Briefly, On Epstein

With the infamous "list" due to be released today, we should temper our expectations

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Attorney General Pam Bondi has signaled her intention to release the Epstein List today, describing its contents as “pretty sick”:

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a recent interview that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is hoping to release flight logs and the names of people tied to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday.

“I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now … you’re going to see some Epstein information being released, by my office,” Bondi told Fox News’s Jesse Waters late Wednesday.

Bondi, who was confirmed as attorney general at the beginning of this month, added that there are over 250 victims whose identities need to be protected when releasing the documents.

She noted that the public will see a “lot of flight logs, a lot of names… a lot of information. But it’s pretty sick what that man did.”

Last week, Bondi said Epstein’s alleged “client list” was in her office pending review.

“It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” Bondi said on Fox News. “That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.”

Epstein, who often socialized with celebrities, royalty and other powerful individuals, died by suicide in 2019 while waiting for trial on sex trafficking charges. The disgraced financier owned a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

So here's the deal — the list was supposed to come out immediately, and many people — including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who is heading up the new House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets — have been openly questioning the delay.

But the reason for the delay is probably pretty obvious.

I fully expect that it’s due to a scenario like the following:

The CIA (and possibly other 3-letter agencies) has been blowing up the phones at DOJ, telling them that there are important adversarial assets on that list that the administration would gain far more from controlling than simply allowing to be imprisoned and on trial.

Very likely, some of the people on the list know state secrets with national security implications, which they will reveal if they are going to go to prison anyway. Maybe they're simply too useful as free men who can be destroyed at any time.

But the full list will almost certainly not be coming out, because life isn't a movie, and moral gray areas are how the modern world operates.

That said, a lot of important people are still likely to be sacrificed on the altar of transparency, because there's power in that play, too.

So we will get a list, and it will be sufficiently damning that many people will be more or less satisfied.

But I do not believe we will ever see every name on that list. That’s not how this game is played.