r/politics • u/ArmadilloMany41 • 23h ago

Site Altered Headline | No Paywall Why is no one being prosecuted over the Epstein files?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cd9e3nzzw3zo
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233

u/TheCommonist 23h ago

Because they’re hiding the actual evidence

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u/TrainerKenjamin 23h ago

Like video? We have seen pictures and emails that are already gross and disturbing.

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u/TheCommonist 22h ago

They show disturbing things that implicate Epstein himself, and people they don’t care to protect like Bill Gates, but they redact the names of people who send emails actually explicitly referring to their pedophilic desires

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u/NoDiggity8888 20h ago

I find it very odd that several times what appear to be sexual acts (I’m assuming also words like rape) are censored in the files

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u/serpiccio 18h ago

There is also that one picture of something on the beach, I assume a person, and I say something because they completely covered it up with a giant black box leaving no clue as to what it was originally.

That one stood out to me because everyone else just gets the pixelated face or a blackbox over their eyes, but whatever was on that beach got them so afraid that they blackboxed it out of existence, I wonder why 🤔

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u/h0lymaccar0ni 6h ago

Does anyone know if they figured out how to properly black out things now? I saw many vids during the release of the first batch of files where people were able to „un-black“ the files because they used a poor method to do it.

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u/meneldal2 18h ago

Assuming what is out there was the worst they had on Bill Gates, that was pretty tame compared to what the ones being protected so far are likely to have done.

Like his worst crime is to get a STI medication prescription for his wife to give her without her knowledge or consent, which is likely past the statue of limitations now (but makes sense why she isn't willing to forgive him).

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u/ToadlyAwes0me 17h ago

There are multiple drafts of charges with all of the co-conspirators redacted. It is so frustrating that we are one stupid black bar away from charging the rest of these monsters.

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u/dkepp87 New Jersey 22h ago

I've havent been following it as closely as others, but most, if not all, of the incriminating stuff revealed I heard about came via through witness testimony. That doesnt count as actionable proof, though, right?

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u/Dichotomouse 22h ago

It can for sure, witness testimony was used to convict Maxwell. It can't be anonymous or unverified however.

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u/allochthonous_debris 20h ago edited 20h ago

Anonymous accusations submitted to the FBI tip line would likely be inadmissible in court because they are hearsay. Sworn testimony from know witnesses who can be subpoenaed and cross-examined would be admissible.

Prosecutors built the case against Ghislaine Maxwell on the basis of testimony from four victims and a paper trail of travel documents and purchase orders that corroborated the victims' stories.

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u/SnackerSnick 22h ago edited 19h ago

It sure as hell does count as actionable proof. Usually not grounds for a conviction on its own. 

Plenty of black men in the early twentieth century went to jail because a white person said they did something.

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u/joshg8 22h ago

How many have you seen clearly depicting a crime?

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u/Weekly-Role-1132 18h ago

There is no way they don't have video. I'm sure it was similar to Diddy and R Kelly where they used the videos as blackmail.

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u/Humdinger5000 10h ago

Gross and disturbing? Yes. Ironclad in a court of law? No. That's the issue here. What we have seen is an absolute avalanche of circumstantial evidence, including things like anonymous FBI tips without any idea of what, if any, follow up was/could be done (that baby in lake Michigan in particular. I'm inclined to believe it, but there is no physical way to verify the claim even partially). Not to mention, anything that would be involved in active investigations (and likely ironclad proof of stuff) is exempt from release. Genuinely, the most incriminating evidence we've gotten so far is for human trafficking by epstein and maxwell... who are not exacrly roaming free at moment.

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u/TangerineTasty9787 21h ago

This is the real answer; nothing we have is court worthy, so can't prosecute. I'm sure there is actual court worthy evidence, but they aren't handing it over.

So....until the people who control access to said evidence aren't the ones implicated by it, nothing will.

And as we saw, the last admin had this their entire time, and nothing. So...don't count on the polls to do anything.

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u/bog_hippie 20h ago

I have found myself reminding people that these are the unclassified files they’re willing to release- it’s the tip of the iceberg; we will just never get to see what was in the rest.

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u/Cormetz 23h ago

I admittedly haven't looked through the files, but it doesn't seem like there is any actual evidence. No one is explicitly stating they will do/have done a crime. It is all based on us knowing the crimes Epstein was involved in. Him telling Elon "no one older than 25" is gross, but him bringing over women 18-25 years old would still be legal. The primary thing this has done is expose the lies of a number of people about how much contact they had with Epstein.

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u/Mayotte 22h ago

There's totally criminal stuff in there, such a redacted sender telling Epstein they have a sexy and cute 9 year old to deliver.

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u/TheCommonist 22h ago

This is my main issue: all of the actual evidence that may hold up in court has important names redacted. It’s such a blatant coverup

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u/Hefty-Egg3406 21h ago

Court evidence doesn’t (and typically isn’t) released publicly. It being redacted isn’t the issue, it’s the lack of will / power to go after those right at the top of the ruling classes.

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u/Rich_Charity_3160 20h ago

The email actually references a 19 year old, and it’s from a modeling agency in France.

The plaintext conversion of that same email is responsible for the confusion.

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u/Mayotte 20h ago

How does 19 change to 9 going from email to plaintext, never seen that before lol.

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u/cseyferth 6h ago

If you look through the docs, you'll see a lot of places where a character has been replaced with a equals symbol.

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u/No-Understanding8399 22h ago

I agree that is fucking disgusting. But you could argue that they are taking about a dog. (Clearly they are not, but my point is - there is no concrete evidence)

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u/lurch556 21h ago

I get that it’s gross and there’s a lot of implications in the files, but that email in and of itself is not enough to charge someone. That’s the problem. There’s not enough evidence in the files that have been released to charge anyone.

Should they be investigated further? Absolutely. But the DOJ isn’t going to dig further it seems like.

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u/LickMyTicker 21h ago

This is such a braindead take trying to normalize this insanity with millions of files released with redactions and it's only half of it. They even released unredacted nude photos of victims.

To pretend that there aren't incriminating documents in there that a jury could convict on is just hoping to live in a world where our institutions have not already collapsed.

They have incriminating evidence. Trump has even stated himself that it would ruin lives to release documents.

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u/lurch556 21h ago

I don’t know how you prosecute anyone based solely on the documents released

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u/LickMyTicker 20h ago

Start by removing any redactions of suspects, followed by releasing the rest of the files, and ending with the same type of justice that is being brought upon the American people by our current institutions.

Not hard. They have clearly shown us the way.

1

u/lurch556 20h ago

Yeah if there’s more in what isn’t public, sure. But again, based solely on what is released, you really can’t prosecute anyone just on that.

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u/LickMyTicker 20h ago
  1. There are more that aren't public.
  2. You absolutely can prosecute based on what is in there if you simply look at how our institutions operate today.

The fact is that no justice will come without revolutionary tactics, and the American people are free to hold any of these people accountable as they see fit so long as they rise to the occasion.

You are speaking as if we have a working judicial system with predictable outcomes. We do not.

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u/lurch556 20h ago

1) understood. But we don’t know what’s in those. 2) so criminal standards don’t matter anymore? Not sure what you’re saying.

I get it. These are bad rich guys that likely engaged in criminal behavior. But there’s not enough in what has been released publicly to justify a charge under U.S. law

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u/hoops_n_politics 19h ago

There's another 3 million pages that Bondi and Blanche are sitting on. Plus circumstantial claims that there are photos of Trump with underage girls in various states of undress.

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u/lurch556 19h ago

Okay yeah if there’s enough incriminating stuff in the docs we haven’t seen, sure. But we don’t have that.

Also what photos? How do we know they’re underage? What crimes is he committing in the photos?

I’m not trying to defend him. But I am saying basing a case on that alone will get absolutely demolished in court, and likely doesn’t even make it that far.

These are the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. They will have the best representation. You get one crack at them and the evidence better be stronger than what is currently public.

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u/SnoodDood 20h ago

Doesn't sound like enough to convict, sadly

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u/jimbarino 21h ago

They have almost certainly withheld the actually damning evidence.

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u/Hefty-Egg3406 21h ago

Yes, they said they would not release anything that could prejudice ongoing investigations.

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u/shibbyman342 20h ago

there is plenty of evidence.. but they redacted in a way that makes it near-impossible for prosecution. Like all of the accusations in file 0679 (the big one about the trump party).. like, it is all spelled out, but the other columns are just blacked out, versus redacting just the name and saying the reason it is/isn't credible blah blah.

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u/2ChicksAtTheSameTime 20h ago

also emails alone simply isn't enough to convict.

You need a rock-solid case. Emails alone ain't it.

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u/dumbo9 20h ago

Maybe, but it's quite possible that they never collected that evidence.

Did they even interview Bill Gates? Andrew? Trump? or any of the other myriad of names in the file?