From redacted names to blank pages: Everything wrong with the disclosure of Epstein files by the justice department

As hundreds of thousands of people waited for the Epstein files to be made public, a huge proportion were eager to see whether US President Donald Trump was named, given his past association with the convicted paedophile.

When the US Justice Department released the documents, it invited so much traffic that it made the official government website crash. However, some lucky users became the first to access the infamous files. In the first batch, X user and political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen claimed that he tried to search for Trump’s name in the Epstein files library on the DOJ’s website, but was 'shocked' to learn that there’s no mention of him. Other X users encountered a similar glitch where they were unable to surf through a lot of information and started questioning the transparency which the Trump administration vowed.




Others claimed that DOJ only released 'entirely redacted' documents full of black screens and panels. Influencer Harry Sisson shared a video of him apparently scrolling through the files, which were 'blank.'

Sisson claimed that Trump ordered to remove his pictures with Epstein in the documents: 'So Trump’s DOJ just completely removed him and any photos of him with Epstein from the files. We are witnessing one of the most brazen and disgusting cover ups in American history'

Another user claimed that, in the name of protecting victims, the government had actually hidden the names of sexual predators.: "They did not release the full Epstein files. What they just released is heavily redacted in order to protect the child sex traffickers that they should be prosecuting."

Indian-origin Congressman Ro Khanna, who was one of the frontrunners who wanted the files to be public, said that the release did not comply with the law.

He said: "The DOJ’s document dump of hundreds of thousands of pages failed to comply with the law authored by Rep Thomas Massie and me."

Khanna added "One document, 119 pages of Grand Jury testimony, was completely redacted."

Were the same privacy protections applied to both victims and perpetrators of sex trafficking?

An X user said: "The Justice Department says it used identical redaction rules for everyone in the Epstein files, including politicians, high-profile figures, and government officials, just as it did for victims."

Democrats started targeting Trump again. Indian-origin politician Shree Thanedar posted on X: "This is the gift Donald Trump and House Republicans got for the American people this year."