Carrick Ryan

If Trump was named in the “Epstein Files”, why didn’t President Biden release it?

Here’s my take as a former Federal Agent.

As I’ve stated before, I don’t think there is a simple “client list”, and it’s also unlikely that evidence exists that Trump has engaged in criminal conduct with Epstein, otherwise the Justice Department under Biden would have almost certainly launched an investigation, even if just to announce that an investigation existed.

But the investigation into Epstein would have contained an enormous amount of phone downloads, chat logs, bank records, flight logs, CCTV, and of course whatever evidence Epstein himself kept for any number of purposes.

It’s fairly evident that amongst this evidence could be any number of artefacts that would be damaging to Trump.
Imagine personal text message exchanges between the men, images of Trump with women on Epstein’s Island, or maybe even CCTV of Trump that was kept by Epstein as leverage. Obviously this is speculative, but it’s certainly not difficult to conceive of something that would be politically damaging to Trump, without being proof that a crime was committed.

If this evidence was not relevant to the prosecution of Epstein, and was not relevant to proving or disproving another crime, then this evidence would be classified, just as it would be for any other investigation.

The Courts only needs to see evidence that can prove or disprove a fact relevant to the case, the rest is kept secret to protect the privacy of those involved. This is an important feature, as it ensures the public knows that the evidence police seize through search warrants, as well as intercept and recording device warrants, will only ever be released if it’s absolutely necessary to prosecute a crime or prove someone’s innocence.

It makes us a little bit more comfortable handing Police these extraordinary powers if we know that so long as we’re not committing a crime, our private conversations and actions will never be exposed just to humiliate us.

Now under President Biden, the Attorney-General was Merrick Garland, who was an esteemed Federal Judge who had previously been nominated for the Supreme Court by Obama (with Mitch McConnell refusing to even hold a hearing). Garland was a fervent believer in judicial process, especially after witnessing Trump’s open political interference with his Justice Department during his first term.

As a result, Garland never used his authority to release ANY evidence associated with ANY of the investigations with his Justice Department, even though several involved Trump and his political allies. If evidence was to be unsealed, it should be done through a judicial process, meaning a court order from a judge based on a legal finding – not for politics.

Both he and Biden would have recognised that abusing their power to release information purely to embarrass their political opponent (rather than definitively prove he had committed a crime) would have been the exact kind of abuse of power and indifference for the rule of law and judicial process that they said disqualified Trump from the White House.

Garland’s critics will point to the fact the DOJ had two investigations into Trump (for the holding of classified documents and for his election interference in 2020). But in both instances, Garland appointed a Special Counsel to ensure those investigation were conducted independent of his authority.

It’s also possible they didn’t even know if there was any evidence that was damaging to Trump. The mere act of asking for the case be reviewed to identify embarrassing evidence that could be used against your political opponent would have been incredibly improper, and possibly even grounds for impeachment.

But equally, it must be acknowledged, that Biden or Garland using their authority to declassify this kind of evidence would have set an incredibly dangerous precedent that could have exposed Democrats, as well as Biden’s own son, to future politically motivated exposures. Effectively abusing the investigative power of law enforcement to obtain and publish “dirt” on political opponents.

It’s also entirely possible that they knew that the evidence in this case would be problematic for important Democrats, such as Bill Clinton. Again, it wouldn’t have to be proof of a crime, but something they would not enjoy seeing published.

So it’s really not difficult to see why Trump’s name was safe during Biden’s presidency. But it was Trump himself that leant into the campaign to declassify everything the FBI had.

Trump’s Attorney-General, Pam Bondi, was a former Florida Attorney-General (an elected position), before becoming Trump’s personal lawyer and regular Fox News pundit.

In the lead up to the 2024 election, she made multiple appearances on Fox News declaring that there was no legal reasons not to declassify ALL the evidence associated with the Epstein case, earning her significant support among the MAGA base who had become convinced the entire case had been covered up by Democrats.

It became a Trump election promise, and as I’ve explained in previous posts, it became an obsession of MAGA, who believed this evidence would prove once and for all the moral depravity of the liberal elites that would be named.
So what do I think changed?

As I said before, investigations like this would likely hold terabytes of evidence, and there’s a good chance Trump didn’t actually know what kind of evidence existed in these files. It’s possible that Bondi, herself, has only just found out.

Again, I highly doubt it would be evidence of criminal conduct, otherwise Garland’s DOJ would have absolutely established an investigation. But it’s really not difficult to imagine what kind of material an investigation like this would have captured that could implicate Trump in Epstein’s activities, even if not the criminal ones.

The difficulty for Bondi and Trump is they spent a year promising they would release everything, and clearly there is a reason why they now think this can’t be done without causing substantial political damage to Trump… because refusing to release it is turning into an existential crisis for his base.

Whatever is in those files is somehow worse…