'They're Delusional If They Think This Is Going to Go Away'
Source: The Atlantic
December 19, 2025, 10:33 PM ET
Jeffrey Epstein’s victims began the day believing they might finally get something they’d been requesting for years: a direct conversation with the nation’s top law-enforcement official before the Justice Department made public a full trove of long-buried documents and photos. The release of the Epstein files, as the department’s hundreds of thousands of investigative materials have come to be known, might finally provide clarity on what the government knew about Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme and when it knew it. The victims sat by their phones waiting anxiously—but also, they told me, with a bit of hope.
Just over 24 hours earlier, on the eve of the deadline for the files’ release, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had placed a call to a group that supports survivors of Epstein’s abuse, according to multiple people briefed on the outreach. On the call, the officials previewed what would and wouldn’t be in the disclosure: photographs, yes; videos, no. Victims’ names would be redacted. At one point, according to a person familiar with the conversation, the officials suggested that if video exists, it may still be in the possession of the Epstein estate—an assertion that raised alarms among survivors who have long believed that recordings were used as leverage and blackmail.
This morning, the Justice Department indicated via email to the group that Bondi would try to speak with survivors and expressed support for them, according to people familiar with the correspondence. But soon after, they were told that the attorney general would not be available after all, due to a medical appointment. One DOJ official familiar with Bondi’s schedule told me the attorney general “was at Walter Reed today for a prescheduled routine appointment,” and emphasized that “no call was missed,” because “that meeting was never scheduled.”
Meanwhile, Blanche appeared on Fox News and announced that the administration wouldn’t be hitting its deadline from Congress. Some files would be released, but many would not—at least not yet. Survivors were left with familiar feelings of disappointment and disillusionment, as well as unresolved questions: Why did the Trump administration change course last month on its promise to release all of the Epstein files if it wasn’t going to actually follow through? What was the government holding back—and why?
Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2025/12/epstein-victims-trump-bondi-justice-department/685369/
No paywall (gift)
= new reply since forum marked as read
Streisand Effect:
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
The Streisand effect describes a situation where an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information results in the unintended consequence of the effort instead increasing public awareness of the information.
The term was coined in 2005 by Mike Masnick after Barbra Streisand attempted to suppress the publication of a photograph by Kenneth Adelman showing her clifftop residence in Malibu, taken to document coastal erosion in California. Her efforts inadvertently drew widespread attention to the previously obscure photograph.
Like, WHO KNEW? until she sought to hide it?
And so it is with the "Epstein Files"
It's not what you show, but what you DON'T show that keeps the flame burning.
How many "last episode exposés" have you watched?
Even my "non TV, non media" self was intrigued by the last MASH episode, and "Who Killed J.R."? (Not Tolkien)
Who shot Mister Burns?
The whole damn world just started "filling in the blanks"
================
And all your "P.R." efforts boil down to this:
and this
And your legacy becomes this:
