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The DOJ's Letter To The Court Explaining Their Failure To Comply With The Law · The Epstein Chronicles

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  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
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  Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're taking a look at
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  a letter sent to Judge Berman and Judge Engelmeyer by
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  the DOJ and Pambondi, And in this letter, they're giving
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  an update on where things currently stand as far as
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  the Epstein Files release goes. So let's dive into this
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  letter and let's see what sort of nonsense the DOJ
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  has for us. Dear Judges Berman and Engelmeyer. The Department
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  respectfully submits this letter as an update to its previous
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  omission to the Court regarding the review and redaction of
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  certain of the material required to be published pursuant to
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  the directives of Hr. Forty four oh five, the Epstein
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  Files Transparency Act. The Department continues to make substantial progress
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  in its efforts to identify potentially responsive documents, review those documents,
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  redact victim identifying information and privileged information, engage in quality
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  control process, and prepare responsive documents for publication in accordance
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  with the Act. In particular, the Department references US Verse
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  Epstein nineteen cr rmb SDNY Docit eighty seven, eighty eight,
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  ninety one, and ninety four and US versus Maxwell twenty
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  CR three, thirty PAE SDNY Docket A nineteen, A twenty three,
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  A twenty six, and A thirty nine, as noted in
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  the Department's prior letters. While not all materials under review
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  are covered by the court orders, the Department nevertheless continues
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  to implement procedures across its review to ensure that victim
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  identifying information is protected consistent with the Court's order and
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  to the maximum extent practicable. Indeed, the Department has reviewed
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  millions of pages of material, applying redactions as appropriate to
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  include documents such as emails and text messages, as well
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  as video and audio recordings created and or maintained by
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  the defendants. The Department continues to engage with victims and
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  victim counseled and apply quality control checks to ensure that
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  victim privacy is protected to the maximum extent practicable. Contemporaneously
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  with these efforts, the Department, using internal resources and with
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  support from its vendors, has endeavored to ensure that the
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  document management system it's using to comply with the Acts
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  or operating and will continue to operate in accordance with
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  the requirements of the Act and the Department's commitment to
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  protecting victims privacy. Those efforts include not only manual review
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  by hundreds of Department attorneys, agents, and others conducting page
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  by page review of millions of pages of documents, but
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  also electronic searches for victim names or other identifiers to
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  isolate documents that are particularly sensitive and requires supplemental review,
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  as well as relief from various protective orders issued in
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  other courts. The Department currently expects that it will complete
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  these processes with respect to the substantially all of the
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  potentially responsive documents, including publication to the Epstein Library website,
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  in the near term. The Department is not able to
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  provide a specific date at this time and cautions that
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  its ongoing process, including its quality control checks and document
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  management system preparations, may require additional efforts to ensure the
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  protection of victim identifying information while complying with the broad
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  demands of the Act. More specifically, the Department is reviewed
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  and redacted as appropriate, several millions of pages of material
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  identified and files maintained by the Department, the FBI, and
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  the relevant US attorney's offices. Those materials include not only
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  internal department communication but documents acquired and created in the
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  course of the various investigations at issue, as well as
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  audio and video files obtained during those investigations redacted as appropriate.
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  Pursuing to the Act and the Department's ongoing commitment to
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  the protection of victims as noted in prior correspondence, these
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  materials have been subject to manual review by hundreds of
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  Department employees in consultation with counsel for victims as well
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  as the victims themselves, to mitigate and minimize the risk
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  of disclosure of any victim identifying information. As the Department
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  previously noted, compliance with the Act is a substantial undertaking,
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  principally because of the size and varying types of material
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  and because for a substantial number of those materials, the
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  capabilities of the document management system are not in themselves
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  sufficient to ensure victim identifying information is redacted. As a result,
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  careful manual review is necessary to ensure that information is
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  identified and redacted before materials are released. Department attorneys, agents,
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  and others have dedicated days and weeks to compliance with
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  the Act and will continue to do so until it's complete.
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  In addition, pursuant to the Courts Directive, including attorneys from
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  the SDNY, have taken an additional review to ensure that
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  any production is consistent with both the letter and spirit
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  of the Court's protective orders. Specifically, the manual review as included,
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  for example, searches related to the names of hundreds of
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  self identified victims as well as individuals out of an
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  abundance of caution the Department itself believes are or maybe
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  victims based on information available to the Department. The Department
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  has undertaken this potential victim identification process with great caution
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  and inclusiveness in the spirit of its obligations to victims
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  and the Court's orders. In addition to the victim related
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  searches and manual reviews, the departments in the process of
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  conducting various quality control related searches and reviews to ensure
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  that its process have operated as expected and have provided,
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  to the extent practicable, the maximum level of consistency in
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  the treatment of similar materials across the production and the
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  Department has continued to work with and will continue to
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  work with, Council for Victims and indeed victims themselves to
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  ensure that the anticipated production identify and redact victim identifying information.
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  The Department continues to invite victims and or their council
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  to contact the Department promptly if there is any concern
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  about materials that are published pursuant to the Act. As
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  noted in prior filings with the Court and public statements,
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  the Department remains committed to protecting the privacy of victims
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  and other personal identifying information, the production of which is
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  not called for under the Act, to the extent applicable.
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  The Department reminds the public generally and victims specifically, if
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  anyone believes materials improperly or inappropriately have been published pursu
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  into the Act at http www dot Justice dot gov
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  backslash epstein, they should contact the Department EFTA at USDJ
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  dot gov. The Department will continue to apprize the Court
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  of its progress in this regard. Although the Act provides
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  for the withholding of materials on a temporary basis to
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  allow for a review and redaction of personally identifiable information
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  of victims as discussed above, hundreds of Department employees are
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  working diligently to complete this review as expeditiously as possible.
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  In addition, in its efforts to comply with the Court's orders.
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  The Department has undertaken particular process for cert of vacation
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  of Protective Order materials before their release without compromising victims privacy,
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  so that its production can be complete see Act Section
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  two C one A and C. The Government remains available
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  as always to answer any questions the Court may have. Respectfully, Yours, Pamela,
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  Jay Bondi, Todd Blanche and signed by Jay Clayton. All
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  of the information that goes with this episode can be
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  found in the description box.