Attorney General Pam Bondi's recent comments about evidence the Justice Department is reviewing from its Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation fueled anticipation about the expected release of more files related to the wealthy financier.
Weeks after Bondi's claim about "tens of thousands" of Epstein videos in the government's possession, it remains unclear what she was referring to.
Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies June 25 during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
A New York financier with ties to politicians and other famous and powerful people, Epstein was arrested in 2019 and charged with sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls in the early 2000s.
The case came more than a decade after a secret plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida disposed of nearly identical allegations.
Weeks after his arrest, Epstein took his own life inside a high-security unit at a New York jail. Since then, Epstein's crimes, high-profile connections and death made him a subject of intense scrutiny and conspiracy theories.
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Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's British socialite girlfriend, later was convicted of helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. Many women who accused Epstein of abusing them said Maxwell recruited them.
Maxwell, who laid blame for the abuse on Epstein, was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison.
How claim surfaced
In April, a woman with a hidden camera approached Bondi in a restaurant and asked about the status of the release of the Epstein files. Bondi replied there were tens of thousands of videos "and it's all with little kids so they have to go through every one," referring to the FBI.
In May, after conservative activist James O'Keefe — who obtained and later publicized the hidden camera video — alerted the Justice Department press office to the encounter, Bondi appeared at the White House, where she said: "There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn."
The comments tapped into long-held suspicions and theories that embarrassing and incriminating details about him or other powerful figures remain suppressed by the government. Her statements appeared meant to explain the delay in releasing more files, even though the government presumably would never release footage depicting children.
Conservative political commentator Rogan O'Handley, also known as DC Draino, and social media content creator Chaya Raichik hold up binders with a cover titled "The Epstein Files: Phase 1" on Feb. 27 at the White House in Washington.
What reporting found
AP spoke with lawyers and law enforcement officials in criminal and civil cases concerning Epstein and Maxwell who said they had not seen and did not know of a trove of recordings like what Bondi described.
Indictments and detention memos in the cases do not reference sexually suggestive videos, and neither was charged with possession of child sexual abuse material even though that offense would have been easier for prosecutors to prove than the sex trafficking counts they faced.
Audrey Strauss, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during a July 2, 2020, news conference in New York.
An AP review of hundreds of court documents in the case found nonspecific mentions of the existence of video evidence but no references to tens of thousands of recordings showing Epstein with children or child sex abuse material.
FBI Director Kash Patel, who refuted conspiracy theories that Epstein was murdered, did not advance the suggestion of thousands of recordings with Epstein during a recent interview on Joe Rogan's podcast.
He dismissed the possibility of incriminating videos involving powerful Epstein friends, saying "If there was a video of some guy or gal committing felonies on an island and I'm in charge, don't you think you'd see it?" Asked whether the narrative "might not be accurate that there's video of these guys doing this," Patel replied, "Exactly."
However, a clue may lie in a 2023 court filing in which Epstein's estate was revealed to have located an unspecified number of videos and photos that it said might contain child sex abuse material. It remains shrouded in secrecy; lawyers in that civil case say they are bound by a protective order and cannot discuss it.
The judge ordered representatives of Epstein's estate to review the content before handing anything over to the lawyers and alert the FBI if the estate found anything that could be considered child sexual abuse imagery.
The department declined the AP's requests to speak with officials overseeing the Epstein review.
Bondi
'Declassified' binders
During a Fox News interview in February, Bondi said an alleged Epstein “client list†was sitting on her desk for review. The next day, the Justice Department distributed binders marked “declassified†to far-right influencers, but much of the information was public for years. No “client list†was disclosed, and there’s no evidence such a document exists.
The flop left conservatives fuming and did little to tamp down conspiracy theories.
Bondi said a “source†in the FBI’s New York field office informed her that thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents exist and ordered the bureau to provide the “full and complete Epstein files.†Employees logged hours reviewing records to prepare them for release but it’s unclear when that might happen.
