Trump DOJ Makes INCRIMINATING ADMISSION on EPSTEIN FILES

What this episode is about

The Department of Justice, under Donald Trump's administration, has admitted to federal judges that it failed to produce necessary documents in accordance with the Epstein Transparency Act, misleading survivors who reported being kept uninformed. As the DOJ acknowledges its noncompliance regarding deadlines for document release and required reporting to Congress, concerns grow about potential misconduct and the impact on ongoing Epstein-related cases.

Key takeaways

• DOJ's 'respectful' letter: a confession wrapped in bureaucratic jargon — transparency or just another veiled admission?
• Promises vs. performance: DOJ's delay in Epstein documents breaches trust, raises questions about victim care and transparency.
• The Epstein Transparency Act: a reminder that compliance is not optional, even for those who write their own rules.
• With millions of documents at stake, are the DOJ's 'endless reviews' just an elaborate way to dodge accountability?
• In the age of information, the DOJ's struggle with 'quality control' sounds more like a lack of will than organization.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Ben (Guest) · 15 min speaking
• Harry Litman (Guest) · 7 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Epstein Transparency Act, Donald Trump, Department of Justice, Congress
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Harry Litman, Epstein Transparency Act, Congress, Donald Trump
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Congress, Donald Trump
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Epstein Transparency Act, Congress
5. 20:00 – 21:58: Harry Litman, Talking Feds

Notable quotes from "Trump DOJ Makes INCRIMINATING ADMISSION on EPSTEIN FILES"

• Late last night, Donald Trump's Department of Justice made an incriminating admission to two federal judges in the Southern District, New York about their failure to produce.

  about Donald Trump · at 0:00

• Respective criminal cases because the DOJ promised that they had to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act which said all of the documents would be released by December 19th…

  about Epstein Transparency Act · at 1:03

• Victims. quality control, which they've already offended these victims and retraumatized them. Harry, they're not producing these documents on what you and I would call a…

  about Harry Litman · at 7:37

• Okay, but give us you know a longer deadline or they could have when they got into some trouble a little bit before the 19th come to Congress. But that's they've made it clear they don't give a crap about Congress. Congress.

  about Congress · at 8:48

• Know, like a lot of damage has been inflicted and if our laws matter, they need to be upheld. Harry Litman runs the Talking Feds YouTube channel, Talking Feds Substack, and Talking Feds podcast.

  about Talking Feds · at 21:24

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Donald Trump — Person · Primary referenced political figure (subject of criticism) · 5 mentions · first at 0:00
  Discussed as the political leader tied to the DOJ’s alleged non-compliance and as the beneficiary of delayed/limited disclosure; repeatedly framed as driving concealment and disregard for Congress.
• Harry Litman — Person · Main guest · 4 mentions · first at 7:08
  Brought in as a legal analyst to interpret the DOJ letter, statutory deadlines, redaction limits, and the practical enforcement gaps around the Epstein Transparency Act.

Companies & orgs

• Department of Justice — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions · first at 0:02
  Primary government body accused of non-compliance with the Epstein Transparency Act
  York about their failure to produce documents in compliance with the Epstein Transparency Act. Now, the Department of Justice was pretending that it was doing a very diligent…
• Congress — Company · Referenced entity · 7 mentions · first at 1:19
  Legislative body mentioned in relation to the Epstein Transparency Act's requirements

Concepts & topics

• Epstein Transparency Act — Concept · Core topic · 8 mentions · first at 0:11
  Central legislation discussed in the episode regarding the release of documents related to the Epstein case

Media & podcasts

• Talking Feds — Media · Referenced media · 2 mentions · first at 7:08
  Media channel mentioned in the context of discussing the Epstein case and DOJ's actions

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Late last night, Donald Trump's Department of Justice made an incriminating admission to two federal judges in the Southern District, New York about their failure to produce documents in compliance with the Epstein Transparency Act. Now, the Department of Justice was pretending that it was doing a very diligent job and that it was speaking with the survivors, although the survivors previously filed declarations saying that they are being completely left in the dark and mistreated by Donald Trump's DOJ. I'm hopeful that these judges will push back because in my opinion there is a fraud taking place before this court, but that's to be determined what these federal judges will do. So the Department of Justice sent the letter to two federal judges who are overseeing one the Epstein case and the other the Gain Maxwell case and they had to undo certain protective orders in the respective criminal cases because the

1:06 DOJ promised that they had to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act which said all of the documents would be released by December 19th and 15 days thereafter under the Epstein transpar arency act. A report would be submitted to Congress detailing all of the redactions by the Department of Justice to confirm that it was in compliance with the Epstein Transparency Act. But we are now in January 28th. We're almost in February and the DOJ has not complied. And brazenly, here's the letter that they sent to Judge Burman and Judge Angle Memire, the two federal judges. Dear Judge Burman and Angel Meery, the department respectfully, don't you love when they start off saying respectfully and then they just confess to a crime because indeed it is a crime to violate the Epstein transparency act. The department respectfully submits this letter as an update to previous submissions to the court regarding the review and

2:01 redactions of certain materials required to be published pursuant to the directives of HR4405, the Epstein transparency act. So right there they admit it's required to be produced but they just omit that the date was December 19th. Must be nice where you're just like yeah the speed limit 65. I was going 105 but whatever it is it is it is what it is. They go on to say, "The department continues to make substantial progress in its efforts to identify potentially responsive documents, review those documents, redact victim identifying information and privileged information, engage in quality control process, and prepare responsive documents for a publication in accordance with the act." So, pause right there. Identify privileged information. The Epstein Transparency Act doesn't say that you could withhold privileged information. It just says the redactions that can be made are about the victim's names, the survivors names,

3:06 depiction of abuse, and other very private personal information like social security information, but that's it. There's no withholding on the basis of deliberative process privilege or executive privilege because if you're going to claim a deliberative process privilege or an executive privilege and then use that to withhold documents and you claim that there's no court who can enforce your compliance, there is no compliance mechanism because the Trump regime will then be the judges of themselves. You think Donald Trump is a good judge of itself when it comes to the Epstein Transparency Act. But my view is that this document I'm reading for you right now is an admission of a crime and hopefully they get prosecuted under a future DOJ. Let me go on to read what it says. It says indeed the department has reviewed millions of pages of materials applying redactions as appropriate to include documents such

4:03 as emails and text messages as well as video and audio recordings created and or maintained by the defendants. The department continues to engage with victims and victims counsel and apply quality control checks to ensure that victim privacy is protected to the maximum extent practicable. Pause right there because in the prior production where they've only produced 1% of the records or 12,500 documents, they were leaking victim information and social securities and things like that. It then goes on to say, "Contemporaneously with these efforts, the department using internal resources and with the support from its vendors has endeavored to ensure that the document management system it is using to comply with the act are operating and will continue to operate in accordance with the requirements of the act and the department's commitment to protecting victim privacy." Pause. That's just a bunch of word salad and gibberish right

4:56 there. Who the hell even knows what that means? Those efforts include not only manual review by hundreds of department attorneys, agents, and others conducting page bypage review of millions of pages of documents, but also electronic search for victim's names and other identifiers to isolate documents that are particularly sensitive and require supplemental review as well as relief from various protective orders issued in other courts. Pause right there. So, what the hell were they doing back in February when Pam Bondi said that all of the documents were on her desk? What were they doing from March through May or June when they said they had a thousand FBI agents working on it? Were they pretending? Were the taxpayers paying overtime to FBI and DOJ personnel who were doing nothing? Why does it they seem like they're just doing this for the first time right now? They go on to say the department currently expects

5:45 that it will complete these processes with respect to substantially all of the potential responsive documents, including publication to the Epstein Library website in the near term. The department is not able to provide a specific date at this time and cautions that it's an ongoing process including its quality control checks and document management system preparations may require additional efforts to ensure protection of victim identifying information while complying with the broad demands of the act. And it goes on to say on page three, department agents and others have dedicated days and weeks to compliance with the act and will continue to do so until it's complete.

6:27 Why days and weeks? Wouldn't it be a year? What were you doing February, March, April, May? As I view it, this document is a roadmap in my opinion to criminal conduct and violations of the Epstein Transparency Act. Imagine if there was a law, you violated it, and then you did a document and said, "Let me explain to you how I'm violating the law." And then it goes on to say, "The department continues to invite victims andor their counsel to contact the department promptly if there is any concerns about the materials to be published. To the extent applicable, the department reminds the public generally and victims specifically that if anyone believes materials improperly have been published pursuant to the act, they should contact the department." And I want to bring in Harry Litman from the Talking Feds YouTube channel, Talking Feds Substack, and Talking Feds podcast.

7:14 Harry, it is great to see you. You know, this document so cavalerely to me is an admission that they violate the act. The act says here are the only redactions you could make. And they are talking about now making redactions that involve privilege claims, not privacy. They slipped the word privilege in there hoping nobody would notice while they kept on talking about victims, victims, victims. quality control, which they've already offended these victims and retraumatized them. Harry, they're not producing these documents on what you and I would call a rolling basis, which is if you finish reviewing 50,000, produce the 50,000. Why withhold them all? That makes no sense. And then they go on to never give a date. No date in sight. We're basically on February. They started this process last February. It's total BS. What do you make of it, Harry?

8:05 Well, here's where we are. It's the way you put it, Ben. The the speed limit 65. They're going 105, but they're now saying we were going 105. We're down to 102 and we're making our way to 65. Can't tell you when we'll get there, but little by little, we're slowing down. You know, they talk repeatedly about their compliance. What they mean, just as you say, is they're explaining their non-compliance. The Etsy Transparency Act is crystal clear and Trump signed it. He was forced to. It said December 19th for everything and if they they could have tried to push back then guys.

8:48 Okay, but give us you know a longer deadline or they uh they could have when they got into some trouble a little bit before the 19th come to Congress. But that's they've made it clear they don't give a crap about Congress. Congress won't be able to enforce not just the timeline but as you say the bases for redactions not only in the negligible percentage of docs they received uh have they done apparently excessive redactions. They haven't explained a single one. It's the express requirement of the act and you need to if you were in court in front of Burman or Angle Meyer and you were trying to assert we want this kind of privilege or that um you would explain it. The judge would say I don't think that's actually attorney client privilege cuz it's not done for legal counsel or whatever. They haven't even respected Congress enough.

9:47 They do this every day in litigation to serve up what their redactions are. That is itself a wholesale non-compliance. As you suggest, their um redactions seem to extend beyond the narrow um permissions in the act. This is the law. That law for instance, the reason we're talking to Burman and Angle Meer in the first place, Congress has determined it. And now Trump's rule six. It's you know grant which which says generally you can't reveal grand jury stuff and likewise it it provides what kinds of privilege are recognized. These kinds of privileges by and large come from Congress and they're just ignoring uh Congress. I did think um maybe maybe I'm wrong about this, but there is as as you say respectfully the your the first um uh response is that's a good joke, but there was a bizarre kind of attempt to be sort of unuous here to Angel Meer and Burman when as you say it just screams off the page, we haven't complied. We're

10:58 not complying. We're not close to complying. We haven't complied in six different ways. We can't tell you when we will comply. Oh, but here's our compliance and what we're doing. But they were less tulent. Now, you know, you're the one who made the really good point, I think, about the finesse played to Angle Meer and and how Angel Meer might get his sort of clause into the overall question of the uh sufficiency of production under the Transparency Act. and he's a judge and a pretty nononsense one. But, uh, unlike some of the really kind of nasty, uh, DOJ grams that we've seen in different, uh, courts, they kind of talk nice, but as you say, it's, you know, enough if if a judge were falling to make him tear her his hair out because they are just laying out a litany of non-compliance and saying how hard they're working on it. We're now like almost 2 months past the statutory deadline. It's a law. It's

12:08 a law. Same as you pay your taxes on April 15th. It's a law. And uh they're just, you know, what they're really documenting is the failure to comply in manifold ways. And remember what's at at at stake here, man. And if you can't get the redactions and you can't get the documents, um you know, who knows whether this this whole um motherload of materials will will see the light of day and whether they can be trusted to do the right thing. And then I'll just join you on this final point of irony that is so gling, the supposed we will continue to give me a frigin break. We will continue to reach out to victims and welcome. They're letting us know when they think there are problems. They have really kick victims in the teeth repeatedly. And you know, these these victims have suffered for years. DOJ should be on their side, but they're only on Donald Trump's side, which means they're on the side of concealment, not

13:17 disclosure. And it there, you know, the the victims are re uh traumatized with this really parsimmonious little bit of this, little bit of that and overall non-compliance. So, it's a kind of bizarre letter, but as you say, it's mainly a letter that shows repeatedly they're not complying with the the terms that, you know, of a bill that every member of Congress but one s uh approved, voted for, and Trump signed into law. And uh you know, ever since they've they've been uh really just giving uh excuse after excuse for not complying. They just haven't taken it seriously. And the final point is not taking it seriously may well be part of the point. being able to just sort of make their excuses and notice that this was the um subject matter that seemed to be the one kryptonite toward uh Trump and the administration. And over the last several weeks, we've talked about Minnesota, we've talked about Venezuela,

14:26 we've talked about Greenland, we've talked about Davos, not so much Epstein, and that might be the overall game. You know, at this point, we're clearly in what you and I would describe in a court of law as adverse inference territory.

14:43 I think we shouldn't accept this, but under this current regime, they are not going to ever produce the Epstein files. You know, whatever they produce is tainted. Whatever comes out, they will they are saying that they are making privilege claims. The moment they snuck the word privilege in there, you and I have covered in other contexts how this regime has has asserted deliberative process privilege and other privileges to block the production of critical information in cases. Now there are judges in those cases though and adversarial proceedings often where DOJ is prosecuting somebody oftentimes wrongly. The person requests information. DOJ refuses to do it. Turn it over. They claim deliberative process privilege or whatever. A motion is made to the judge compel the production. and a judge says, "This is a bogus deliberative process or executive privilege. You need to turn over the documents." We've seen this time and

15:56 time again, especially in the immigration context with a lot of these arrests and vindictive prosecution type stuff. The issue here, Harry, and the DOJ knows this and this was not addressed in the Epstein Transparency Act because our system was built on certain types of norms that a law gets passed, you follow the law. Well, DOJ and Gilain are essentially on the same side. Non-disclosure, cover up, she pleads the fifth. They do the equivalent of that. Um but but not actually doing it, you know, non-responsiveness. So there's no one who can make a motion to these federal judges. This is a bogus deliberative process privilege. end where Roana and Thomas Massie tried to intervene. The judge said, "We really" and Burman wrote a letter saying, "I really wish I could help you victims Roana, Massie. I can't do anything because this is a case involving the DOJ and Epstein or the DOJ and Gileain." And

17:01 so Harry, there is, you know, there there there's no enforcement mechanism and the DOJ is going to take the position for the remainder of this term. And even if there's a foyer request, they're going, let's just say someone initiates a lawsuit, files this in a foyer context, or has a new case. First off, the DOJ is going to argue no standing um no matter who brings it. They're going to then argue no private cause of action so that there is no enforcement mechanism. They will then also argue deliberative process and executive privilege. And they will make sure that that takes years to litigate to the Supreme Court. And they will now maybe they'll do droplets of more documents that have Bill Clinton's name on it or whatever the hell they're going to do. you know, but throw throw some other executives out there, you know, who may have but but they will cover this up for Trump until the end. And

18:00 it's and and it's tragic. It's tragic that our government is covering up a child sex trafficking. But that's what hap h that's what's happening. That's it. That's it. And look, uh the fact that their very first revelation of what you know 100 documents had Clinton's name all over it means already they've done a sort of comprehensive review. Imagine how they had to sift through the haystack to find those needles and keep Trump from coming to light. So, you know, the notion that they're just working hard overtime to get to one and then the other, that's that's total uh crap. But also, I look, I really want to take you to emphasize your point and with the exception that proves the rule.

18:43 You're exactly right. In a normal case, would you have privilege or not? It's according to the law. The law sets standards. Is this the deliberative process etc. And secondly, does those do those privileges which are qualified give um way to a real need for evidence? That's how it works. When you have a judge who's acquainted with applying the law and legal standards to apply, then it happens. Congress doesn't have the wherewithal to do that. And we've known it from the start and the administration has known it to from the start. So what do we have here? We have the equivalent of Judge Eileen Cannon, the exception that proves the rule because you're exactly right. We have this really important information volume two of Jack Smith's act. But we have a case where there's no adversity. It is on the one side the prosecutors DOJ. Haha. And on the other side, the defendants, haha, Carlos de Alivea and and Trump, she's uh

19:48 Canon has permitted to participate um more or less as a uh party and Walt Na, the other defendant. So when you have that and you have no adversity and no one pushing, what you get is exactly what you've gotten in Florida. uh really vital public information not coming out. No one is there to really speak for and press under law and no one is there to neutrally and fairly evaluate those arguments of the people's interest and particularly the victim's interest in getting all this stuff finally. So, you're right. In the absence of that, the DOJ can just uh fiddle all day long and the next day and the next week while proclaiming how hard they are working on it. And it'll, you know, it'll just be another uh minute or so. And in the near term, they say, we can't really tell you what that means. The near term could be uh, you know, 2150.

20:55 Yeah. This is uh it's it's a it's an admission right there in the letter. And I'm just hopeful, you know, that you know when a future Democrat's running for the presidency, these are the types of are you going to prosecute people for these violations? Yes or no? Are you going to prosecute ICE? Are you going to prosecute border patrol? Are you going to do are you going to prose or are we going to go back to, you know, well, you know, we don't know. We bring everybody together. Let's heal. Let's unite. You know, like a lot of damage has been inflicted and if our laws matter, they need to be upheld. Harry Litman runs the Talking Feds YouTube channel, Talking Feds Substack, and Talking Feds podcast.

21:35 Harry, thanks for everything. Everybody subscribed to the Talking Feds YouTube channel. Thanks, Harry.

21:39 Hey, thanks Ben. Love this video? Support independent media and unlock exclusive content. Add free videos and custom emojis by becoming a paid member of our YouTube channel today. You can also gift memberships to others. Let's keep growing together.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump DOJ Makes INCRIMINATING ADMISSION on EPSTEIN FILES"?

Ben (Guest), Harry Litman (Guest).

What is "Trump DOJ Makes INCRIMINATING ADMISSION on EPSTEIN FILES" about?

The Department of Justice, under Donald Trump's administration, has admitted to federal judges that it failed to produce necessary documents in accordance with the Epstein Transparency Act, misleading survivors who reported being kept uninformed. As the DOJ acknowledges its noncompliance regarding deadlines for document release and required reporting to Congress, concerns grow about potential…

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Epstein Transparency Act, Donald Trump, Department of Justice, Harry Litman, Congress, Talking Feds. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump DOJ Makes INCRIMINATING ADMISSION on EPSTEIN FILES"?

The episode runs 22 min; the transcript is about 3,421 words in 25 timestamped sections.

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