C (8:44)

You know, be anonymous when it comes to a sex crime, which can be so degrading and something you maybe don't want your whole family to know. And now we're hearing, and you've been reporting on this, that victims names, including minors at the time, are being released unredacted from the Justice Department as they hand over some of the files to the House Oversight Committee. And in some of these FOIA requests, these Freedom of Information requests. How does something this basic go wrong inside of the Justice Department?

B (9:14)

So just a few things to unpack on what you said. First of all, the fear is real. I was a sex trafficking prosecutor for many years. I prosecuted the cases myself and I supervised them. So I am aware of what it is like to be in a room with somebody who has been traumatized in this way. And, and, you know, it doesn't take one meeting, it takes multiple meetings. I'm sure you've seen this in your interviews with, with survivors, that a lot of times it, it, you have to establish some trust that you are there to work in this person's best interests. And so it can take some time to build that relationship, that trust that, that you are, that you are there to try and help them share their story and try and help them get justice. And, you know, that takes time. And unfortunately, I think the Justice Department has really just done a disservice to these victims. There was an order this morning from the judge in the Maxwell case, Judge Paul Engelmeier, who I've appeared before many times, and who really cares about victim privacy and what he said in his opinion, where he said, we're going to release, you know, the files pursuant to the Act. I'm not going to have any of my court orders prevent that from happening, but, but I'm going to put in place mechanisms where the victims are protected here because you, the Department of Justice, have just been paying lip service to these victims. He actually said the words lip service. And they don't. And they. You are not giving them, the Department of Justice, the solicitude, the consideration that they deserve. Each time you've made a motion before this court to unseal documents, you haven't provided them notice, which you are required to do under the law. And so it's things like that where you're not kind of keeping the victims in the loop as you are required to do, where you degrade that trust. And these victims are thinking, who is fighting for us? This is the Department of Justice that's supposed to have our best interest at heart and be fighting for us. And these two. Two things can be true. The survivors can want these files to be made public while also wanting their own names and their own very personal identifying information, whether it's bank records, whether it's medical histories, that they can want those things to be private. And they actually have a right under the law for those things to be private. So I've seen a lot of comments where people say, well, this is what the victims wanted. They wanted it all out there, and now they're upset about it. No, they can want the files and the information out there with. While still wanting their own names to be private. That is their right under the law. It would be the right in any case to have victims not testify, even at a trial under their name. Those are. Those are their rights under the Crime Victims act. So. And it's their right under the Epstein Transparency act as well. So, again, those two things are not at cross purposes. And it's just been shocking to me to see the Department of Justice really kind of taking it for granted. You see, even as there were the accusations from a consortium of the victims that they were, you know, exposing victims names, dozens of victims names, to the public. And the Department of Justice came back to that and said, well, you're looking at one document, and that was a court, court exhibit. And so, you know, that was already public, so why are you upset about it? But going forward, we'll redact even those names. It's like, hold on, why aren't you having these conversations with the victim's attorneys in the first instance, before anything gets submitted to the Congress, you know, Congress is going to make it public. You know that these documents are being made public. You need to take the very basic steps of talking to known counsel and making sure they're protected. This is so obvious. This is so basic. And the fact that they're not doing these things shows they're really not very interested at all in protecting victims. And this really is what the judge just said. Lip service.

C (13:17)

Yeah. And, and it's interesting, too, because the lawyer for the victim, Brad Edwards, who's really been with them for a very long time, he's also complained about this, saying, you know, why are some of my clients who have never been mentioned, you know, before, why are they suddenly being, you know, stalked by the press or, you know, why are they suddenly. Why, why are there. Is their family seeing their names?

B (13:43)

It's really.

C (13:44)

He doesn't believe that there is even a way to reach the DOJ or. I don't think he would have written that public letter. I think he would have contacted a contact within the Department of Justice to have a negotiation about this because, like, like you said, there should be back and forth between the victims lawyers and, and the Department of Justice on the biggest case that they have to deal with right now.

B (14:08)

Well, it's so, it's so interesting that you mentioned that point because all of the filings in this case are just being signed by the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, the Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton. That is not normal. I mean, I've seen any number of cases, very sensitive cases, terrorism cases. There's always line prosecutors that are listed also on the filings with their contact information so that, you know, people can contact them if they have questions or issues related to the case. They, they file notices of appearance on the docket with their contact information for that purpose. That doesn't exist here. And so for the first time, you saw in a letter that was filed yesterday from the Department of Justice that they have set up an email address that if you are a victim, if you identify as a victim and you want to make sure your information is redacted, you can contact the Justice Department at this, at this particular email address that's in a filing, in a court filing that was filed yesterday. I mean, we're 10 days out from the deadline of when these files are supposed to be made public. How is it that that is how you are informing the public about this? I mean, Pam Bondi's not shy about getting up in front of a camera and getting on Fox News and getting on social media and talking about any number of. I mean, she's out there taking pictures at a barbecue she's throwing for law enforcement, which is great. But arguably this is more important to make sure victims know if I want my information to be made private, who do I contact? Here's the information of how I do that. And that again very basic, basic steps. And the fact that it's being buried in a court filing makes no sense.

C (15:55)

Right. And we do know from Bloomberg's reporting that they had a thousand FBI agents over the summer working overtime on Freedom of Information requests. These are requests you make. You can make them really as a public anybody, as a private citizen, as a journalist and you make them to government agencies to turn over documents. And Bloomberg reported that the, that the FOIA records, as we call them, foia, that they had redactions of the President's name and that they, that they were told from higher ups that the President's name should be redacted because he was considered a prisoner private citizen at the time of the Epstein investigation. How would a former President's privacy be protected while survivors identities are exposed?

B (16:43)

I mean that last part of what you said is key. While the survivors identities are being exposed. First and foremost, if as I understood it, the reason why AG Bondi ordered this review of the files was to determine if there was going to be any further investigation. And that was, she was saying that as of late February of 2025. So why in a two week period in March, which was what Senator Durbin said in his letter, there was this frantic push to go forward and with instructions to redact the President's name and the names of other public figures. Why is that what they were concerned with? Why weren't they going through and saying hey, are there any leads here to investigate? I thought that was what they were trying to do and instead it looks like they were doing something different really just again protecting the President's name. And look under Freedom Information Exemptions there are any number of exemptions for people who are not charged, who may be harmed reputationally. But you know, the President is a public figure and so arguably those exemptions wouldn't apply to him. And certainly now under the act there are no such exemptions. The act makes it very clear that just because you may be embarrassed or suffer reputational harm, that is not a reason to redact or withhold someone's information from the Act. So translation, any of those redactions that were done before pursuant to foia, the Act I read the act is overriding, that those redactions need to be undone. The though that information needs to be revealed, the reason that they were, that they were given to be redacted for privacy purposes no longer holds under the Transparency act, the privacy, withholding and redaction only pertains to the victims, not to any of these other individuals who may be culpable.

C (18:37)

It's interesting that you noted that, that, that the FOIA requests that they had been responding to, that they had been redacting the names, that they actually have to go back in time and then unredact them if they are truly going to release the files in full as pursuant to the law. But there is that case in the Southern District of New York, right, the one that President Trump just reopened, that would investigate people who just so happened to be his political enemies. Does that, does that somehow make some of the files more likely, from a legal perspective, open to redaction or being, or to be withheld? I mean, what do you think about that case in general?

B (19:17)

So, a few things. First, in Judge Engelmeier's order this morning, he specifically noted the fact that in terms of the redaction process and what DOJ is giving for its reasons for redaction, and the only purpose that the, that the Department of Justice stated to the court was redactions for victim privacy. And that they stated no other purpose under the act, including this additional purpose under the act where you can withhold or redact because the information could jeopardize an active investigation. And that even under the act, if you do withhold or redact because there's an active investigation, it has to be narrow, narrowly tailored to the investigation, and it has to be temporary, in time. But the judge mentioned, hey, they're not mentioning anything other than victim privacy as a reason. So, you know, does that mean they still won't try it? I think for sure they will try it. I guess the question, I, I have a few questions about it. One, is there actually really an investigation here? I prosecuted sex trafficking cases. You cannot prosecute a case. You cannot build a sex trafficking investigation without victims. Victims story. These aren't document cases. In a fraud case, yes, you can look at paper and put together a case without, you know, without actual witnesses. You know, you can, you can really see the fraud kind of come alive on the paper. That's not the case. In sex trafficking cases. The, the victims are the people who would tell their story and then you corroborate their accounts. That's how you build these investigations. And based on the victim letters that we're seeing being filed in court, where the victims are saying, we don't trust the Department of Justice to protect our basic privacy and to have our best interests at heart, I Mean, some of these letters are very strong in tone. And really, you know, when they went to the court and said, we need your protection court because we can't trust the Department of Justice, what victim is cooperating voluntarily with this Department of Justice, particularly a Department of justice that decided they were going to speak with a convicted sex trafficker in Ghislaine Maxwell and then after she lied with impunity, reward her with a country, country club prison stay. If this Department of Justice believes Ghislaine Maxwell, then that suggests they do not believe the victims. And at that point, how in good conscience, as an attorney, can you bring these victims into an interview where they could potentially be exposed to making, you know, false statements, making false statements like you, you're not protected for lying. Ghislaine Maxwell and the victims, but both can't be telling the truth. Truth.

C (21:55)

So you're saying the victims could be guilty of perjury. If they're taking the land side with.

B (22:02)

It, wouldn't be perjury because they wouldn't be under oath. But if they came in to have an interview with federal law enforcement officers and they were found to be lying about, let's say, you know, yes, Ghislaine, Matt, you know, Ghislaine Maxwell sexually abused me, and the department considers that now to be a lie, they could be on the hook for, you know, lying to federal agents, which is a federal crime. So these kind of things that the department has done, they've made it very hard, I think, for victims to come in and trust them and think maybe they're not going to be subject to some kind of consequence. Another example would be, you know, he. The. The department apparently is investigating Democrats with ties to Epstein. That was the order in the post from Donald Trump. Well, if a victim goes in and says, I actually have, you know, there is a Republican, hypothetically, there is a Republican or a Trump ally or someone else that was involved. You know, what happens there is, is SDNY going to commit to investigating those individuals or could there be some consequence to the victim for pointing the finger in the wrong direction? Again, you don't want to go in there and subject yourself to potential charges for lying. And that's kind of what they have set up here where, where you take that, where you platform a convicted sex trafficker. It makes it very hard for victims to come in and think they can feel safe in sharing any kind of abuse going forward. So I just don't see how they would have an investigation going forward of anyone because I don't see how Victims could really get comfort that they would go in there and really be protected in that space.

C (23:41)

Yeah. The Victims Council, Brad Edwards argues that the Department of Justice may be intentionally failing to protect survivors. Do you think that that's true? Like they want to make them feel uncomfortable and not want to come forward or punish them in some ways.

B (23:58)

So, I mean, that is a very strong accusation based on what the department's response was. They came back and said, well, you know, again, this was a public document, the one document you pointed out. I think, you know, I, I would tend to think it is more an issue of not necessarily intentionally releasing names, but kind of, they don't, they've shown, they don't really care.

B (24:27)

They know that they knew these documents. Putting aside the act for a moment, they knew these documents they were producing to the House Oversight Committee could become public. So you would expect that there would be a very clear redaction process that anybody who's reviewing this, and you've got to figure they've got a lot of people reviewing this, that it's not the three people, the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General Nesty NY US Attorney who are actually going through these documents and making redactions. And so what you would expect in any kind of review like this is that there would be policies and procedures, instructions to anybody who's reviewing. Here's what you're looking for. Here are the names of people you are looking for to make redactions. Here's the kind of information you're making redactions of. And the fact is in these letters, what I was struck by is that they didn't say they had a process. They said, we're working now with the victims counsel to establish a process. Well, why isn't there a process in, in play already? It really, I, I found that to be really shocking. You know, they, they already knew that this material was out there. They had a process, according to Bloomberg, to redact Trump's name and to redact other public figures names from these materials. Why, why is it that they're just figuring out a process now to redact information from the victims? This should have been done months ago. It really, it makes no sense to me.

C (25:49)

After a break for our sponsors, we're going to talk about what would be the right solution.

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C (26:26)

So, Christy, do you think the solution is a pause on the releases, a special counsel or something else to restore trust for victims who feel betrayed?

B (26:38)

So I don't think a pause in the release of the files is necessarily the way forward. The victims clearly want these, these files released. And at this point, I mean, this has been going on for decades, as you know, following this as closely as you have, and it's gone through different offices. Right. It was in the Southern District of Florida. It was in, you know, state prosecutor's office in Florida. Then it came to the Southern District of New York. Like, this has been through enough offices where I think if we are going to see any real accountability that the way that needs to happen is from the transparency of the files being released. I would normally never say as a former prosecutor that you would release any criminal file because there are any number of reasons why that could jeopardize an investigation going forward. But they're not investigating anything. They've made that clear. In July of 2025, in DOJ's memo, they said we're not, we don't even have a reason to open an investigation into uncharged threats, third parties, which by the way, I really found shocking. Maybe the most shocking to me in the letter from DOJ yesterday was they said that once they did start talking to victims attorneys with respect to the redaction process, they were given the names of hundreds of victims, hundreds of victims who now want their information redacted. People that DOJ didn't know about. Well, okay, it's great that DOJ is now going to take their information and redact it. That's what they should do to protect their privacy. But just taking a step back here, there are hundreds of victims now that you didn't know about. And all you had to do was go talk to victims counsel and get their information. It wasn't the case that there was no evidence worthy of conducting an investigation. Like DOJ said back in July, that's not the case. 100 hundreds of victims. There's. That's more than enough evidence to investigate and you don't know where that will lead. Maybe that does lead to people who haven't been charged yet. We heard from the survivors that there were at least 20 men to whom they were trafficked, various individuals who enabled Epstein's crimes. So, you know, it's not that they didn't have any basis to investigate, it's that they didn't bother to actually find out whether or not the evidence was there to support an investigation. They didn't talk to any of these people. And I found that to be just particularly galling because, look, I've prosecuted a case with one victim, one victim and one trafficker. And by the way, that trafficker got 20 years in prison for what he did. So just one person, one person coming forward and saying there's potential state or federal crimes, potential potential sexual misconduct, that's enough for the Department of Justice to say, you know what? We need to look at this. This for the fact that they didn't even bother to do that here, and they just shut the whole thing down after they redacted Trump's name. I mean, come on. Like, at that point, these victims have every right to not trust the government.

C (29:47)

Yeah, it's been a joke. Yeah. The person who's leading it has been lying at every turn. Pam Bondi, I mean, from. Got the list on my desk. There is no list. There is no third party. Case closed. Everything is done. And she has no credibility at all. So why should the people beneath her have any credibility? The ones who are cycling through the files, and I don't want to besmirch, you know, the civil service and FBI, many of them, I'm sure, are good people, but at the end of the day, they are. They have to work for the top cop, you could say, you know, the attorney General, the top law enforcement official, and that is Pam Bondi. And she's proven that she really does not care about these victims. I mean, I do think to myself, though, 300 more gigabytes of files, which Jason Leopold of Bloomberg said will include everything from his financial interactions, his filings, his witness testimony.

C (30:48)

Communications with foreign governments, photographs. I mean, it's a lot to get through. And that's supposed to be released. The deadline is 10 days from now. Do you think they can do it? I mean, if 1,000 people were working 24 hours a day to redact Trump's name from FOIA records, like, is this possible? Do you just expect that there will be a delay?

B (31:05)

Anyway.

B (31:08)

There is no way that this will. That all the Epstein files that should be released will be released by December 19, according to these documents that they're filing in court. They are still figuring out what their policies and procedures are that need to then be applied consistently across all these productions for these different cases and investigations. You know, there's no way that they would be able to pull all of this together in 10 days. You know, and again, the idea that they say that they're still conferring with individuals to, to establish what their list of victims are, I mean, again, we're 10 days out. Like how, how did they not do this months ago, again, even before the act when they knew that they were providing some documents to Congress? It really, I don't think anyone should have confidence that there is going to be everything by December 19th. I think there will be a tranche of documents that get released on that date, but it is not going to be anything anywhere close to everything that they need to produce under the act.

C (32:10)

I think Congress should do an investigation into the release of the Epstein files to make sure that nothing is being redacted improperly. Personally. And I know that others have said the same. I'm sure you agree with me on this one, right? For transparency's sake, do you have any sources inside of the FBI or the Department of Justice right now who are handling this, who have any insight into how it's going?

B (32:35)

No. What I would say is one thing that the judge did in his order this morning is he required that Jay Clayton, who is the Southern District of New York, U.S. attorney, that he have to personally certify before any materials that, that are relevant to the Maxwell case. That's grand jury materials. That's, that's any of the discoveries. So that's all the search warrants and the, the returns from those search warrants. Photographs, videos, emails, I mean, you name it. Before any of that gets released, Jay Clayton has to personally certify that, that the act has been complied with, that they have protected victims privacy. And basically what he's saying there is, is I'm, I want a face to this. I am putting this guy on the hook. He's the one who made the motion to me, he's the one who signed it. I want him on the hook as the person who is making sure everybody is doing what they're supposed to do. And the judge said if the victims feel that their privacy has been infringed in some way, now they have a forum, now they have a place to come. You come to the Southern District of New York, you come to this court and raise your concerns here. So I, I hear you want a congressional investigation. But, but the judge has said the victims came to me because they don't trust the Department of Justice and they want some mechanism in place where they can Go. If they have a grievance, well, you can come right here.

C (33:58)

And you've worked with this judge before because you were a prosecutor in the Southern District, right?

B (34:02)

This judge, Judge Engelmeier, who is the judge over the Maxwell case, the judge over the Epstein case, Judge Berman, has not issued an order yet. I would expect his order to be along the same lines as Judge Engelmeier's order. But I've appeared before both of them. I had a trial before Judge Engelmeier. So he is incredibly thorough, really a brilliant judge, and is calling out where he is seeing the department falling short and making sure really to hold their feet to the fire going forward. And he also notes in his order, which I will have to agree with that the line prosecutors, he's demanding that. He's ordering that they actually have to be involved in the review. It's not that it has to be just them, but attorneys from the Southern District of New York have to be involved. They're the ones that prosecuted the case. They should know the materials. And he's saying, I have faith in them. And, you know, having worked in that office and still knowing people in that office, I have to agree. The line prosecutors, I think, are going to do the right thing. The question is, what are the orders that they're getting? And, you know, are they. Are they being given the clarity and the procedures and the policies and instructions to do this properly? Got it.

C (35:12)

Yeah. Well, let's hope that it all ends up working out. I mean, it's. I guess you're right. This story will not end when the tranche. This will just keep going for months and months and months, and that's a good thing. You know, there should be accountability. So, Christy, thank you so much for your time. I've learned so much from you, and I hope our audience has as well. We'd love to have you back when the files are released if you get any updates. In the beginning. Just really quickly, though, before we sign off, the DOJ did respond, and to Brad Edwards, the lawyer for the victims. And, you know, they seem to think that they're not doing anything wrong. And. And do you think that emoji moment.

B (35:57)

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C (36:25)

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B (36:29)

I found the government's response to Brad Edwards words particularly infuriating because, you know, he said, well, you know, they're inaccurate in what they're describing our procedures to be. But then they don't describe what their procedures are because they say they're just still establishing them. And then they say, well, they're the victims are trying to assign culpability to the Department of Justice for what Congress did. Well, I mean, that's just a total cop out. You knew that by providing the documents to Congress they were going to make them public. You knew that, that it's your responsibility to redact them. So it was just very defensive, unnecessarily. Stop focusing on, you know what, who's to blame and solve the problem in front of you. That's what you should be focused on. And I just wasn't a serious response in that regard.

C (37:16)

Okay, well, thank you, Christy, so much for your time.

B (37:19)

Thanks for having me.

C (37:20)

That was another episode of the Tara Palm Mary Show. I want to thank you all for tuning in. If you like this show, please rate it, subscribe, subscribe. Share it with all your friends. If you want to support me and my independent journalism, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to the Red Letter. It's how you can get my exclusive reporting straight to your inbox. And it's how you can support independent journalism that isn't supported by corporate overlords. I also want to thank my producer, Eric Abenate. I want to thank Abby Baker, who does my socials and research, Adam Stewart, who does the graphics, and Dan Rosen, my manager. The team is growing and it's all thanks to you and I'm always curious to hear what you care about. So email me tarapalmarinfomail.com I want to hear from you or leave a comment. It's always the best way. See you soon.

B (38:11)

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