and meeting famous people? And yeah, sometimes they got photographed together, and now that looks bad? I mean, you don’t just accidentally get into a hot tub. So that association seems deeper than someone who might’ve just been sitting beside him at an event or something.
But I think there is this real question of, you know: In a culture that rushes to condemn people with limited evidence, you do have to sort of wonder how to contextualize or understand these little snippets or photos that we’re getting that don’t provide adequate information at this point. Does that make sense?
Warzel: Yeah, and I think it also speaks to the difficulties with the redactions, right? Because there are lots of things, as we have mentioned in here, that are redacted, some of them almost perhaps comically, right? Like, you have entire files that are just big black squares; you don’t even really know what the heck is in there. But there’s also a lot of photos and a lot of people online, even journalists that I’ve seen, who are very upset about the number of redactions, right? Like, if you are on what appears to be a private plane with Jeffrey Epstein, why are we redacting you, right?
And there was a report from Fox News that came out sort of early in the day—I’m gonna find it here—after the files were released that said that Fox learned that the same redaction standards were applied to politically exposed individuals and government officials. And that kind of floated around the internet for a while, and it was like, Wait, why are potentially politically exposed people and government officials being treated the same, with the same, you know, privileges as people who have been abused by Jeffrey Epstein? That seemed very, you know, out of place. [Deputy] Attorney General Todd Blanche later said that the Justice Department is, quote, “not redacting the names of any politicians,” and, quote, “There are no redactions of famous people.”
That leaves—that’s a little bit vague in terms of what actually is in there. But I think what’s fascinating, right, is this idea that there is this guilt by association. There is this sense that you could end up at a dinner, not know that Jeffrey Epstein’s there; there’s a photographer or something like that. It gets shown; it’s the only time you’ve ever interacted with this person. And yet, you have been, quote, “put in the Epstein files.” There is this association, as Liz writes in the piece.
And yet at the same time, it seems like we’re also all kind of collectively struggling with this idea of: You don’t just get in a hot tub, as you said, right? And there’s this idea that, like, you don’t just get on the plane. And that’s very different. But all these things get smashed together, especially, I think, because of the way that these files are released, and that just becomes extremely difficult for normal people and concerned people and people who are outraged by, you know, this type of sex trafficking and abuse. It makes it really hard to disentangle.
Stanley-Becker: I think it also speaks to, I mean, there’s now been so much ink spilled on this whole sordid affair. But one of the, in my mind, somewhat unanswered questions is how much Epstein’s globe-trotting life and lifestyle was mixed in with the criminal conduct he was engaged in. How cabined off was it? And I think that goes a long way toward helping us to understand whether all of these associates would have been privy in some way. I think as you both are saying, there’s a big difference between being pictured with him at an event and being pictured in his hot tub. But okay, if you’re on his plane, if you are at one of his homes, what degree of knowledge could you rightfully have been expected to have of what was going on behind closed doors? And I think that’s one of, in my mind, the kind of reporting questions that remains unanswered about all of this.
LaFrance: I totally agree. It’s sort of treated as though it was an open secret all along, and it certainly appears that way for people like us who’ve come to the information much later than these crimes took place. But that’s a real question for me. It’s almost one of the most basic things. Like, who knew? When did they know? What did they know? It’s just, I feel that that’s fundamental.
Stanley-Becker: Well, I was just going to say, mean, maybe there are materials in this cache of documents that will be forthcoming that will help answer this. I guess I’m not really holding my breath, because of all the previous failures. It seems to me like one of the most salient questions—maybe we can get into this—is whether this will satisfy the kind of ferocious right-wing fascination with Epstein, and the kind of beast that Trump and some of his associates created in how they hyped these documents and the kind of unintended consequences they’ve had to face as a result of that. Can that beast be tamed, and will it continue to dog him politically? is, I think, one of the key political questions, aside from the question about, Will victims get their answers? Are there more co-conspirators who can be brought to justice at this phase?
Warzel: I think to your earlier point there, about what people knew and when, obviously, that’s still a huge open question. I think one of the things that was really dissatisfying for me, going through this as someone who’s been writing about and covering this, as opposed to: In early September, House Oversight Democrats released the infamous, I think it was his 50th birthday, Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th-birthday book, right?
And in that, one of the takeaways outside of showing a purported doodle that Donald Trump made, you know, for Epstein that he had previously denied having made— outside of that, what I think what it revealed to me was a lot of winking, you know, and kind of gesturing from these wealthy friends of Jeffrey Epstein towards this idea that, well, he loves, you know, young women, right? Or, as they’re referred to, girls. We don’t know the age of people that we’re being referred to in some of these things. But it was this idea that there is a little bit of that potentially an open secret, right. That he has predilections, and there are people around him who are either okay with that or willing to overlook that or whatever, and even, you know, put that on paper in some capacity.
And I think what we see here in these documents, you have to sort of, like you said, infer, right? You have to, you know, your imagination has to take over on that. And I think that that’s just extremely unhelpful to people. You have to sort of give yourself, Oh, what did Bill Clinton know and when? What is he up to? What did this person know and when? And I think in that sense, you know, it just obfuscates more than anything.
LaFrance: It also points to this much larger sort of cultural question of what people are willing to tolerate. I mean, it’s kind of fascinating and revealing that it hasn’t even yet come up in this conversation, something that we all know, which is that Donald Trump himself has been credibly accused of multiple sexual crimes. And that, I think with the Access Hollywood tape back in 2016, was the moment where it was sort of like, Well, people, not everyone, but many people are just kind of okay with that. And so to me, there is this much larger cultural question. I mean, it goes to your point of: When? What did people know? What were they willing to sort of look away? What was treated as just sort of, He likes girls, whatever—I mean, it’s just, it’s all of a piece in a way that I don’t think anyone has sort of properly contextualized or explained.
Stanley-Becker: Yeah, Adrienne, I was going to make a really similar point, which is that a lot of the really strong reporting about Trump and Epstein’s relationship has focused on their kind of shared pursuit of women and how they competed against each other and participated in this kind of pursuit of women.
And I think that you mentioned the credible accusations against the president, the Access Hollywood tape, and this continues, this kind of language at least, and approach and rhetoric continues to the present day. So amid all of this, the president was delivering remarks in North Carolina last night. And in the course of many other things—Ilhan Omar, et cetera, immigration—he does this routine about Hillary Clinton, talks about how she’s nasty and he wouldn’t want to go home to a woman like that. So the misogyny, and the kind of discussion of women as objects that men are going home to and finding pleasing or not pleasing remains part of his ongoing schtick, which is shocking when you step back and think about it.
LaFrance: Well, and when you look back to that, you know, we talked about that 1996 tip to the FBI about Epstein. That’s taking place around the time shortly before Bill Clinton has an interaction with an intern in the White House. And so there really is this much larger cultural thing where we have to kind of step back and be like: Wait a minute. How are we treating women in this society? And you think about how that was received culturally and how Monica Lewinsky was the butt of all the jokes at the time. I mean, Clinton, to some extent, but far less so. So all of this just feels really of a piece in a way that I think is important.
Warzel: And it also speaks to that political point-scoring, too, right? I reached out in a piece that I wrote yesterday for The Atlantic to the White House. They came back with comment and said—I want to make sure that I get this right—the Trump administration “has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have,” was the big takeaway from that. I was asking whether or not Donald Trump wanted to address that there was this complaint, or that there was a photograph of him. But it was very much this Look what we did, using and referencing the victims, using them as a political object in this.
And I think that something that I saw, speaking to this cultural misogyny and the way that all this is treated: I saw people treating this like the Super Bowl on social media, right? Oh my God, they’re here. It’s Christmas come early. The files are here. When you zoom out, what this actually is: Some of this is crime-scene evidence. Some of this is, you know, evidence of either sexual assault or impropriety or sex trafficking. There’s a lot that we don’t know what it’s even showing, because it’s so heavily redacted. This is monstrous at its core. Like, nothing about this is actually funny. It’s super dramatic. It is culturally extremely relevant. It’s politically extremely relevant because of Epstein’s connections to various elites in the world and powerful people.
But this is all—this is, again, this is like a digital crime scene. And it is being treated as, you know, Well, look what we did for the victims, who, you know, according to the great reporting from our colleague, this is something that has actually left a lot of Epstein’s victims high and dry. They don’t feel like they’ve gotten the transparency and the accountability from this that they were hoping. They didn’t even get a meeting with the attorney general at the end of the day about this ahead of the release of the files.
So I fully agree. I think this is, you know—what has happened culturally as a result of this seems to be even more galling in terms of respecting the victims of sex trafficking and sexual assault. And the way that we talk about this in general just seems to underlie that.
LaFrance: Right, well, it’s sort of—I mean, you’re alluding to one of the great contradictions of the internet, which is: You get a bunch of people on a social platform and let them do whatever they want, and things can be awful and monstrous and glib and all the worst possible qualities you can imagine online. But also, this is a week where a tip on Reddit helped lead to the capture of the Brown shooting suspect. So, yeah, I mean, I think it’s complicated that way. I do wonder if—certainly journalists will be working hard, including many of our colleagues and both of you, to make sense of all of this, but this is one where the collision of conspiracy theory and amateur sleuthing and actual professional journalism can be a force for bad, obviously. But I’d be curious what emerges from ordinary people who are combing over these files too.
Warzel: So, you know, to that point of people going through, I want to talk about the broader conspiracy stuff in a second, or the conspiracy theorizing, rather. Do you all feel the response to this was muted, given how these files had been touted, given that “Release the files” has been a hallmark of Trump’s campaigning in the past? This has been a real load-bearing both meme and political issue for a long time. Do you feel like the reaction was more muted than you thought?
LaFrance: I want to hear what Isaac thinks. What I would just say is, I mean, first of all, you mentioned this earlier, but it’s, like, the granddaddy of Friday-night news dumps, meaning these were released at a time when most people are trying to check out for at least a couple of days. And so that’s a huge factor, I think.
And then the other point I would make is just, like, most people are not extremely online. We are, and people who tend to care about the Epstein files are. But most people really aren’t. And so it’s hard to gauge what we should expect and what muted even means. But I do think, and this is a point you’ve both made, is that this isn’t something that’s gonna go away. Even if it—you can try to bury it the Friday before Christmas, but people are intensely interested in this, and that will continue. But, Isaac, I’m curious what you think.
Stanley-Becker: Yeah, I think that this whole situation is kind of shot through with cynicism. So I think people were primed to expect a cover-up, expect unsatisfying answers. I mean, certainly, we’re hoping for some kind of really scandalous reveal, but I think also very much prepared to be let down in that respect. I guess another way of thinking about this is: Is there any kind of release, is there any kind of document that would put an end to the speculation or would satisfy people’s craving for answers, for accountability, for you name it? And I think basically, no. It’s really hard to imagine what that would be.
Again, it speaks to the way in which this sort of beast has been created, and is really hard to feed or to satisfy. So I think the reaction was somewhat muted for some combination of the reasons you both have mentioned, but it’ll be interesting. And I think some of it will depend on what sort of actions, if any, these lawmakers do take, to what extent the outrage and the response is bipartisan, and whether it forces some additional clean-up by the likes of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general.
Warzel: I’ll just put my own feelings out there on this. I was honestly kind of surprised. I understand that the world does not respond the way that terminally online journalists and people who study conspiracy theories and folks who are interested in the way that stuff travels around the internet or whatever. I understand that most people aren’t like that. But it’s been hard to not turn on a television and see file footage of Jeffrey Epstein’s face over the last six months. It’s been the thing politically that has dogged Donald Trump, right? That the story, as you have put it, that will not go away. And I know that it was a Friday-night news dump. I know that it’s—a big holiday is coming up. That people are checking out for, like, two weeks. You know, this is the actual slowest period of the year. I’m still surprised.
Stanley-Becker: What were you expecting? What did you—I’m just interested. What kind of reaction or response would have, in your mind, fit with that kind of fascination wall-to-wall coverage that you’ve been describing?
Warzel: Honestly, the way that the emails in November, from the tranche of emails that the House Oversight Committee put out. Across all the social-media platforms that I’m on, there was so much screenshotting. There was so much. I know everyone’s feed is different. Everyone, you know, has a different experience on the algorithmic internet. Right. But I felt like that was very much a lot of people reacting to, like: Here is helpful information that contextualizes the Epstein experience, right? Like, here is where we are seeing the way that he interacts and corresponds. And I think that may have had to do with the fact that it was emails, you know. Like, it’s hard to see a photo of Jeffrey Epstein, globe-trotting or, you know, on a Jet Ski and say, Well, now I understand everything. You know? Like, it’s much easier to see correspondence between Jeffrey Epstein and someone else over a long period of time.
Stanley-Becker: It makes—yeah, I don’t know. I guess I see what you mean about that. I see it somewhat differently, and it’s making me think of that [Slavoj] Žižek line. I think it’s Žižek, where he talks about the anticipation always being more satisfying than the fulfillment of the anticipation, like looking forward to something is actually always more enjoyable than experiencing it. And I think that’s so true in this case. Like, isn’t it so much fun and so fantastical to imagine what these files might show, what they might reveal, and to talk with all your friends online about them? And then when they actually drop, it’s like, well, of course they’re going to be dissatisfying and not live up to your expectations.
LaFrance: I also just think it’s such a partisan—I mean, like, this is also partly death of the monoculture and fracturing of informational environments. I mean it’s sort of the most boring but also possibly true explanation, which is: A lot of people are tuned out, everybody’s getting their information from different sources, nobody trusts each other, and it’s very hard for any major news event to capture everybody’s attention at once. We very rarely see that now in a way that we used to even five years ago.
Warzel: Well, think, I think especially to Isaac, to your point: I mean, that’s conspiracy theorizing, right? I have written and a lot of people have also talked about: This is an almost perfect conspiracy theory, right, because it blends real crime, real intrigue, real relationships, real wealth, real power with this idea of something that we can’t see that helps to explain the world. And as soon as we understand it, as soon as we can see it, we will know why, you know, things feel the way that they do, right? Why things are dissatisfying, why certain people have power, why, you know—you name it, right? And that reveal is the fact that we don’t ever know. Like, there’s never been a confirmed report that there is a client list, right, of Jeffrey Epstein. There’s his address book, there’s all sorts of just logistical things in his life, but we don’t have that. And yet the Epstein client list remains this load-bearing conspiracy-theory meme, because that would explain everything, right? That would be the skeleton key to unlock the awful behavior of the global elite, and this is what we don’t know, you know?
Stanley-Becker: But correct me if I’m wrong, Charlie, because you would know the origins of this better. I mean, the person responsible for that is the attorney general, the most powerful law-enforcement official in the country, who said that she had access to that document. So, I mean, yes, there’s this kind of swamp of conspiracy theories. But also, there are people in positions of tremendous authority and power who have fed this and given rise to it.
And I think, you know, amid everything else, one of the kind of trends or dynamics of the first year of the second Trump term that I’m personally fascinated by is this dynamic of kind mudslingers and conspiracy theorists, when they’re outside of government, giving rise to these theories, whipping up fascination, and then coming into government and having the authority to prove it or disprove it, and being kind of unwilling or unable to do that. I mean, suddenly, you have the authority to prove what you have claimed, and what do you do? You’re in a real bind in that situation.
LaFrance: This is such a good point, and it also makes me think it’s important to point out that Donald Trump is like the OG version of this, in the sense that he rose to political power based on the birtherism conspiracy theory. And so I think you’re spot-on there.
Stanley-Becker: And Thomas Massie, who’s been the kind of main Republican voice on this, in passing the other day I saw tweeted, If the 2020 election had been a criminal conspiracy theory, why has no one been arrested over it? And it’s an amazing point. And the fact that the people who believe this, the president’s supporters who believe this, have not been dissatisfied, outraged, and demanded something different from their leader is psychologically fascinating. Sorry, I interrupted you.
LaFrance: No, no, I’m totally with you. I mean, the other thing that it makes me think is, like, in terms of the conspiracy theorizing, this Epstein as a conspiracy theory, setting aside the actual crimes, it has fodder for any conspiracy theorist. And it’s important to point this out. Conspiracy theorizing is not tied to one ideology or another. The qualities that sort of unite the people who are drawn to conspiracy theories are intense distrust for government, but power generally. So, like, anti-establishment views, a sense of being aggrieved, or victimhood sort of status. And so if you look at this from that lens and you think, okay, if you’re a conspiracy theorist, and all you wanna do is prove whatever your conspiracy theory about Donald Trump is, you’ve got plenty of fodder there. If you’re an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, this is total fodder for that, sort of, the global elite with a powerful Jewish man. So that squarely fits onto that conspiracy theory. And you sort of tick down the list of all of the most potent and dangerous conspiracy theories, and you can see how it maps onto Epstein. And so I feel like that’s a huge part of this as well.
Warzel: I think that’s very true. There is this dynamic, Isaac, also, as you said. I mean, I guess one could say “Don’t put podcasters in charge of the government” is one part of this. But it’s also this: It is so easy to crusade against the government, against the people in power, right, and use that and leverage that.
And what we’ve seemed to be seeing time and again in this administration is: Once you get in that position of power, it becomes really hard to deal with this, right? Like, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, the FBI, have on some of these other sort of smaller issues have said, You know, now I’ve looked at this thing. You know, it’s not what you think, because just trust me. And that’s really hard position for anyone to be in.
But I think you’re right. The flames of all of this were fanned by this administration, starting with Bondi, you know, referring to a client list. She then later said, I should note, that she was just referring to some of what we looked at over the past day, the files, not the actual client list. But it’s also very clear that back in February, a lot of people probably don’t remember, the administration made binders of information about Jeffrey Epstein and invited a whole bunch of right-wing influencers to come and collect them. And then, again, they’ve denied that this is what they did, but walked them out the door of the White House in front of a pool of press photographers; all the influencers were holding up the binders of this. This has certainly been played up by the administration.
LaFrance: Totally. Well, and the other thing is, with any major mainstream conspiracy theory, you always have to think about the true believers, because there are people who truly believe conspiracy theories and truly worry about victims in cases where there aren’t any. Obviously, there are victims in this case. You think about Pizzagate, which was someone who believed that there was a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor where they were abusing children. There was no evidence that that was true. I actually go to this pizza place all the time. It’s great.
And someone came in with a gun on a crusade. And so, you know, that’s a true believer. You have true believers on all kinds of conspiracy theories. But conspiracy theories also attract grifters and people who are opportunists and using them for political gain, as you point out, that we’ve seen within the Trump administration.
And so the other thing that I think we should watch very carefully going forward is this sort of: As more information comes out, as people are able to watch the administration’s handling of this, you’re going to see more of a divide between the true believers and the grifters. And some true believers may tie themselves in knots, justifying why they still trust Donald Trump or why they still trust Pam Bondi or whoever. But I think it gets harder and harder to have it all hold together when the grifters show themselves so obviously to be grifting.
Warzel: So that’s a great bridge to how I want to kind of tie a bow on this at the end. Which is, do we think this is going to fan the flames? Is this only going to make the conspiracy theory stronger? Do you think in some sense, you know, there’s a little bit of fatigue that might set in here, even politically, right? Like, this is something that also has—it’s tough to capture people’s attention for a long period of time. This story has, for quite a long time. And now with the release of this—I’ll start with you, Isaac—do you see this ramping up, ramping down? Or is this just gonna drag out in a very unsatisfying way for the next forever? What are you thinking in regards to that?
Stanley-Becker: Yeah, I’m sort of torn on this, actually. It has shown remarkable staying power, more so than other dynamics. And I think it’s been one of the areas where President Trump has this kind of Teflon political character, where issues that would be very damaging for others seem to kind of bounce right off of him. I think he has sustained some political damage from this. And I think that as we’ve been discussing, this release was deeply unsatisfying, and there’s a lot of grounds for continued suspicion and concern and attacks. But I also do think that there may be somewhat of a fatigue factor setting in. I think fatigue is—it’s the word I was going to use as well, and the one you used. And maybe that was responsible for some of the muted reaction last night as well, is that people are ready for their kind of fresh outrage, fresh conspiracy theory, fresh kind of gamified experience.
Warzel: And I think also, too, it becomes: The more we know, the more unsatisfying, right? Like, the more that your team is in power, it becomes a little harder to leverage this, right? I think part of the reason that some of the reaction was muted is also because it’s less—there are people who realize that you don’t want to get out over your skis on this, right? Because you don’t know what's coming next. I feel that there are people, you know, who might want to score political points.
I’ll just say: There’s a lot of right-wing influencers on the internet that I saw who are, like, kind of remarkably quiet, right? Even though, the fact that, I mean, there were some mentions of Bill Clinton, but it wasn’t their Super Bowl of conspiracy theorizing or anything like that. And I think there is, for some of those people, potentially this idea of, like, you don’t know what’s around the corner. You don’t know what’s going to be there. And I think there are more people, strangely enough for 2025, like, playing it a little bit safe with regards to that.
LaFrance: Well, and I’ll just add: I think what all three of us know acutely from being journalists is that something is the biggest story in the world until the next biggest story in the world comes along. And so I think what we’re probably likely to see is this sort of ebbing and flowing. And there’ll be moments where it’s less prominent, and potentially, depending on what the public is able to learn, moments where it comes back again. And so that’s sort of what I think we’ll be watching for and, obviously, trying to report out.
Stanley-Becker: I think also that—I was just gonna say: The theme isn’t going away, of the kind of selective release and weaponization of information by this administration. Adrienne mentioned Pizzagate, and the right-wing influencer responsible for propagating that conspiracy theory, Jack Posobiec, is totally tied in with the administration, with DHS in particular, accompanying Kristi Noem on raids. So I think the administration sees a lot of benefit in some of this conspiracy theorizing. So I expect it to continue, whether it’s about the Epstein files or other issues.
Warzel: So last thing to land this plane: What did we learn? Did we learn anything? If either of you are going to offer a high-level takeaway to somebody who is blissfully enjoying their holiday break and not combing through Department of Justice files over the weekend. Like, Adrienne, I’ll start with you. And then, Isaac, what did you learn?
LaFrance: This is maybe a cop-out, but I don’t know. I don’t think we know yet. I mean, we know there were crimes committed. We know Epstein had associations with powerful people, including at least two presidents. But I think our society could use more people saying “I don’t know.” And so I’m going to say, I don’t know. And I think we need to keep asking questions about it. But yeah, I think we’re very much in the midst of trying to figure this out.
Stanley-Becker: Yeah, no, no, no. Gosh, it’s really tough because there were small bits and pieces, the 1996 tip to the FBI, that to those on the inside of this or tracking it matter. They matter a great deal to understanding why this happened and why victims weren’t believed. But zooming way, way out, I do think it’s a kind of X-ray look at why our politics and society are so broken, because it’s got everything. It’s got the failure of accountability. It’s got the distrust. It’s got the politicization of everything. So I think that’s the bleak takeaway, is that it really is a window into how askew things are in our country and have been for a while.
Warzel: I’m going to be glib, and I’m going to say I learned that the government cannot build a search function that works properly.
LaFrance: That’s definitely true.
Warzel: The website of it all was underwhelming in that sense. No, I think that that’s actually a really good way to end this and to think about this in general, is that if you do zoom out far enough, this is, in some ways, not just this dump of documents, but the whole saga. It feels a little bit like a skeleton key to understanding the frustrations that so many people have, right? The reason why there is a lot of distrust in institutions can be very much explained by the fact that there are wealthy and powerful people, people who currently occupy positions of power who have been seen associating with this person in some capacity, either before or in some cases after this person was a convicted sex offender, right? I think that there is a way that you can look at these things and really get an understanding of, as you said, why a lot of people feel so cynical about government and politics and elites, you know, to use that word in general. I think that is a good takeaway in this.
LaFrance: Can I offer one hopeful note?
Warzel: Oh wow! Hopeful note! Please!
LaFrance: I have hope. What I would say is, it also shows that the truth matters, and people won’t be satisfied until they get the truth. And sometimes the truth is elusive, and that’s very hard. But to me, there is some glimmer of hope that the intense focus on this means that people care about the truth and that people will seek it and report it. And that really does matter. So I’ll just throw that out there.
Warzel: Hell, yeah. Adrienne LaFrance, Isaac Stanley-Becker, thank you for coming on Galaxy Brain. Thank you for taking time out of your holiday break and also trying to make sense of this for all of us. Because, again, this does matter. This is something that is of great importance. So thank you all for your time and your reporting.
Stanley-Becker: Thanks, Charlie.
LaFrance: Thank you. And I hope the sun comes up soon over there. Is it dawn yet?
Warzel: No. We got like two hours to go here.
LaFrance: All right. Godspeed.
[Music]
Warzel: That’s it for us here. Thank you again to my guests Adrienne LaFrance and Isaac Stanley-Becker. If you liked what you saw here on this emergency episode of Galaxy Brain, new episodes will drop every Friday. You can subscribe to The Atlantic’s YouTube channel or on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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