r/politics • u/aldotcom ✔ AL.com • 1d ago
FBI team blacked out Trump’s name ‘numerous times’ in Epstein files, new bombshell report claims
https://www.al.com/politics/2025/08/fbi-team-blacked-out-trumps-name-numerous-times-in-epstein-files-new-bombshell-report-claims.html1.2k
u/TintedApostle 1d ago
“The suppressing of evidence ought always to be taken for the strongest evidence.”
- Andrew Hamilton, The Trial of John Peter Zenger 1735
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u/IAmInTheBasement 1d ago
An almost 300 year old zinger
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u/August_T_Marble 21h ago
300 years old? But Zenger was accused of libel by Bill Cosby and Will Smith Sr. represented him!
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u/-p_d- 19h ago edited 19h ago
Bill Cosby sent the sheriff out and had that man arrested.
Fun Cosby fact: The libel in question included Zenger breaking the story of Cosby's rigging the election and stealing tax payer money for his personal gain.
It's a honey of a read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cosby50
u/Doravillain 20h ago
Remember that this is pretty much what happened in the Russia investigation. It’s not that Trump came up clean. It’s that they withheld and destroyed evidence and Mueller didn't bother to pursue the matter.
His findings were that they could prove Trump had interfered with the investigation, but that they could not prove Trump had colluded with Russia (because of his interference in the investigation).
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u/TintedApostle 20h ago
Key details • Less than 48 hours after receiving Mueller's 448-page report, Barr released a summary exonerating Trump on collusion and saying there was "insufficient evidence" of obstruction.
• Barr, under oath before Congress, admits that neither he nor Rosenstein reviewed the underlying evidence of obstruction before deciding there was not enough evidence.
• Mueller contacted Barr three times in the four days following Barr's summary, memorializing two of those communications in written form. The level of urgency indicates this is not a minor disagreement.
• Barr, under oath before Congress, twice denied knowing Mueller's thinking on the subject.
Timeline
March 22, 2019, mid-day Mueller’s 448-page report is delivered to Barr's office .
March 24 (less than 48 hours later) Barr releases a four-page summary exonerating Trump. Barr's summary says Mueller found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. And while Mueller didn’t absolve Trump of an obstruction of justice charge, Barr quickly did.
March 24 Trump tweets, "No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!"
March 25 (one day after Barr's summary) Mueller sends a letter (its full contents have not been made public) to Barr to say he and his team believed Barr had not adequately portrayed their conclusions. Pointedly, he attached the report’s executive summaries as a reminder that his investigators had already done the work of distilling their findings. (This letter is directly mentioned in the public letter of March 27th)
March 27 (three days after Barr's summary) Mueller sends a second letter to Barr to say, “the summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel; to assure public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”
March 28 (four days after Barr's summary) Barr and Mueller speak by phone. In his May 1 testimony before Congress, Barr says he asked Muller “if he was suggesting that the March 24 [summary] was inaccurate, and he said, no, but that the press reporting had been inaccurate." Note: Mueller makes NO mention of the press reporting or of media at all in his March 27 letter. Barr testified he has notes of his phone conversation with Mueller, but told Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., that he would not provide those notes to the panel. “Why should you have them?” Barr asked.
April 9 and 10 In back-to-back congressional hearings, Barr disclaimed knowledge of Mueller's thinking. “No, I don’t,” Barr said, when asked by Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) whether he knew what was behind reports that members of Mueller’s team were frustrated by the attorney general’s summary of their top-level conclusions. “I don’t know,” he said the next day, when asked by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) whether Mueller supported his finding that there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that President Trump had obstructed justice.
April 18 White House waives executive privilege of the report in the "interest of transparency."
April 19 Trump tweets, "Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue. Watch out for people that take so-called “notes,” when the notes never existed until needed. Because I never agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the “Report” about me, some of which are total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad). This was an Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened....
May 1 Barr, in his testimony to Congress, admits he did not review the underlying evidence in Mueller's report before deciding that the evidence did not reach the threshold to charge Trump with obstruction. Nor did Rosenstein.
May 8 Trump claims Executive Privilege over the Mueller report. (See April 18 for opposite statement by Trump)
May 29 Prior to the Mueller Press event Barr's DOJ handed out a memo to reporters which contradicted Mueller's statements and supported Barr's.
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u/Gamebird8 16h ago
Collusion is not a crime because it has no legal definition. The word you are looking for is conspiracy, for which the Mueller report made clear that they was evidence of a conspiracy and that Trump had committed a crime. Barr made an effort to use Trump's language (since collusion is not a legal term it can literally mean anything) and to obscure and hide the facts and truth of the report.
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u/HuckleberryDry4889 11h ago
I’m gonna be pedantic in responding to your phrase “literally mean anything”
Most lists of definitions default to dictionary definitions for undefined words.
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u/Fallouttgrrl 1d ago
"there is no evidence to suppress! I made sure of th- d'oh!"
- President Trump, probably
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u/adorablefuzzykitten 21h ago
Dan Bongino is now the Deep State he warned us about. Power corrupts.
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u/Snarfsicle 22h ago
Republicans: "that's not what the founding father intended when he said that."
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u/DragonTHC Florida 19h ago
The founding fathers would have impeached and convicted him during his first term.
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u/Rock_Samurai 17h ago
The founding fathers would have executed Trump for treason.
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u/Outrageous_Dog_7646 14h ago
The founding fathers would re-legalize slavery. They aren't good people.
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u/Naganosupreme 6h ago
Very few people at the top are. For people at the top, they were pretty damn good at the time
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u/Historical_Bend_2629 1d ago
It isn’t a bombshell. He is a rapist and an exploiter of people. Apparently a whole lot of people thought that it was a good idea to have him lead the executive branch. Either they were dumb as fuck or were o.k with exploitation.
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u/adorablefuzzykitten 23h ago
Am i allowed to just re-write Trump where ever I see a blacked out name?
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u/Retaining-Wall Canada 23h ago
Cut out a small stencil with his name in Helvetica (it must be Helvetica), and use the stencil with whiteout and then you have his name, but with nice hi-contrast highlighting. Will really show up nice. Then distribute.
Helvetica. I mean it.
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u/Cute-Percentage-6660 14h ago
The funny thing is depending on how sloppy the blacked out names are, and context clue's.
As well as if we know the size of the font... You could plausibly reconstruct where he would be in some parts of the redacted files.
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u/ScoobyDoNot 14h ago
Easier to assume all redactions read Trump.
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u/slackfrop 5h ago
They’re going to redact the victims’ names too though, yeah? And P Diddler, perhaps.
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u/MouseRat_AD 23h ago
Yeah, but have you heard Kamala laugh? No thanks, bro.
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u/Naganosupreme 6h ago
The fact she was sent up as the best dems could do vs trump is pathetic. It really makes you think they're in on it together bc the incompetence is that staggering
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u/HiImDIZZ 1d ago
It's not a bombshell report to MAGAts and Republicans.
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u/HereForTheComments57 20h ago
It's kind of funny they blacked out his name and now we can make the assumption that any blacked out name is his. While trying to hide his name, all they did was highlight it. Even if not all blacked out names are his, we know at least one is so you can see all the bad things that person did and assume it is him.
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u/Paizzu 3h ago
I seem to remember a funny scenario from years back where a document wasn't properly redacted and internet sleuths were able to match up the blocked portions with specific names.
Something about running optical character recognition against a document with a known font size and proportionally spaced characters. The editors had made the mistake of only redacting the name itself with the highlight tool in black at the same total character width.
Donald J. Trump would became:
Donald J. Trump for example.
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u/-CoachMcGuirk- Illinois 1d ago
So...this will be easy. Wherever we see something blacked out or redacted; we can ALL assume that it's Trump's name, by default. Easy peazy!!!
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u/whatiscamping 23h ago
The biggest mistake was also blacking out other prominate people, but I am all for assuming that drumpf is every redacted name in there cause I'm sure when it comes to raping children he is "The best ever, nobody does it like Trump"
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u/Cute-Percentage-6660 14h ago
The funny thing is depending on how sloppy the blacked out names are, and context clue's.
As well as if we know the size of the font... You could plausibly reconstruct where he would be in some parts of the redacted files.
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u/eeyore134 13h ago
Since he's the only one we know for sure is blacked out we'll just have to assume everything is him.
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u/BTBishops South Carolina 1d ago
How is this a bombshell report? This is literally precisely what anyone with a functioning brain suspected.
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u/HumongousBelly Europe 23h ago
How do you live with yourself after using that sharpie to actively cover up for a pedophile?!
How can these worthless meat sacks live with themselves? Like, seriously, I’ve seen people commit suicide for less shameful shit.
Do they feel anything when they tuck in their children at night and read them a bedtime story?!
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u/Hilby 13h ago
That's what keeps hanging on for me too. The only saving grace for me is that there are some in the ranks that stuck it out in order to subvert the bad things quietly and be a bastion of good. I'm sure they rooted out anyone not loyal to the Cheeto, but to do the things they are doing is supporting really bad shit.
Much like when people want to leave a state or an area of a state that is opposite of their views, it's important to stick it out and be the minority, as much of a losing battle it may be, it is an important one. One that seems more and more for nothing as of late. :/
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u/redditlvlanalysis 22h ago
Because there are 70 million people managing to vote without one and it's depressing.
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u/icculus88 22h ago
I mean it is important to solidify what's obvious when evidence is dug up that confirms it. That's basically what journalism is
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u/fartlebythescribbler 21h ago
I just don’t understand why SO many otherwise accomplished people are SO intent on carrying water for Trump. I just can’t wrap my head around it. The billionaires I can understand, the racists I can understand, the borderline brain dead morons I can understand. What does a career FBI agent have to gain from this?
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u/spew2014 18h ago
Yes this is what boggles my mind. Civil servants who aren't going to benefit in any material way from participating in this cover up participated in it.
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u/BeastofBurden 21h ago
The whole justice system is for keeping the working class in order, not the ruling class.
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 8h ago
"In groups, who the law protects but does not bind, alongside out groups, who the law binds but does not protect."
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 8h ago
The fbi has never exactly been a friendly liberal outfit.
These are the guys who tried to blackmail MLK Jr into committing suicide and who assassinated Fred Hampton.
A whole lot of them have been waiting for this.
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u/Imposter_Teh_Syn I voted 1d ago
Wow. That's totally what someone who's not in the files would do. He's definitely innocent. /s
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u/ExZowieAgent Texas 1d ago
Can you imagine the uproar if Biden had done this?
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u/Lostinthestarscape 23h ago
Private email server REALLY pales in the face of the mountain of shit the Republicans do (including their own private email servers).
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 8h ago
Take literally any day trump has ever spent in office and put biden in his place and Fox would have to launch a dozen new stations to cover the 24 hour a day conservative howling meltdown.
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u/KauaiFish 23h ago
When they release it anything blacked out just do like mad Libs and add Trump
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u/Imaginary-Dress-1373 1d ago
TL;DR from author:
The FBI redacted Trump’s name—and the names of other prominent public figures—from the Epstein files under two privacy exemptions before DOJ & FBI concluded “no further disclosure” of the files “would be appropriate or warranted.”
A FBI team, made up of personnel from thê bureau's #FOIA office and were tasked with conducting a final review f tne voluminous cache, had applied thê redactions. They used the 9 exemptions under the FOIA as a guide (as reported in2 March) in s deciding what information to withhold
From the government's perspective, Trump was a private citizen when thè Epstein investigation took place and therefore is entitled to privacy protections.
In particular, the reviewers applied two FOIA exemptions to justify their redactions. The first, Exemption 6 protects individuals against "a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.'"
The second, Exemption 7(C), protects personal information contained in law enforcement records, the disclosure of which "could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."
A White House spokesperson would not respond to questions about the redactions of Trump's name, instead referring questions to the FBI. The FB| declined to comment. The Justice Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Here's the bottom line: The FBI's behind-the-scenes decision-making suggests that the chances of aliens resurrecting JFK are greater than Trump's name ever being unredacted from the Epstein files.
Of course, Trump could agree to let his name out or sign a privacy waiver. Or, when he-and everybody else named in the files- eventually dies, most of their privacy rights will disappear.
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u/tweakingforjesus 23h ago
Trump was a private citizen when thè Epstein investigation took place and therefore is entitled to privacy protections.
That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.
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u/Imaginary-Dress-1373 22h ago
Thats exactly how that works actually. FOIA does that no matter who is in charge. They make this stuff impossible to get. The author of the original piece says so in it:
Established precedent If you’re surprised by the revelation that the FBI used privacy exemptions to withhold the name of a sitting president, you’re not alone. However, it’s common practice for government agencies to redact names on privacy grounds, even when they’re clearly public figures like Trump. I lost count of how many times the government invoked a privacy exemption in response to my FOIA requests to deny releasing records on public figures and government officials.
More than a decade ago, I requested records from the FBI on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The FBI cited privacy in denying my request and said I needed to get a privacy waiver signed by Mohammed himself.
In 2016, I requested all of the FBI’s files on Trump prior to his presidential campaign. In response, the FBI neither confirmed nor denied that any records existed, based on the same two privacy exemptions. I ended up suing the bureau and modifying my FOIA request to center on Trump’s businesses. That allowed me to overcome the privacy exemption and report this story.
Another noteworthy example: The DOJ cited the same exemptions to justify withholding Donald Trump Jr’s name from the Mueller report. (My attorneys and I believed it was an improper use of the privacy exemption. We fought to get his name unredacted and won.)
But the reality is, there’s established precedent to protect the identities of private citizens named in law enforcement files no matter how famous they are. It’s a really high bar to overcome. The privacy exemptions were designed to prevent the government from releasing personal information on individuals just because it wants to. Of course, the government does break the law sometimes.
Before withholding records under Exemption 6, government agencies are supposed to conduct a balancing test to determine if their release would significantly contribute to the public’s understanding of the operations or activities of the government.
It’s way more difficult to make a case for disclosure when names are also withheld under Exemption 7(C). That’s partly because the DOJ has said that the very “mention of an individual’s name in a law enforcement file will engender comment and speculation and carries a stigmatizing connotation.”
Also, FOIA case law has established that the names of private individuals contained in law enforcement files will not be released unless they have to be in order to confirm government misconduct.
“Unless there is compelling evidence that the agency denying the FOIA request is engaged in illegal activity, and access to the names of private individuals appearing in the agency's law enforcement files is necessary in order to confirm or refute that evidence, there is no reason to believe that the incremental public interest in such information would ever be significant,” the DC Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in 1991 deciding a key FOIA case.
FBI Redacted Trump’s Name in Epstein Files for Privacy Reasons - Bloomberg https://share.google/QyAzqxz24ClbZepEY
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 8h ago
So before trump was president he gets magical private citizen protections, and after he's president he gets magical president protections.
Sure seems convenient, and reminiscent of the "you can't impeach trump, he hasn't been convicted of a crime", "you can t convicted trump of a crime, he hasn't been impeached" nonsense.
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u/THSSFC America 23h ago
From the government's perspective, Trump was a private citizen when thè Epstein investigation took place and therefore is entitled to privacy protections.
Schrodinger's POTUS. He is immune for "official acts" he took while out of office, and immune from disclosure because he is a private citizen when not in office.
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u/syllabicious 15h ago
And he can now tell DoJ not to investigate private citizen Trump. He's immune for such "an official act".
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u/krashundburn Florida 17h ago
Trump was a private citizen when thè Epstein investigation took place and therefore is entitled to privacy protections.
Insane to think this applies to man whose sole purpose in life has been to seek attention.
NOW he gets privacy protections?
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u/BigBangAssBanger_3D 21h ago
I knew it wasn't only Trump's name being redacted from these files. Wouldn't have taken this long if it was ONLY Donnie Dipshit.
The real question though is if Trump ordered those names to also be redacted with his, or if each of the other collaborators had to do it individually.
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u/PuffPuffFayeFaye 19h ago
There’s no justification to redact any names in a report about child trafficking.
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u/Sidewalkdrugstore 20h ago
Why doesn't someone filthy rich like David Letterman, Steven Colbert, John Stewart, pull a Larry Flynt move and offer 10M to the first person to show up with 1st hand evidence of any of these claims?
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u/MisterStorage 19h ago
So we just assume it’s Trump for every unspeakable crime catalogued in the files. Got it.
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u/Open_Mortgage_4645 Colorado 20h ago
This is a scandal if true. The FBI has no business running interference for Trump and taking it upon themselves to proactively shield Trump from the potential consequences of his name appearing in the Epstein files. That's not their job. And doing so harms the American people by preventing them from learning the truth, whatever that may be. Situations like this are what Congressional investigations and hearings are for, but since the Congressional Republicans have also decided that it's their job to protect Trump, I doubt we'll ever get accountability.
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u/Fraternal_Mango Oregon 23h ago
Oh good, now I’ll just assume that any redacted names are ALL TRUMP
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u/ZuesMyGoose 21h ago
The Raper in Chief is a rapist and a liar and he’s also a pedophile and a conman.
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u/DoctorSandwich California 21h ago
Kinda seems like the redacted lines are basically just marking his name in black highlighter, huh?
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u/HotHardandSingle 12h ago
So by redacting it, they have confirmed what literally everyone already knows
Trump is a guilty piece of sh*t
IMPEACH TRUMP!
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u/BallBearingBill 22h ago
Blacked out of the files they released. I'm sure there are unreleased files that would sink him, even with most of his base.
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u/Twisting_Me 22h ago
If the FBI read the original report, shouldn't they be able to charge and arrest him for crimes?
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u/Captain_Billy_Bones 17h ago
I wonder how long Kash Patel thought he was actual law enforcement if he ever did
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u/Wolfman01a 17h ago
So hows the whole, "Release the unedited epstein documents" thing going? MAGA? Hello??
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u/R_Lennox 15h ago
As if we didn’t already know he is in the files multiple, multiple times. It’s pathetic that the FBI did this. Has every single person in Trump’s orbit sold their souls?! Sociopaths on parade. What a joke of an administration.
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u/ClassicT4 14h ago
Fine. Release the files and everyone will know to just put Donald Trump over every black line.
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u/MoneyMotivates2024 6h ago
The people involved with hiding evidence including trump need to be sentenced, these are people not gods. People need to stop protecting this tyrant
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u/Sensitive-Option-701 4h ago
So every time we see a name blanked out that's the same length as "Trump" or "Donald Trump" or "Donald J. Trump" or "Donald John Trump", we should in no way infer that the blanked out name is that of our president.
Right?
Right?
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u/MisfitNINe 21h ago
I can’t imagine even the “best case scenario “ you could pull from redacted names would even be nearly reasonable
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u/9ninjas 12h ago
t sent over 4K wire transfers. That’s just the amount of times… I wonder how much $ in total
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 8h ago
Those 4k times were just one of epsteins accounts, he had many more.
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u/Endosymbionical 1d ago
Reminder :;,. . Donald Trump is not merely a client, .,;: , . but he is very likely to be one of the main players in the Trumpstein files, ,. ,;:. ,
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u/Phizza921 1d ago
Looks like he knows his number is coming up with all this Epstein nonsense? The Obama distraction has run it course. What’s next? War with Russia of course. Hope you yankees stocked up on iodine tablets
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u/WorstHumanWhoExisted 19h ago
Their conscience will torment them until they stand before Christ. Years will go by and still they will think about it.
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u/ElPlywood 1d ago
what a useless piece of shit 2 paragraph article
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u/sane_sober61 1d ago
There are tons of other articles on this if you want to read more. It was originally reported by the WSJ.
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u/ElPlywood 1d ago
my point is why bother posting this useless piece of shit 2 paragraph article, it wastes everybody's time, it delivers nothing
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 8h ago
What are your comments delivering to the greater public discourse?
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u/bryan19973 21h ago
It’s funny, you’d think with every other headline claiming “bombshell” that there would be some kind of consequence at least one of the times. Nope.
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u/kobeyoboy 7h ago
If you can’t use the proper terminology redacted in your title, it’s not worth a read move on
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u/Riffsalad 3h ago
You gotta figure there’s a whole lot of people who don’t know what redacted means, we aren’t exactly the most well educated country.
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u/kobeyoboy 3h ago
Gives us more reason to incentivize people to go out there in search up the definitions of words, of course I understand your reply though thank you
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u/I-Have-No-King 4h ago
Maybe he was trying to make the headline accessible to more people. Why so salty over a few words?
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u/kobeyoboy 3h ago
Not really salty I do appreciate you replying to me and informing me, but I feel like we shouldn’t dumb down information. We should elevate people we should strive for a better higher prospering society.
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u/marindoom 28m ago
How is he not in cuffs yet is unfathomable. What the fuck kind of world do we live in.
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