Redacted!

This is my honest opinion of Donald Trump.

It’s been redacted, in order to avoid offending anyone due to language or, um... physical impossibility.

I just hope I did better than the US Department of Justice (DOJ), when they released the tiny, first-drip of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on Epstein is pretty concise. “Jeffrey Edward Epstein (January 20, 1953 – August 10, 2019) was an American financier, child sex offender, serial rapist, and human trafficker.” But that, of course, is barely even the beginning of the story.

Without going into too much detail, QAnon believers have spent years pushing the notion that Jeffrey Epstein was a key member of a global ring of child predators that included many high-ranking Democrats. For years, they have been demanding the release of all evidence and information associated with Epstein, under the presumption that this information would “prove” the existence of the “cabal” and could be used to prosecute those involved.

It’s a long and complicated story, but Bill and Hillary Clinton have been targets of conspiracy theories for many years, including Pizzagate and Frazzledrip, which have been merged into QAnon.

Interestingly, MAGA, QAnon, and many other Republicans have been demanding those files for years, believing that they would be able to use them against Democrat leaders, while those on “the left” generally also wanted them released, and do not care if Democrat leaders would be “exposed”.

And then Trump won the election in 2024.

The image which comes to mind is the dog who catches the car. Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and numerous others spent time and effort demanding the release of the Epstein files for years. And yet, once in power, the story changed.

Odd, huh?

To summarize the timeline, on 21-Feb-2025, Pam Bondi said that the Epstein “client list” is “sitting on my desk”, though she later said she was referring to the Epstein files, rather than a list of clients.

That’s ok. Possibly a simple misunderstanding.

Then, on 27-Feb-2025, the White House gave binders labelled “Epstein Files: Phase 1” to a number of right-wing “influencers”, but the information was described as “old info”, and the response from many MAGA supporters suggested that they were not satisfied.

Uh. Maybe poorly-communicated, but at least they released something? Even though there was not really anything new...

Then, on 7-Jul-2025, the DOJ released a memo claiming that there was no “client list” and that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted” because victim information is “intertwined” with the material.

So, what, exactly did Bondi have sitting on her desk in February?

On 12-Jul-2025, Trump responded to his supporters’ criticism of Bondi that they should let her do her job “and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about”.

Wait, what? After years of Trump and many in his orbit screaming about the Epstein files and making accusations of cover-ups?

And then, on 16-Jul-2025, Trump says “Its all been a big hoax”.

Huh?

To skim over the rest, Trump and his allies spent the next few months delaying any public release, while claiming there was nothing there anyhow.

Of course the government shutdown had nothing to do with the Epstein files, right? There’s no way that Mike Johnson kept the House of Representatives out of session deliberately, right?

Even though it happened around the time Arizona Democrat Representative Adelita Grijalva was supposed to be sworn in. And she was going to be the last vote needed on a discharge petition which would force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.

Nah. That can’t be it.

It must be a coincidence that Trump and his allies started talking so much about Bill Clinton being “in the Epstein files”, and tried to pressure Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert – both close allies who supported the petition to release the files. And then, a few days later, when it was clear that the petition would succeed in spite of his efforts, he – rather petulantly – said they “can do whatever they want”, and said he would sign the bill, even though it was a “hoax”.

That’s how we got to the passing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed on 19-Nov-2025, giving the DOJ thirty days to release all the files.

And then, on 19-Dec-2025, the files were released.

Except, of course, they weren’t. The act specified that all the files must be made “publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format” and declassified to the extent possible, and that DOJ must give the Judiciary Committees in both the House and the Senate an unredacted “list of all government officials and politically exposed persons” named in the files.

The first “release” was a handful of files, with extensive redactions - some documents had hundreds of pages entirely blacked out, and the documents and photos which were released (and not redacted) were usually of people not allied with Trump. As an example, a 2003 photo of Michael Jackson with Bill Clinton, Diana Ross, and their children had the children’s faces redacted, as if to imply that the children were victims – it was a press photo.

As of early January, an estimated 1% of the files had been released, out of an estimated total of 6 million documents, including the approximately one million additional files the DOJ claimed to have recently “found”, even though they have been discussed for months.

But here comes the best part.

It seems clear to anyone paying attention that the Trump administration is based on personal loyalty, not competence, so I find it vastly entertaining that the redactions made by the DOJ were not always done correctly.

You would think they have a process for correctly redacting documents, and for confirming that redactions are correctly applied, right?

Apparently not.

In addition to reports of victim information not being redacted, at least two different types of incorrectly-applied redactions have been reported. One is where you can simply copy-paste the redacted text to another document and see it – an example here. (Interestingly enough, none of the incorrectly-applied redactions I found in this document included names of victims – all appeared to be related to the business activities of Epstein and others. Hm...)

The other is apparently related to manipulating image features like contrast or exposure until you can “see through” the redacted section. I have not found any examples of this one, so cannot confirm or deny, though it seems at least semi-plausible, as there have been documented issues with PDF redactions in the past.

There has even been speculation that DOGE cuts may have included cutting the DOJ’s Adobe Premium subscription, or that some of the failed redactions were deliberate actions on behalf of individuals within the DOJ. I have seen no credible sources supporting any of this, though, so I only include them for entertainment value.

All of this aside, the part I find most interesting is that the people who spent years promoting conspiracy theories and making unfounded accusations about child sex trafficking, thought they had found the key to everything when Epstein was arrested, then spent years demanding the release of the “Epstein files”, then won the election and immediately hit the brakes and have been dragging their heels for the past year.

It seems to me that releasing the Epstein files with redactions limited to the names of the victims would solve the problem, and Trump’s resistance to this seems to demonstrate that he is a “pedophile protector”, if not more.

And then, the latest – on 30-Jan-2026, approximately 3.5 million pages were released, now accounting for about 58% of the total, over a month after the Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed, and still with extensive redactions. Interestingly, even if every single document were released tomorrow (not holding my breath), we would still not be close to the full data set, due to the extensive redactions which still have not been accounted for by the DOJ.

I’d also say:

Cheers!