SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The release of millions of pages of Epstein files last Friday have raised more questions than they've answered. Jeffrey Epstein's private communications continue to reveal the web of powerful figures that sought his friendship and counsel. Internal notes from the Justice Department show the extent of allegations made against Epstein, but also against others that have not faced any criminal charges for sex trafficking. Speaking on CNN's "State Of The Union" Sunday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said new charges for anybody else is unlikely.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "STATE OF THE UNION")
TODD BLANCHE: We then released over 3 1/2 million pieces of paper, which the entire world can look at now and see if we got it wrong.
DETROW: NPR's Stephen Fowler is following the story and joins me now. Hey, Stephen.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Hey there.
DETROW: So the Justice Department said it released its final batch of files on Friday - three million pages, a staggering amount of information. How do you even start reviewing them?
FOWLER: Well, Scott, the way that they've done the release of the Epstein files has made it virtually impossible to tell a full story about anything. There's no rhyme or reason to how these pages are ordered. There's no context surrounding information released here or there. There are multiple copies of just about everything, and you have some cases where there's information redacted in one version and not redacted in another, so it's hard to know if you're looking at the most recent or most complete or most accurate version of anything. And so when you may see things on social media about XYZ person here, or file, or thing, it's taken a lot more time to try and connect all of these dots.
DETROW: Can you walk me through one example of that?
FOWLER: Over the weekend, online, there were many viral posts on X that showed a screenshot of an email between billionaire Elon Musk to Epstein that mentions a, quote, "epic island vacation" where Musk says, girls FTW - which means for the win - which is a pretty wild thing. What's even more wild - it's not real. It is a fake email, a fake screenshot. There is nothing to that effect in the files. But you can find messages from Musk that are in the files where he does discuss plans to visit Epstein's island, but you can't tell the full story without going through all 3 million files.
DETROW: Right. And besides Musk, there are many other powerful people who did communicate with Epstein. To be clear, that doesn't necessarily imply wrongdoing or any knowledge of his crimes. Who else is mentioned in there that's noteworthy?
FOWLER: You can take a look at pretty much any industry or political ideology and they're in the files. There's a meeting with the founder of the popular online image board 4chan. I heard a voice message from Deepak Chopra related to financial advice he was seeking from Epstein. It is really notable how many folks communicated with Epstein even after he was convicted of sex crimes, and the personal depth and breadth of these conversations - I mean, not to mention all of the people that are in these files that are redacted that we don't know about or weren't meant to know about from these Epstein files. Though, Scott, as I've said, the redactions have been haphazard when it comes to names.
DETROW: I want to talk about that. In another part of the show I spoke to Annie Farmer, one of the women who testified in court against Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Here's what she said about having other survivors' information exposed in these files.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
ANNIE FARMER: There's just no explanation for how it could have been done so poorly. They've had victims' names for a very long time. I don't think this is just about rushing to get this information out.
DETROW: So Stephen, how widespread is this?
FOWLER: Well, in looking through the files, we found numerous examples of known victims' names unredacted and in context people who are likely victims as well whose names haven't been made public before. We saw scrolling through driver's license photos with full names and information unredacted, again without any context. There's faces and people that don't seem to have any ties to Epstein that are left unviewed. And we even saw in a text message an article with Donald Trump's face blocked out. This was Donald Trump's face on an article in a text message.
DETROW: What else do you think you might be looking for in the coming days?
FOWLER: Well, the - we found out things about draft charges that were extensive that merit further review, and we've also found a lot about Epstein's finances that we're trying to unpack to figure out where he got his money and how he used it to do these things.
DETROW: That is NPR's Stephen Fowler. Thank you so much.
FOWLER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
