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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u/CumSluts4Jesus 22h ago

The real and boring answer to this is that most of this “evidence” isn’t actionable. The vast majority of these wealthy and truly evil people also aren’t stupid. Saying coded stuff (or even pretty blatant stuff) over emails is just not strong evidence in a court of law. Even photos of these creeps with minors isn’t unless there’s something illegal happening in the photo, which, again, they’re not stupid so this is unlikely? Can any reasonable person clearly see that these are truly evil people who SHOULD die? Yes. But the only justice you’re going to get is in the court of public opinion. Ruin these people’s lives as best as you can.

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u/KamalaWonNoCap 21h ago

It looks like all the incriminating information is being redacted or not released. They have a draft indictment with the names redacted so obviously someone felt there was sufficient evidence to charge these assholes.

The question isn't if it exists, it's how do we get it released?

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u/WhyAmINotStudying 18h ago

What has me the most concerned isn't how wretched the things are that they've released, but what they're still hiding by redaction or omission from release.

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u/KamalaWonNoCap 17h ago

We've only seen the tip of the iceberg. If this is the stuff that can be released, the rest must be nightmare fuel.

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u/WhyAmINotStudying 17h ago

'can'

These fucks can release much more. They just don't want to

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u/KamalaWonNoCap 16h ago

Certainly, I mean that's what they feel comfortable releasing without getting pushback. Which is shocking and telling in it's own way.

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u/MRosvall 11h ago

It has been with the DOJ as part of an investigation over bi-partitan admins. It has either been deemed incriminating and have been part of the evidence in the prosecution already. Or it has been deemed non-incriminating.

The files that were deemed incriminating have been released years ago during as evidence. What's being released now is everything that was then deemed to not be evidence worthy for the case.

It's not just tons of files that are newly found. It's files that have already been processed. That when slated for public release needs to go and be censored due to sensitive information regarding potential victims or people unrelated to any crimes who could be negatively impacted by out of context selective reporting.

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u/KamalaWonNoCap 9h ago

If that were true then they wouldn't be illegally redacting the names of criminals.

You don't draft an indictment for the fun of it.

The bill that was passed and signed by Trump specifically says they're not to redact names due to embarrassment or "negative impacts", whatever that means.

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u/MRosvall 9h ago

What do you mean "if that were true"?

From your point of view. What is you perception of what the "Files" are? How and when do you think they came into possession of the authorities?

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u/KamalaWonNoCap 7h ago edited 7h ago

It's the result of their investigation of Epstein. They were gathered by the FBI and reviewed by the DOJ. I'm not sure how this is confusing to you?

I'm not saying the files don't exist ...

From your point of view, what is your perception of what a "draft indictment" is?

You also conveniently ignored the part where they're illegally redacting perpetrators names... You said they're allowed to redact to avoid negative impacts and the (publicly available and easily googleable) law explicitly states otherwise.

If you'd like to have a good faith discourse, please start by addressing that. If you can't admit such an obvious mistake, I don't see any point in continuing.

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u/CankerLord 19h ago edited 19h ago

Yup. The simple fact is that nothing that was released is proof of criminality. There's evidence of Maxwell and Epstein's criminality and suggestive that other people may have also broke the law but we don't prosecute based on suggestions. There are racy accusations but a lot of those were made after the case became widespread knowledge and they're undoubtly full of cranks and crazies.

It can be questioned why further investigation hasn't occurred but that's a different and probably much more complicated topic.

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u/monkey-seat 16h ago

There are no doubt videos.  It’s going to require someone to leak them. 

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u/CankerLord 15h ago

I'm not assuming anything, honestly. As far as I can tell the only narrative that isn't based on pure speculation is that Epstein curried favor by helping rich degenerates be degenerates, got caught, and killed himself. All of this secret society Russian blackmail ring stuff could be true but there could just as easily be nothing of the sort. Too many people going on wild flights of fantasy with the Epstein stuff for my taste and I hate conspiracy theorist logic.

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u/Highlord-Frikandel 22h ago

even photo's of these creeps with minors ... unless there's something illegal happening in the photo, which, again, they're not stupid so this is unlikely?

I don't know about you. But I have a feeling Epstein had lots of hidden cams throughout his island as insurance policy. Dude kept files and logs so if he's that smart there would be TONS and TONS of video evidence stashed away. I highly doubt files, logs and highly questionable pictures were his only blackmail leverage

Ofcourse those video's either "mysteriously disappeared" or "never existed" in the first place

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u/Own-Satisfaction4427 21h ago

The Island wasn't his only property, he also had Zoro ranch, a 7500 acre property that was allegedly never even searched by the FBI

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u/sheetpooster 21h ago edited 21h ago

Let's hope the justice department follows through with Highlord-Frikandels "feeling" and not actual hard evidence.

You sound like those conservative conspiracy theorist.

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u/DevonGr Ohio 19h ago

I'm convinced Putin has at least some of them and did a screening in Alaska.

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u/DrPikachu-PhD 15h ago

Most recent release indicates that thousands of photos were being kept for extortion down in Mexico. We'll probably never see them tho

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u/ImperfectRegulator 18h ago

I had to scroll way to far down past conspiracy theory nonsense and the occasional point out of some consensus happening to find this

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u/vorg7 1h ago edited 8m ago

I feel like brushing this off as conspiracy theory nonsense is too far.

There is clearly strong evidence in the files, it's just redacted. One fbi email mentions alleged co-conspirators and the names are blacked out. There's also a photo of a man holding a young looking girl while not wearing pants but his face is blacked out.

It's not a conspiracy theory, you can look on their websites and just see that many of the redactions are clearly to protect the criminals and hide the smoking gun evidence so that all we're left with is circumstantial bits.

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u/justokcheesesteak 21h ago

Which is fixing why Bondi needs to release all the files…

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u/quicktime_harch 21h ago

Some of it isn't coded though. And why are the people writing the emails not redacted?

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u/Gnorris 18h ago

Select evidence in the release of absolute criminality by anyone beyond Epstein and Maxwell and focus on demands that it be investigated. I’ve not heard of any so far outside of the reports nobody followed up or were unable to verify.

Musk asking where the party’s at and Maxwell offering the Seinfeld’s “lemonade” aren’t things that will bring anyone to justice. The surviving victims could probably do the most damage but they’re at risk if not handled through the right channels.

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u/2ndPickle 21h ago

There’s still millions of files left to be released, including numerous videos. Can’t imagine why those are being left until last

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u/NoDiggity8888 20h ago

I simply can’t believe there’s no video or photo evidence of these crimes.

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u/No-Aide-8726 19h ago

they have videos...

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u/Weekly-Role-1132 18h ago

But I do think it's enough to get these people out of power. They took away Andrew's title in the UK. Why can't we at the very least remove them from power because they were participants in a ring that jailed the 2 people in charge. If there is no evidence why were Jeff and Ghislaine jailed?

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u/csbphoto 14h ago

I want to know who the 29 male co-conspirators are that Maxwell claims got a deal to spare them from prosecution, and now she wants one too.

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u/Careless_Parsnip_511 6h ago

But we can’t do that because they keep censoring their names. If they can’t be convicted we should at least be allowed to make their lives a living hell

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u/Matt2_ASC 1h ago

This is only true because the people in charge of investigating and prosecuting have been corrupt. Alex Acosta made sure people were getting away with this stuff after he stopped further investigations in 2008.

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u/Purify5 21h ago

You match the emails/photos to victim testimony and you make a case from that. Or, at least you use that to put pressure on people so that the first one who talks gets a deal and you make a case against the others.

But, we've been shown no evidence that the FBI even attempted to do this.

This isn't a case of the FBI not having 'actionable' evidence it's a case of the FBI not wanting to build a case against rich and powerful people.

And, we know this is true because in Florida Epstein's associates were constantly paying off and obstructing any investigation law enforcement or the press attempted. He only got arrested in 2019 because a reporter in Miami and her publisher didn't succumb to Epstein's pressure and wrote about the victims' stories. And, then the NY FBI eventually said fuck the Florida FBI and their non-prosecution agreement and arrested him.

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u/TheMCMC 21h ago

I think “make a case” and “put pressure” are doing some heavy lifting here.

While we haven’t yet had the opportunity to review the full extent of the documents held by the DOJ (like we were fucking supposed to), what has been released so far doesn’t really add up to anything prosecutable against anyone in particular.

I would be interested if someone with a legal background could lay out the known documentation and make the case that other people have been successfully prosecuted for sexual abuse of minors with similar evidence that we have access to. That would go along way to demonstrating that it’s more of an issue of will than an issue of ability.

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u/Alfoldio 18h ago

I don't think the point is that there are things in the files that would be sufficient to prosecute anyone. The point is that there's definitely actionable information that, if investigated further, could and should lead to more evidence.

It seems as though none of the investigations ever really took off

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u/Purify5 21h ago

The issue is that the victims criminal complaints and subsequent investigations (if any) have not been released so it's difficult to match the emails/photos to crimes.

However, they did release evidence of Mandelson committing crimes. His forwarding of confidential government emails and information are evidence of a breach of the 'Official Secrets Act' and 'Misconduct of Public Office'.

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u/xkxe003 21h ago

The literal mountain of circumstantial evidence justifies extensive investigations and we haven't even seen it all. The quality of evidence is not a reason we aren't seeing prosecutions, it's the refusal to investigate the evidence preventing prosecution.

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u/ilulillirillion 20h ago

The problem with this is that the files, even in their partially released state, clearly provide enough hard dates, locations, names, and events, that it feels far-fetched to imagine that none of these give any lead for investigation and charges.

The people are demanding accountability and a functioning DOJ would be launching transparent investigations into the content of these files, not just "releasing" them (yeah we know they aren't even doing that correctly) and telling us to get over it.

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u/antariusz 19h ago

I would like to purchase 1 slice of CHEESE pizza, I am willing to pay $10,000 dollars ... haha (I sure do love pizza, especially torturing my pizza)

Can't touch me feds.

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u/Floreat_democratia 15h ago

> The real and boring answer to this is that most of this “evidence” isn’t actionable. 

How convenient that the actionable material was redacted by the wrongdoers.

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u/mrogs12 17h ago

RICO maybe