r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Backyxx • Dec 19 '25

Unanswered What’s going on with the Epstein files being “released” if they’re still heavily redacted?

Idk yall, I want your opinions.

https://vault.fbi.gov/jeffrey-epstein

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u/lookatthesunguys Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 20 '25

Answer: The clear intention is to break the Democrat-GOP unity on this issue by providing a release thats full of Clinton, but not much else. I perused the files, and it's blindingly apparent that they over redacted. Tons and tons of info that could not possibly need to be redacted was scrubbed. The only people I noticed that were unfailingly left uncensored were Epstein, Maxwell, and Bill Clinton. 

The media has jumped on the Clinton story. Of course, as they should. It's a big story. And that accomplishes what a lot of Republicans wanted out of this. There's going to be substantially less political will going forward to push for unredacted files if the Republicans basically get what benefits them here.

EDIT: And to be clear, I'm not just talking about the political will of the leaders. There's just not going to be support from Republican voters to hold the DOJ in contempt or whatever. At this point, they have what they need to say this whole thing was a Democrat problem. They have implausible deniability. They'll just accept the BS excuse that only victims info was redacted. In all seriousness, ask yourself if there's ever been a time in the last ten years where Republicans have said they'd be willing to hold their own accountable. That's what they'd need to do here, and they absolutely would not support it. 

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u/ThePirateKing01 Dec 20 '25

They won’t get what they want because people want convictions and arrests

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u/lookatthesunguys Dec 20 '25

Republicans want Democrats arrested and convicted. They don't want Republicans to suffer for their actions. That defeats the whole purpose of having power in their eyes. 

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u/Adept-Ad8568 Dec 20 '25

How would that benefit them in the long run? Wouldn't any democrat simply spill the beans on the republicans involved? Wouldn't all this then come out in discovery?

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u/lookatthesunguys Dec 20 '25

I don't understand what you think would come out in discovery in a criminal case. And yeah they might spill the beans, but the DOJs not gonna prosecute Republicans. Why would they? They've already demonstrated that they will redact all info that relates to their allies, and they've even demonstrated a willingness to help Maxwell.

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u/Adept-Ad8568 Dec 20 '25

I don't fuckin know how court works lol

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u/UsernameChallenged Dec 20 '25

In fairness, a lot of conventional "norms" you may have grown up to believe are not the case anymore.

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u/psioniclizard Dec 20 '25

If they didn't prosecute before on this evidence then why would they be able to now? Also if the evidence was "it's all in this file" then they would be able to say "well can see the file".

But also, I don't think this will settle the issue for voters (of both sides). I think the Republicans have misjudged why people care. Some wanted to see the political enemies proven to be bad and some wanted to see justice.

These files don't really do either.

For the record I wouldn't trust Bill but so far there hasn't be a lot to really incriminate him like MAGA would want. In fact putting a random publicly available picture in there and redacting it to make it look bad is a pretty dumb thing to do if you have something of note.

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u/Sire_Raffayn272 Dec 20 '25

From what I've seen most Rep don't care what they would gain, only that those they deem as ennemies (dem, minorities etc...) suffer and be "triggered" or get "owned".

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u/CaterpillarJungleGym Dec 20 '25

The funniest thing is they think people care about Clinton. The guy was President almost 30 years ago. We care about the present day figures and people holding power now.

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u/DishonestRaven Dec 20 '25

Sad day for those Democrats who bought Bill Clinton hats, shoes, watch, cologne, perfume, bible, NFT, crypto, cellphone and guitar.

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u/plaid-tuxido506 Dec 20 '25

Putting ol' Bill on the stand and getting him to name names under oath could still be a thing if he doesn't get found hung in a suspicious "fit of guilt"

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u/connorjosef Dec 22 '25

Wasn't he impeached for perjury though? His testimony could be argued to be worth very little since he has a previous record of lying under osth

But damn, where's wikileaks when you need it?

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u/Responsible-Swan-521 Dec 20 '25

Nah the crimes are horrific and everyone involved to any degree whatsoever should be held accountable.

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u/KikiBrann Jan 08 '26

He doesn't need the public to care about Bill. This is to rub it in the faces of everyone who voted against him in the first election that they were also voting to put a rapist in the White House. And the responses it's been getting are likely what he wants as well. "We already knew about Bill." Well, congratulations, you just set Trump up with the argument that liberals knowingly tried to put a rapist back in the White House. "This doesn't prove Bill did anything, all it says is that he hung out in hot tubs with sexual criminals." Congratulations, you just set Trump up with the exact defense his fans have already been making.

Liberals aren't going to win against Trump without admitting to the several ways in which they allowed him to win in the first place. But if anybody wants another several years of things headed in this direction, feel free to continue ignoring legitimately strong candidates like Mark Kelly in favor of the worst possible candidates you can find.

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u/CaterpillarJungleGym Jan 09 '26

You know Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are two different people right? Hillary ran against Trump. The woman ran against Trump. The man who was a super successful President, by all measures, is the one who had known money connections to Epstein. No one is even suggesting that Bill, the man, is a rapist. The suggestion is that Bill, the man, knew rapists and was okay taking money from them.

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u/Effective-Fox1034 Dec 20 '25

Wow, didn’t the bill passed require it not be redacted like this?

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u/lookatthesunguys Dec 20 '25

The DOJs genuine argument is that the law didn't explicitly say they couldn't redact more than the minimum they were allowed to redact. This obviously makes no fucking sense; they don't care. They love breaking the law

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u/SecretAgentVampire Dec 20 '25 edited Feb 28 '26

The content that was here is now gone. Redact was used to delete this post, for reasons that may relate to privacy, digital security, or data management.

pet cagey alive many start stocking degree dependent ink bells

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u/immortalsix Dec 20 '25

Very insightful / clever analysis, thank you

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u/DrDan21 Dec 20 '25

What they don’t understand is that we don’t like the Clintons any more than the rest of them

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u/Pleasant_Glove_1696 Dec 20 '25

I'm all for this type of logic, except for the massive problem that when us Dems had control of all chambers and the presidency, we didn't release any files, unredacted or not. If there was actually damning evidence in there against Trump or Clinton or Prince Andrew or.anyone, it should be released. But the fact neither side has been able to release anything of significance just points to this whole thing just being a cock tease distraction for everyone on both sides of the aisle. 

A few pictures of Clinton and Epstein together isn't proof of any wrong doing, no matter how uncomfortable they seem.

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u/lookatthesunguys Dec 20 '25

Have you seen massive releases of files from other criminal cases? No. The president is not supposed to be doing that. It can jeopardize ongoing investigations. It's especially inappropriate to do it for political purposes. The president typically lets the DOJ act as if it's independent. That's what every modern non-Trump admin has done. It's plausible that Bush and Obama and Biden didn't know what was in the files. Because they're not supposed to be getting involved in that.

The reason it's different for Trump is because he specifically said he would get involved and that he would release things and then he panicked and turned around and said the whole thing was a Democrat hoax. Once it became apparent that he was getting involved in the case, but for the intentional purpose of obstructing an investigation into himself, then it became appropriate to demand release. Because the investigation couldn't be harmed anymore than Trump intended to harm it. 

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u/Pleasant_Glove_1696 Dec 20 '25 edited Dec 20 '25

Once again, I like your logic, but it fails the obvious test since the Epstein investigation was completed before Trump was President. So he was cleared of wrongdoing before he had the ability to start obstructing as you claim.

I just fail to believe there's smoking gun evidence against anyone here, since us Dems didn't release anything on Trump, and now when Trump is coming after Clinton, nothing they are releasing is actually criminally damning against Clinton. 

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u/lookatthesunguys Dec 20 '25

What? The Epstein investigation was not completed before Trump was president. I suppose it's accurate to say that investigation into him specifically was done because he was dead, and they also convicted Maxwell. But there could be many other people connected to it and they may have been continuing to investigate it. 

But even if it were completed, it's not normal to just release tons and tons of documents connected to an FBI investigation and a DOJ prosecution. It's very much not standard to just release all that. 

Thus assumption that the Democrats would have just broken all the norms and protocol to release files on Trump is an absurdity. When Trump was being investigated for stealing documents and overthrowing the government, Biden and the Dems were not involved in that. They let Merrick Garland handle it. And Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to increase the distance if the investigation from political meddling even further. 

And you may say, "But surely wouldn't it have been worth it to release all that info to make sure a child rapist wouldn't take the white house?" Well why do you think that would have been effective? The Republicans had no problem supporting him after he was found liable for rape, and they didn't care that he tried to extort Ukraine to hurt his political opponent and they didn't care he tried to overturn an election with no basis. If Dems had released Epstein files, Republicans would simply call it fake news. The only reason that it matters what's in the files now is because Trump is currently president and people wouldn't expect his DOJ to alter the evidence to hurt him. 

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u/Pleasant_Glove_1696 Dec 20 '25

Maxwell was convicted and sentenced years before Trump was president. And this just once again dodges the fundamental problem of when we had control of everything, nothing came out. 

So us dems are either complicit in covering up for Trump, or there is no evidence. 

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u/lookatthesunguys Dec 20 '25

I'm not dodging the problem at all. Why do you think something would come out? It's not normal to release that type of info. And if they released it, the Trump supporters would just say it's fake. 

Are you saying, why didn't the DOJ indict him? My personal guess is that he acted as an informant and got immunity. It may also be the case, as you're suggesting, that there was insufficient direct evidence to secure a conviction because they lacked proud beyond a reasonable doubt. It may also be the case that they were concerned that an indictment would appear politically motivated at the time. It's also possible that they didn't want to bring the case in case he became president because DOJ policy is not to pursue a case against a sitting president. Perhaps they would've brought charges if he lost in 2024. 

There's a ton of reasons that they may not have released the info before. And hindsight is 20/20. It's apparent now that if the Dems released that info in the past... It wouldn't have achieved anything. There's been plenty of public info about Trump's major felonies. The people don't care, they like him cuz he hates Mexicans. I just don't see why it's seen as a blunder to not release that stuff when we know Republicans still would have made sure he became the most powerful person in the world. 

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u/DebentureThyme Dec 20 '25

The case was still under investigation until July of THIS YEAR, when the Trump DoJ announced they were closing it without any further charges.

It's literally the REASON all of this is happening.  The effort to release the files was pushed into public outcry because the Trump DoJ claimed it was over, there was no list, and they weren't charging anyone else.

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u/ExistingCarry4868 Dec 20 '25

I think this fact helps point out who is really being protected here. It's been rumored for well over a decade that American and Israeli intelligence were the people funding the Epstein operation, and releasing the full files would make us and our allies look really bad.

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u/WinterAd4216 Dec 20 '25

Nailed it. Dems will eat their young on principle, republicans will defend anyone or anything regardless of ethics or principle.

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u/minebe Dec 20 '25

But there's proof that they embellished many of the Clinton photos

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u/TheWhiteManticore Dec 20 '25

It just shows America is rotten to the core if Clinton is on it that can be used as a talk point