The [redacted] files, what is in them?
Image of Jeffery Epstein over file EFTA00020517 (Hugh Cochrane / The Puma Prensa)
By Hugh Cochrane, Staff Writer
Jeffrey Epstein's crimes are some of the highest profile and most secretive in the 21st century, with some of the richest and most influential people in the world having close relations with Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Many of these people attempted to cover up their involvement with Epstein by lobbying the government and advocating against the release of the Epstein files. Perhaps the most important person involved with Epstein was our president, Donald Trump, who attempted to cover them up.
On November 19, 2025, the United States Congress put it to a vote: release the files, or keep them locked away where no one can see them. The vote passed with an astounding 427-1, with a few no-shows. The only representative who voted nay was Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA).
When asked why he voted no despite the president’s support for the bill, Higgins wrote on X, “It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America.” He continued on his post, saying, “As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people…[This] will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt.” These comments were said despite many victims openly stating that they want the files to be released.
The files were released in two major waves –despite Congress requiring them to be released all at once– on December 20 and December 23, 2025. Thousands of pages of flight records, letters, photos, and dialogues were ‘released’.
Many of these documents were overtly censored, which was met with outrage by both members of Congress and the public. Hundreds of pages were simply black without any words on them.
This left much to be desired, with little to no evidence of President Trump in the files like many people had expected. Despite this, people figured out how to get around the redactions, finding President Trump’s name in many docs.
In Adobe Acrobat, there is a redaction tool where you highlight what you want redacted and click the “redact” button. This permanently destroys the text or image data. Naturally, you would expect the United States government to use such a powerful tool for high-profile documents like this, but they did not.
Instead of using the redact tool to destroy the data, they used the highlight tool and blacked out the text. Which means that you could copy and paste the text into a Google Document and unhighlight it, which reveals the names and alleged crimes of thousands of people, including our president.
This revealed so much more than the Department of Justice and United States Attorney General Pam Bondi wanted you to know. Following this development, the files did not just include incriminating evidence around Epstein, but also everyone involved with him. The most notable people are the Trump family, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and Elon Musk.
Among these files, there are some standouts, listed here:
EFTA00037362, which lists off co-conspirators (without names).
EFTA00006107, which was a complaint filed that suggested that Epstein had child pornography.
The Masseuse list, which is highly redacted and unable to be unredacted, but contains names associated with Epstein's operations.
His flight logs, which were released earlier, included mostly illegible names
Epstein's “Little Black Book,” was also released earlier.
There is also surveillance footage and pictures that have been released, many of which have been redacted to hide the faces of victims and important people, including many images of former President Bill Clinton.
As of January 30, 2026, thousands more files have been released. These include transactions made by Epstein, emails, and the names of dozens of notable people, including Elon Musk, Donald J. Trump and Prince Andrew. One of these files includes an unverified anonymous tip alleging that President Trump allegedly held auctions for underage girls. This document has been removed from the DOJ website but has been saved and still open to the public on various websites.
Many of these files contain horrible crimes, but one of the worst ones is EFTA00020517. In the file, a limo driver from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, whose name we do not know, details instances when he drove for Trump.
In the file, he speaks about overhearing a phone call during which Trump was on the phone with a person whom he kept referring to as “Jeffery.” Trump then references abuse towards a young girl. From there, the document describes the death of Dusti Rhea Duke. Another similar document is EFTA00023010, in which a victim describes her experience getting sex trafficked and the death of her newborn child.
Even with the horrible crimes that are alleged in these documents, not all of this can be taken as fact. Thousands of documents, and even more redacted info, with some done properly and others improperly, make it hard to navigate the info on the DOJ website.
It is still unclear what is true and what is not. Many of these reports have conflicting information and are all unconfirmed allowing the people to come to their own conclusions, but whatever you believe is true, it is easy to agree that everything found is deeply disturbing and if true, those involved should not be trusted.