Bulwark Takes - Is DOJ Playing Games With the Epstein Investigation? (w/ Ryan Goodman)

Episode Date: December 28, 2025

Bill Kristol sits down with Ryan Goodman to discuss new and upcoming Epstein document releases. They’ll cover which records to watch for next, what the disclosures do—and don’t—tell us so far, and whether the U.S. Department of Justice is dragging its feet, playing procedural games, or protecting powerful interests.

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Access to the Price is right fortune pick is only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hi, Bill Crystal, editor Large of the Bullwork, here, joined again by Ryan Goodman, Professor

of Law at NYU, co-editor of the invaluable website, Just Security. And we're going to discuss the Epstein case today, which we've both been following. Not exactly our natural, I guess, in Rick, not what you specialized in over the years and decades in terms of international human rights law and national security law, but important. And you've given quite a lot of attention and have some very good resources actually on your website for timeline and so forth on it so anyway ryan thanks for thanks for joining me again here on my pleasure looking forward to the conversation and just to be clear it's since things could change new this is midday on sunday at december 28th so i thought we could discuss what we've learned it's amazing it's only nine

days since they began the release feels like it's been kind of a long time a week ago friday and what we've learned from the documents we've seen, and then what we might learn, but also what we've learned about how DOJ is handling all this. So what have we learned? What surprised you? So I guess what surprised me is how little we've learned over nine days, that we were supposed to have had all the documents at once. That's what the law required. And I guess, and we'll talk a little bit. I guess that my surprises also the way in which DOJ is handling this in some respects and in Congress in response to it. But in terms of major revelations, there are, I guess I think of them as very few and far

between. And I think that goes to the next part of our conversation about what the DOJ is doing. But to me, the major revelations are that the DOJ thought that they had 10 co-conspirators at least. that's from some of the documents around the time of the case against Epstein in New York that we don't know that's about 2019 yeah yeah so it's like 2019 and we don't know what they exactly meant by co-conspirators some of them are certainly like Elaine Maxwell and then wealthy businessman in Ohio and so they're they fit the profile of what I think people would immediately think others I'm just not sure what's behind those redaction because there are other documents that clearly indicate that the DOJ sometimes calls somebody a co-conspirator

who also themselves might have been a victim at some point. And that's a difficult category with respect to the potential, the way in which this scheme worked that EFSI and Maxwell would recruit young girls as victims and then have them recruit other girls. And that's part of the problem. that we don't know what that 10 exactly includes, but the fact that they had 10, the fact that there are sitting in the DOJ and FBI files, prosecution memos, and an 86-page memorandum on the co-conspirators that was as fresh as December of 2019 after Epstein's death. The fact that that exists is new and potentially very important, one of maybe most important things. And then the

It was not new that Donald Trump had traveled on Epstein's plane eight times over a particular period, which included the period that Maxwell was charged for. But what was new in that is that it was a surprise to the FBI, Asian at the time, that on one of the planes, it is just Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and a 20-year-old young woman. whose name is redacted. That's, I think, significant. If you just imagine what that would be like to be on the plane with a monster of the nature of Jeffrey Epstein, who is doing everything pretty openly on a plane with him and a 20-year-old girl.

So that's the second part. And that also on one of those planes, it's a two plane rides. It's Donald Trump with Epstein and then others, including witnesses for the potential witnesses for the Galane Maxwell. prosecution and that's um kind of bad too in a sense for the president so that was new um and i thought that was it revelatory but that's just that's pretty scant uh given what i think still coming yeah but as you say one of the emails does point to this these prosecution memos and uh material from the 20 let's call it 18 19 really uh i guess 2020 into the arrest of maxwell and her prosecution 2021 time frame and we've seen a

And we've seen almost nothing there. We've seen the email referring to these documents, but we haven't seen these documents. Right. Those documents are not being provided. And I think it's something to underscore for people. According to the letter that the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blan sent to Congress, it sounds like the DOJ's position is currently that they will not provide those documents because they are part of the deliberative process.

and that is, I think, fair to say, in direct and flagrant violation of the Epstein Transparency Act because the Act says, give us all documents except for a very narrow exception and included in all are the very kinds of documents that are listed there that are deliberative process documents like prosecution memos and the like. So I think that, to me, is, that's the one that should have all the sirens on it. I agree with those who think that there's also another serious concern that DOJ has violated the deadline of the statute, but in terms of the fundamental information that needs to be provided, that's the clash that I think is coming. Interesting. I mean, I guess the other two sets of, so that's the sort of, let's call them, the internal DOJ documents, which seems to be

very substantial, detailed, and to list names of, we're not sure who the co-conspirators are, but in some cases pretty obviously men who took advantage of the girls and were knowing collaborators with Epstein, others. We don't know all of them. We don't know they're 10 mentioned. We don't know if there are others and other documents and so forth. So that's one set of documents. I guess other people have talked before had expected to see the 2007-2008 Florida prosecution memos and I think it's a draft indictment, which ends up getting mooted by the cushy plea deal that Epstein negotiates with Acosta. We haven't seen those at all, I don't think, right?

Right. And those are on the top of the list of Representative Massey and Representative Kana. They've mentioned that from the get-go, that they and the victims want those documents from Florida. And I think that, if anything, I would just advise them in a certain sense to update their list because they emphasize that a lot, and I agree that those are very important documents from Florida in 2007, 2008, but update it with the ones that now we know of as of December 2019. And then the third tranche, it seems to be maybe, I'm actually there, more than three of it,

but the people mentioned from the beginning are the witness, the victim statements to the FBI, none of which they, this is sort of what the victims were focused on, I think, getting released. They obviously wanted certain things to detect. There was no controversy about that, but they wanted people. to see what had happened. And they've been done of those that I know of. Yeah. And I think those are on the tippy top of the list as well

of what needs to be revealed. And Julie K. Brown, the terrific Miami Herald reporter in this space, has pointed out that the release includes photographs of the taped recording, so the audio tape of the recording with the victims and survivors, giving their testimony to the FBI, but not the actual transcript. And on top of that, the victims themselves have asked the DOJ for their own 302s. And as of Thursday night, last time I've heard about it, but one of the survivors said, we haven't heard from the FBI and we

haven't gotten a 302. So it's not just the public, but they themselves haven't received them. And I think that kind of is one of the many indications of what games the DOJ is currently playing. So the 302 being the FBI account of the interview with the victims, that right? Yes, yes. No, those are, I mean, this was so much focus, and understandably, and some of it's interesting actually, the particular redactions, these photos, these names and certain documents. But in a way, that's a little bit forest and treaties, right?

I mean, the big forest is these massive documents that everyone understands to be central to the cases and also the case or cases in regard to Epstein and Maxwell, the two Epstein cases, I guess, but also very much what was on everyone's mind in this debate over the last several months

and years, for that matter. Those, they're major documents and sets of documents that haven't been released. You think, well, so we'll get to just one more, well, yeah, I want to get to what justice is up to there for, but even some of the redactions of the photos, I mean, there's the one that truly Brown called attention to

that others have noticed too that apparently one of the emails i guess from 2020 maybe mentions that when they arrested banon on other charges uh his phone had a photograph of uh trump and maxwell together unclear whether it's a recent photo i mean bannon wasn't really involved in all this in the early years so i don't we know of i don't think so presumably it's in the kind of post-2015-ish time frame that Trump must have seen Maxwell, or it's a photo maybe of a photo that Epstein had, who knows, right? I mean, it could be, I guess, a lot of things. But that's redacted from the, there's an email that says, here's a, I think it's from one FBI agent to another or maybe to a prosecutor saying, you know, here's a photo we came across. It might be interesting,

you know, might be useful for you anyway. And then that's redacted. What are the possible grounds for detecting that? I mean, it's a photo so far as we know of, of Trump and Maxwell. I can't imagine any grounds under the Epstein transparency law that would allow for the redaction of that photograph. It's in defiance of the law. And it is just exactly as you described. It's like the entire document is there, but for the, you know, the name of the U.S. official, a low-level official, which could be understandable. And then, yeah, there's just this bracket, there's this area of the email that's redacted out. is purely black and it seems to be the photograph, the only way in which I can imagine

it, and also because the Epstein law says specifically nothing can be withheld or redacted on the basis that it might be publicly embarrassing to an individual. And the place that I would go in my thinking about this is the following, that in Todd Blanche's, letter to Congress about what was being redacted and withheld. And I think it's great to keep those as two separate categories. Redacted is an existing document that has been released, but they excise some of it and withheld is there's no, they're not even going to release the document or the information whatsoever. So I think it's very important that people think about both. But he does say that we will, that they're not going to release the information that is permitted by the Epstein

Act. And then they, and then he says, and the Privacy Act. And that to me raises alarm bells because there's no need for the Privacy Act for the very specific information that is allowed to be redacted, which is the victim and survivor name and identifying information. That's under the Epstein Act itself. You don't need the Privacy Act. The way the Privacy Act does often operate is for people who might be implicated in an investigation by being named as a potential subject or by being named as a potentially implicated or involved with the target of the investigation. And I've always worried from the very moment of reading that letter from Blanche to Congress

that that was being used to hide information about other men implicated in Epstein's crimes. So what could be the possible explanation for redacting the image of Maxwell and Trump? Maybe it's a privacy act or something. I don't know what went on with that. And what's also dysfunctional right now is you would think that that could cause enough outrage on the part of Congress to say release that because there's no justification under the act and force the DOJ to say something about why it's not there. They might hide behind that there's a whole lot of incompetence going on in their end in the

ways in which this has been done and handled in the releases, but let's get to the bottom of that. And I think that why we don't see that from Congress is there is bipartisan pressure to release, release, release. But I think, obviously, the Republican side stays away when anything might directly implicate Trump. And then that image obviously directly implicates Trump. I'm not trying to think about, yeah, what, I mean, there could be a third person in the image who should be redacted, but they could have redacted. There are many photos they've released where they redact individuals and not the whole group, right? So again, it's very hard to see why Maxwell when Trump gets, don't get released and it does make one wonder. Right. And to put a finer point,

point on it, how is it possible that President Clinton and Maxwell in a pool can be released? And Maxwell and Trump on Bannon's phone can't be. It's just, it's not, not defensible. That's a good way point again. I mean, I'm struck this. The Privacy Act, and then there are these routine, doesn't Blanche say in a couple of the letters, just sort of other, doesn't he allude to other things that maybe in some cases would be legitimate grounds for not releasing stuff, but clearly are not intended to be, are intended to be, or intended to be over. overridden by the by the Epstein Transparency Act, the kind of a charity client privilege, I don't even know what, you know, delivered a process, the various terms of art,

I suppose, in the legal world. Yeah, and it's interesting because even in that, he does mention them in the letter. And even in the letter, there's in some ways an admission because he's citing to federal case law. And the federal case law is suggesting that those things don't have to be given to Congress unless it's clear that Congress wants them.

That's actually what the case law I'm saying. There's even an admission that if Congress really wants it, they get it, but then you have to interpret the law not to necessarily do that unless Congress is explicit. I cannot imagine a court, any judge coming up against that law and thinking that Congress did not want that information. That's exactly what Congress said that they wanted. And they made the exceptions to what they wanted very explicit. So that's what he's playing with there that I think he must know they will lose if this were to be litigated. And Senator Schumer has a bill that would allow for the Senate to litigate, and that's how that one would go.

It would be like civil litigation over the release of the documents for failure to comply with the law. So that might be one path that we see in the future. But that's what's happening, I think, in that space. Now, there are still lots of documents to come, even by the Justice Department's own account. So maybe some of the stuff will get released or unredacted as some other things have been. but yeah i don't i guess we'll say i mean what they have sort of it's a little misleading i think the first nine 10 days here because uh congress has been out i don't know that that was any great dark conspiracy i think that really was perhaps an accident of when the bill got you know when

the discharge petition got got done they had 30 days written in and 30 days turned out to be just the beginning of christmas break um or they accelerated it a bit to make sure it was the beginning but um but they do come back on january 5th and at that point i don't think uh i'll be interesting to see or how much, certainly Rokana and Thomas Massey and others have been on TV complaining, but we'll see how much broader that complaint is and whether it spills over from Democrats to Republicans. So that's one development to look for, I guess, right, in early mid-January. But we will get, well, they're saying we'll get more releases, right?

So what do you make of that? I mean, what do you make of this one million pages or something that seemed to have allegedly showed up three or four years ago? Yeah. So in the date that the deadline hit, Todd Blanche said on a morning TV show that it would take a couple of weeks until they released everything. And then that couple of weeks would basically run until you'd, I think, he said, I think, until the end of the year. So that is, but that's just rhetoric. I mean, he's not, it's not any kind of official commitment.

So that was originally the baseline that he had set, and that's prior to in the last 48 hours, this idea that the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted Epstein and Maxwell, has newly discovered, I guess, much to their amazement, that they have a million more documents that are potentially responsive to Congress. To me, it's just, it's so puzzling as to what to make of it

because there is this background understanding that the way in which DOJ's handled this, there's so many ways in which it's being incompetent. And incompetence might also be a product of lack of staffing. So what to make of the discovery of a million, it's hard to understand how you could discover a million documents from the very U.S. Attorney's Office that prosecuted the cases. So you've got to imagine that all of that has been very well filed. Um, so I don't understand that at all. Um, and I, I do not know, you know, which way that could play out. It could be that, um, it's part of the cover up. And then maybe I see

and I didn't, didn't want to go with the cover up. Or it could be that they'll use it to say, oh, my, there's now a million documents. We are opening or potentially opening criminal investigations and the Epstein law allows us to withhold information if there's an ongoing criminal investigation. It, it's just so unusual to see that have an And I should add one more later to it, which is, for those of us closely following, there's this letter from Pam Bondi several months ago to Cash Patel saying, in a pretty angry term, but I could imagine Attorney General being under normal conditions, angry about this in a sense.

I demanded all the information come to me at Maine Justice, and it hasn't from the FBI. So I need you to ensure that it all gets delivered. It was strange how they did it because it was all very policy. public. But that's several months ago. And Josh Gerstein at the at Politico pointed out like just in terms of fraud, waste and abuse, what an inspector general would even look in. How could it possibly be that in late December 2025 they discover a million more documents that haven't been handed over to the main justice? It just, it smells of something rotten one way or another, something is bad within the system. Well, yeah, I mean, I think a bond you

letter to Patel is maybe late February when she's getting criticized for those ridiculous binders that she gave conservative, you know, podcasters and stuff. And she's pretending, oh, they didn't share everything. And I don't remember if SDNY is explicitly mentioned there, but everyone understood all along that there's presumably FBI Central, you know, which would have a lot of stuff. And there's and then there's DOJ made justice, which would have some stuff. But then there's SDNY, which actually prosecuted both cases. I mean, or two, the two late cases. and of course, Florida as well. The idea that no one knew, gee, there'd be a lot of files at SDNY, gee, someone should be going through this.

And then they kept saying, we're going through everything. Then, of course, then there's July 6th, what I think of as the Stonewall memo when they try to go with the Stonewall strategy, which ended up falling apart, which is we've looked at everything and there's nothing. No one has done anything requires further prosecution. I mean, you literally, I mean, I think people just need to, I'm not a lawyer, I've never worked. of these places, but I don't know, how, the centrality of SDNY, the notion that we looked at everything, but we happened to miss SDNY would be like looking, I don't know, I just like the single most, single most obvious place where the documents are. And they're professional. They know they're there and defies and name justice those they're there. There's no mystery about this.

I assume they have all kinds of protocols when they prosecute a case of how they file the stuff and how they keep it afterwards and whether they share it with just, they injustice. They probably don't routine cases and just keep it in their own files i don't know i'm just it's it is really astounding i think yeah it's yeah absolutely and i'd already make one friendly amendment to what you said which is uh the stonewall memo says they don't have any evidence not just to prosecute but just to uh conduct investigations which is such a low threshold um and you and one would think at the time You're sitting on all the SD&Y materials, and now we know, one could add to it, one could speculate this before, but there were, there's an 86-page memorandum from 2019 on co-conspirators who can be charged or on co-conspirators, and there, all that information, there's nothing to investigate, and we know enough of the allegations from the victims and survivors against some of them specifically named individuals like former Prince Andrew. You can't open an investigation on that. You know, it just, something smacks of an unreality and it's obviously to me it suggests a strong

cover-up of a sense that they just wanted a deep six the whole thing and like you said it failed um miser failed and thank thank goodness it failed uh for the rule of law and accountability and there of course trying in different ways you might say to just to do mini stone walls or mini cover i think coverups you know now that the big one so to speak the the the giant stone wall has crumbled a bit i mean i guess i am struck by that the incompetence is always possible, and I'm sure true in some respects, but I do think people, the coverage is slightly, not yours, but others, slightly underestimates how much from the beginning they have not wanted to release anything. I mean, that is once they thought about, I mean, they may have wanted to

when they were running in 2024 when he was president, but once they got in there, certainly once they started to look at things or maybe even just think through things or even just talk to Trump once or twice about it, their mode has always been releases. little as possible and maybe release it as unhelpfully as possible and there are different that takes different manifestations of different stages so to speak right you know but but nothing to see here oh well there are some things to see but we do have to release it with these constraints you know but i think i just think that really from just common sense point of view i would say you could prove this in court you know but uh that's so obviously where where they're coming from i guess is what i'm

struck by. Yeah, I completely agree. I also think it is just common sense as long as one's just watching what's happening. And I'm also quite frustrated by some of the coverage because some of the coverage is very explicit about from mainstream news media and the rest about, oh, here are the different explanations as to why it could take so long. And the rest of it, it's like, really? I mean, there's a frontal assault by Todd Blanche and the DOJ to say, we are not going to release certain of the most vital information. It's not just like, there's a lot of incompetence and things like that. There's a lot of noise going on, but that is just a very straightforward.

Part of it, like you say, common sense about just look at the pattern of behavior over time, including the inflection point of the Stonewall memo. And that's the true story. Yeah, I think that's important. I mean, I would say Blanche visiting Maxwell and then transferring her to the cushy prison facility is certainly another part of it, which, again, is slightly receded in a way to people's minds.

She's, okay, I guess that happened. That's pretty astonishing, you know? And she's right, there's some, why don't know how we have this email, we have some of her to someone about how nice it is there, and it's really much better, and, you know, and then Trump explicitly not ruling out of pardon.

And I just feel like people being a little credulous about you know that there's any good faith honestly at this at this point but i mean one question i have on this again i have an experience with this is i also feel like the document dumped the two i guess we've had i don't i you know they're called i i guess my simple matter way of thinking of it is they presumably called epstein files for a reason because they're like files i mean and i assume that the fbi being a pretty well-organized organization and and cn y and main justice and floridas attorney's office, the U.S. Attorney's Office down there, they have, like, files. And if they wanted to, I assume they could release a lot of it, not everything, maybe,

there's miscellaneous stuff, as files, 2007, 2008, 2019, you know, this person, that person, I don't know all kinds of, you know, these days, modern computers, you can cross index very easily, in fact, and they certainly do, just FBI know. I mean, and the idea that it's just dumping a bunch of photos and that we have no idea when they're from or where they're from and god forbid they could organize them that can't be the way they are being held i mean i guess it could be some of them right they have extra radius stuff comes in it wasn't important someone looked at it and tossed it at a box or literally or the the modern digital equivalent of a box somewhere like you would you know so it's somewhere on the

computer it's in downloads but it's not you know it's not it's not in some file but a lot but they do have files i guess is we haven't we that's what strikes me we haven't seen any file else is the way I think of it. You know, we've seen a lot of random documents. Right, right. And for those, I guess there could be a number of viewers haven't done it themselves, but if you go to the Epstein Library on the DOJ website, it's exactly as you describe it, it's just batches, like here's our first batch,

here's our second batch, there are eight, and then under each one, it's just like a bulleted file name, but the file name is just a number. So it's zero, zero, zero, one, three, five, eight, and it's, incredibly frustrating for the victims themselves who are like how many go through each one and things like that. There are stories of that, which is just very painful to think about. But as you say, Bill, I mean, it cannot be that they don't have them computerized in such a way that they are at least, you know, identifiable from the very face of the file name. Like, what is this about? What kind of file is it? Is it a witness statement? Is it a photo exhibit?

that was used at trial, all sorts of things, plus, sortable by date, sortable by individual, sortable by the Maxwell trial. And that's deeply problematic. And the way in which it's done, it makes it very hard for it to be transparent and for media and individuals to even understand what's happened here, let alone that when they first released it,

it wasn't even really searchable. And the law requires that it be searchable. Now it is searchable in a sense, but yeah, it's avoiding giving Americans the information that is statutorily required by a Congress that voted for it almost unanimously. Right. And it does get back to this massive stuff they just not released, let alone the messiest way, which they release a lot of this material. So what do you think? I mean, it's a very weird situation, honestly, you and I were talking before that we got on there here for a minute

about, it's a little hard to I felt in other issues, situations I've kind of, I've not, God knows, I haven't known what's going to happen, but I've sort of known what the two or three or four possible paths were that would happen in cover-ups or in prosecutions. You sort of know, well, this could, you know, this one,

this could fail, this person, this cover-up could fall apart here. I remember this in Iran-Contra pretty well, and I was new in Washington, and, you know, I was clear what testimony was going to be crucial, and it was pretty obvious. investigating and kind of new different directions that could go or Watergate there were key moments I don't know I feel like here it's we've seen so little in a way I don't know what's gonna happen over the next month do you think

is this sustainable could it possibly be that a month from now we'll we'll be sitting around a Congress will be doing nothing or at least maybe filing some civil lawsuit that could take a long time to get the most obvious documents that everyone has agreed are necessary to understand what's happened or will they have to cough it up or will they cough it up anyway in the next couple of weeks? It's just they're off to a slow start. I mean, I don't know. Where do you think we are in this?

Yeah, it's difficult to know. I do think that we'll have some of the core documents you would think within the next short while days, weeks, on things like the 302 interviews of victims and witnesses with the FBI. Like that's not something that the DOJ has said that they can withhold. And traditionally, those are the kinds of documents that would be publicly released, especially post an investigation. And so I do think that that's coming, and it does seem to me that that could be very powerful in the sense of naming names, getting to the bottom of who are the other co-conspirators and men involved in this sexual trafficking and sexual abuse of minors.

To me, I think that might be, that's on the horizon. And I think that will shake the foundations, because that's, I think, a large part of the national interest is that accountability. And that's what the victims and survivors want. And they are demanding it very forthrightly. So I think that's a piece that will drop. And it sounds like, you know, what is the basis for the cover up? What are they trying to not disclose? I think it could be in there. So I do think that the, that's why, you know, over the last few days, last 24, 48 hours, President Trump again has now almost suggested that DOJ should not abide by the statute and release the information? It's like, why? What is he, what is he afraid of? Is a, you know, a very key question.

So I think that that might, I think that to me is going to shake loose. What's difficult to know is how it shakes loose on the other pieces, which is these, these are prosecution memos, these, the 86 page memorandum from December 2019 of co-conspirators. That one, I think, that has to be forced. And that requires Congress. keeping their eye on the ball of the withholding of information, not just the redaction of information. So I think that to me is key. And then the other is just so we maybe put this on the surface as well,

the way in which the DRJ has handled the release of information to me is playing political games. I've spoken to some of the survivors. They think so too. So I think it's very morally abhorrent in that sense as well, let alone illegal. but you know the idea that what is being released you know first day of release was like it was just like design choreographed it was about bill clinton with images of bill clinton and bill clinton did things wrong then he should be held accountable but that's the only real

you know other man that's uh involved with the victims and survivors or with epstein's affairs that's been released it's that one and then the next stage of releases are basically fraudulent documents. So to the point that I think, in my mind, I've wondered, you know, is DOJ specifically releasing documents that will try to discredit people that are scouring these things? Like the letter from Epstein to Larry Nasser that almost looks like a confession of a suicide and implicating Donald Trump. And then it's proven to be pretty obviously fake. Why release that? And surely to goodness the DOJ knew at the time, maybe release it, sorry, but identified as being fake.

They surely knew that in December of 2025 that that was fake. There was an entire Inspector General investigation on Epstein's death. Surely they knew that that letter was fake. And then there's another like FBI tip. I'm not even going to speak the allegations because I think they're just bogus, but it looks like it's implicating Donald Trump. But if you read deeper into it, it just looks like a person who got baked up conspiracy theories. And that's part of the second tranche that's being released.

it just seems deeply suspicious to me in the way in which this has been orchestrated. And, of course, the DOJ makes disparaging comments about Bill Clinton because he's in an image with Epstein and a redacted young girl or a young woman or a minor. And DOJ says, ha-ha, that's suspicious when it's obviously not necessarily because they over-redacted with anybody who could have been an Epstein victim. And then in sharp contrast, they make a statement that sounds like they're the lawyers for Donald Trump personally, saying how, oh, you know, this is non-credible information about the president, etc. So I think that the way in which this is being carried out is a, I'll use one word, I guess, a disgusting political game over the lives of survivors and victims who have been incredible in their history. historic success of getting this law passed, seeking transparency, let alone accountability.

Yeah, the survivors, I think, are the underestimated as a force by the kind of conventional people covering it. You know, they're used to covering Congress and, you know, lawyers and so forth, and they're interested in the back and forth. The moral force and political power, really, of the survivors saying, wait a second, this is, where's my 302? Wait a second, where's the prosecution memo? Wait a second. I want the name. names of the people who, you know, were involved in this, not just Epstein's name or something. That could be very powerful over the next month or so.

I do think I, my only, again, friendly amendment to use your term of what you were saying is I think it's unlikely but not impossible that they try to go at some point pretty explicit stonewall. That is, I don't really think, I'm not so, maybe they'll just say at some point, I'm sorry, we look closely at this and we believe that a correct interpretation of the law is we can't release the prosecution memos,

302s this that we can't unredact anything more here's a bunch of stuff that's unimportant and you know like what we've seen so far and thank you that's we're done and then and sue us now i don't i that i mean that could happen uh that's happened before what to get had a version of that right they had to go to court screen court to get everything uh the most damnic stuff um i don't know how the legal system would work that i don't know if they could be congressional majorities to sue i don't know how quickly that could happen i don't know if congress could use authority other authorities to compel justice to do certain things you know they obviously have a lot of if they wish to do so they can make executive agencies do a lot of things by withholding funding

and other kinds of things holding people in content but anyway i feel like i don't think that's i think the muddling they seem to have adopted the strategy so far pretending to sort of go along without while being very reluctant to go along and putting a lot of obstacles in the way of going And that's probably the safer bet that that's kind of the path they're on. But I don't know. I don't rule anything out. I guess I haven't the degree to which they do not want to release stuff is I guess I guess I always come back to that.

You know, it's the simplest. It's the Occam's razor explanation of a lot of what they're doing. And as you say, I think very importantly, the degree in which they seem affirmatively to be happy to muddy the waters. You know, it's not just kind of, oh, gee, you know, they're being very, very tightly held. You know, they're throwing out the stuff to be. that's not, you know, real to make it harder to tell. Yep.

And according to the Survivors, also not in communication with them. Right. Isn't that amazing? If you want to release stuff, you know, you talk to the people, right? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So I think Occam's Razors, right?

And just to add, I mean, I think, yeah, close this up here. Yeah. Well, I do think that Congress has. a number of different tools, and the tools are censure, a censure of the Attorney General, potentially the Deputy Attorney General, since he has become almost the point person for it, censure, a resolution that says that they're in contempt, a impeachment resolution from the House of the Attorney General, and potentially Deputy Attorney General, filing in court. Sorry, criminal referral, but that's obviously, but that would potentially be enforceable in the future.

And there are those former federal prosecutors who have said that what they're currently doing, if they are truly deceptively not releasing information, and it is, in fact, a conspiracy not to comply with the law, that would be a crime. And Representative Massey has identified some of the criminal statutes that would apply. And then filing civil litigation in court under civil contempt. And I think that's, you know, that's basically the range. There's also this idea of inherent contempt, which is raised by Massey and Kana. Originally, I think that one's just a minefield in a sense.

So I think that one's a bit of a distraction. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But that would mean Congress imposes its own penalties, financial or otherwise, on the wrongdoers, like the Attorney General. And there's good argument that Congress has that kind of authority, but just hasn't been used over a century. But I think that's part of the range. And I think that it requires, and some of the litigation definitely requires either a full committee or a chamber of Congress to act. Individual members of Congress do not have standing, essentially, to bring those suits.

And it's important for people to understand that because that's part of the politics here. So I think that, and then, as you said, Bill, they could start to restrict the funds that go to the D.O. OJ for different purposes. That's kind of what happens with the boat strike of the two survivors, that the legislation does get passed that says that the Congress will limit the Secretary of Defense's travel budget if he does not provide to the Armed Services Committee, the video.

And lo and behold, as that legislation is about to be passed and was passed, he provides the video in full to the committees. So that kind of leverage can potentially work. work, especially because Congress holds the purse strings. And this is one in which there does seem to be a significant bipartisan pushback against stonewalling on the part of the DOJ. Yeah, it's not good. This thing is not, maybe they'll release everything in two weeks, and we'll know a ton,

and that'll be sort of the combination of it. But it feels more like we're looking at a fairly drawn-out process here. But there's a lot of pressure. I mean, if one believes in the transparency, then they're in finding out what the truth here, the good news is there are a lot of people pushing for it, and I think the momentum is on their side, has been on their side for a while now, obviously. The original stonewall didn't work. That's pretty important, I think.

But history suggests that when that crumbles, it's still hard to build these later intermediate stonewall, so to speak. On the other hand, they have a lot of tools to continue obfuscating and stonewalling, too. So, you know, and they control the executive rancher a way that Nixon didn't control the Justice Department, obviously in Watergate, and Reagan didn't control. thing, the head independent commissions and Iran-Contra and so forth. So yeah, this will be a big story in 2026, not just 2025, I think, right? Absolutely. I think it's going to be a really important moment.

And just also note public survey data seems to strongly suggest that Americans, by large majorities, want this information out there. So I think that it's a real clash and an important reflection on where we are as a democracy see if it doesn't get done. Interesting, yeah, that's really true. Ryan, that's been terrific. I think it's been very helpful for me, and I think clarifying for people who are watching or listening.

So thank you for taking the time on this Sunday, and we'll be back to discuss things maybe. Well, we'll see when we have real new information. Maybe it could be as soon as a week or two for now, maybe a month for now. But Ryan Goodman, thanks to join me today. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.