Tangle - The latest Epstein files release.

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

On Friday, the Justice Department published approximately three million pages of materials related to the government’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said this release concluded the department’s review of files related to Epstein, having released roughly 3.5 million pages in total. The release was mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed in November 2025 with near-unanimous Congressional approval. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: What do you think of the latest Epstein release? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and believe it or not, today, we are covering another Epstein file dump. This story is not going away, and we weren't sure if we were going to give it. coverage, but the noise around it has just become too loud, I think, for us to ignore. And there's too much there. There's a lot there that I think's worth discussing. And interestingly, my opinion's changing a bit on what's been happening. So I'm excited to talk a little bit about that. Before we jump in, a quick heads up, that tomorrow we're doing a special edition, responding to a bunch of your

questions about ICE and the DHS and CBP, we have just been getting inundated. I mean, for the last few months, we've gotten question after question after question about immigration enforcement. What are ICE and CBP doing? What are the differences? Are they allowed to do it? Why or why not? Who can they arrest? Who can they deport?

What do my Fourth Amendment rights mean? What do they grant me? All this kind of stuff that I know is complicated and not easy to necessarily flesh out. So we're trying to tackle it all in a special edition tomorrow. I'm excited about it. We've been talking to immigration and legal experts all week. to get you guys some clear answers. And I think we've done that.

So keep your eyes out for that. And I'll see you guys then. In the meantime, I'm going to pass it over to Will for today's main story. And I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac. All right, let's get into today's quick hits. Number one, the Supreme Court rejected a request

from a group of California Republicans to block the state's new congressional map drawn to add five additional Democratic seats. no justices publicly dissented from the ruling, which was delivered as a one-sentence order. Number two, a meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials on Iran's nuclear program will take place on Friday in Oman, after the U.S. threatened to cancel the discussions earlier this week. Number three, Ukrainian and Russian officials completed the first of two days of U.S. brokered meetings in Abu Dhabi. Russian strikes on Ukraine are ongoing, though Ukrainian and U.S. officials called the talks production. Number four, the Washington Post carried out large-scale layoffs,

terminating approximately 30% of its employees, including over 300 journalists in its newsroom. The Outlets executive editor, Matt Murray, said the Post has been losing money and not meeting readers' demands, requiring an overhaul of its structure. And finally, number five, Ryan Ruth was sentenced to life in prison for attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump in Florida in 2024. The Department of Justice releasing its remaining documents from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blan saying the records will be posted throughout the day, including more than 2,000 videos, more than 180,000 images. Some of the material, so explicit, you have to verify being an adult before you can actually access it. Many of Epstein survivors have been publicly pushing for years to have these documents come out, but it took a law passed with near-unanimous support in Congress to finally bring these documents to light. On Friday, the Justice Department published approximately 3 million pages of materials related to the government's investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said this release concluded the government's review of files

related to Epstein, having released roughly 3.5 million pages in total. The release was mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed in November 2025 with near unanimous congressional approval. In a Friday press release, the DOJ said the new files were collected from Florida and New York cases against Epstein, a New York case against convicted sex offender and Epstein Associate Galane Maxwell, New York cases investigating Epstein's 2019 death in jail, and a Florida case investigating a former butler of Epstein, among other sources. The DOJ also said it excluded files that were duplicates, protected by attorney-client privilege, depicted violence, or were unrelated into investigations into Epstein or Maxwell.

Representative Roe-Kana, a Democrat from California, who co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act with Representative Thomas Massey, a Republican from Kentucky, criticized the release as insufficient, saying the department has not met its legal obligations. Kana contrasted the 3.5 million page release to the DOJ's statement that it reviewed over 6 million, quote, potentially responsive pages,

saying, quote, this raises questions as to what, why the rest are being withheld. President Donald Trump, who had a personal relationship with Epstein until the early 2000s, but has not been formally accused of any wrongdoing, appears in some form in approximately 5,300 of the Epstein files, according to a New York Times review. Several mentions include accusations of wrongdoing against Trump shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but these claims are unverified, and the DOJ said they were, quote, submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election.

Several other notable names appear in the latest release, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, former president Bill Clinton, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and prominent journalists and entertainment figures. As with Trump, none have been accused of criminal wrongdoing, though some of their correspondence with Epstein discusses salacious topics. After the Friday release, the Wall Street Journal reported that at least 43 of Epstein's victims' names were left unredacted in the files, with some full names appearing over 100 times. Separately, the New York Times found that dozens of unredacted nude photographs were published, many showing young women.

Deputy Attorney General Blanche acknowledged that some names and photos should not have been published in full and said the DOJ would remove them if notified by a victim or their lawyer. Today we'll break down the latest Epstein Files release with views from the right and left. Then executive editor Isaac Saul gives his take. We'll be right back. after this quick break. Here's what the right is saying. Many on the right say the Epstein files

will never be the smoking gun, some hope them to be. Some say the release raises significant privacy issues. Others bemoaned that the files have become a political tool. The New York Post editorial board wrote about the biggest hidden secret exposed in the Epstein dock dump. Nothing will ever satisfy the fever-brained conspiracy obsessives. They'll be murder-boarding out the truth with their pushpins and yarn for decades. but ever more of us see that there's no more there there.

At this point, anyone pretending to root out the secret meaning of the Epstein files is a fool or a knave. Representative Sri Tanedar, a Democrat from Michigan, posts a complaint from a three-time psychiatric patient who says that in 1995, she witnessed a rape and murder torture ring run by Galane Maxwell and attended by Epstein, Donald Trump, and then President Bill Clinton at Trump's Rancho Palis Verde's golf course, though Trump didn't even acquire the course until 2002. The dieharts will never give up.

If the evidence they're looking for still hasn't shown up, then it's been suppressed or destroyed. Q fresh demands for the release of all the files and the damning of anyone who questions it as, quote, part of the cover-up. Epstein was a pervert who engaged with minors for sex. The insistence that he was selling children to the global elite is just a theory that sounds great to people

who enjoy imagining that's how the world works. Or to those who hope to somehow explain, exploit the true believers. In the free press, Robbie Schwab asked, will we regret the release of the Epstein files? It's been just days since the majority of the files were released, and a vast campaign is already underway to embarrass, harass, or smear anyone tangentially associated with Epstein, a serial sexual predator, no matter how slight or incidental the connection. Many sane and decent people rightly want sexual abusers to be held accountable, and understandably do not believe that justice was properly executed in the case of Epstein and his associates.

For partisan political actors, however, it can't be denied that one of the prime motivating factors here is digging up dirt. Supporters of civil liberties and privacy on both the right and left ought to be more concerned about the federal government releasing investigative files that contain gossip, unverified information, and outright lies. The political nature of the Epstein files must be acknowledged. Releasing the Epstein files, even if justifiable on this, specific case could set a dangerous precedent. Further, the potential to weaponize the disclosure system against disfavored enemies of the party in power is clear. Remember when Democrats released Trump's tax returns? In USA Today, Nicole Russell criticized those trying to score political

points after each document dump. Democrats want to know if President Donald Trump is implicated. As a conservative, I also want to know this. Others want to know the extent to which Democrats, like former President Bill Clinton, appear in the trove of Epstein email. and other related documents. I'd like to know the answers to this too. But as a mom of daughters, I worry that everyone is more concerned about which Epstein email can be used

as a tool to bludgeon their political enemy with, rather than how and when Epstein's many victims can finally receive relief and peace. These released files do not yet definitively show if Trump, Clinton, Musk, or anyone else participated in illegal activity. More and more, Epstein seems like a bizarre man and a very unreliable narrator.

I reject the notion that everyone in these files is guilty by association. But the scope of that association also can't be ignored. I think this is a scourge on our society. Yet we continue to focus on Epstein's files because he had access to our country's most famous politicians and business people. Lost in the partisan chaos are the girls Epstein destroyed. All right, now on to what the left is saying. The left says the DOJ has not fulfilled its duty to release all the files.

Some criticize the government's handling of the release. Others say Trump's ability to shake off scandal is waning. In The Guardian, Moira Donagan wrote, Don't be fooled, millions of files are still unreleased. It is unlikely that the new material will quell the public's interest in the case, or mitigate their sense that Epstein and his impunity represent a paradigmatic example of the ruling elite's personal corruption. Already, the newly released documents further underscored the extent to which Epstein

was integrated into the social life of, some of the world's most powerful people, even after he was initially convicted of charges related to child sexual abuse in 2008. Among other things, the emails show that in 2012, the businessperson Howard Lutnik, now Trump's Commerce Secretary, appears to have visited Epstein's private island with his wife and children. The Trump administration worked hard throughout 2025 to avoid the release of the Epstein files. Once the groundswell of public pressure to publish them became too great for Congress to resist, they have worked to minimize the public senses that the documents reveal anything particularly damning, at least for the president and his allies. But the administration cannot

contain the Epstein story, because by its nature, the scandal reveals the untrustworthiness and the mendacity of the very elites that Trump and his movement now represent. In the New York Times, Molly John Fast called the DOJ's handling of the release, a betrayal of the victims. What a lot of us wanted for these victims was some accountability. We wanted them to know that they had spent Democratic and Republican administrations having the federal government ignore their pleas. And these women just wanted to know that they were going to find some accountability, that these powerful men were not going to get away with it. The files looked like they haven't been looked through. We saw things that weren't redacted that should have been. We see powerful

men redacted. We see victims victimized again with their pictures and videos plastered on the internet. What should have happened is that the Trump DOJ and the Biden DOJ before it should have written a report, had a special master, had hearings, explained what was in those files, and what should have weight and what shouldn't, and then gone from there. But instead, what happened was Thomas Massey and Roe-Kana had to force this DOJ to release these files. There's still time to have hearings. The Epstein files should be the beginning of the investigation, and not the end of the Epstein story. In MS now, Ryan Teague Beckwith said Trump's latest argument on the Epstein files was predictable. On Saturday, Trump was asked about the release of the latest files. Quote, I was told by some

very important people that not only does it absolve me, it's the opposite of what people were hoping, you know, the radical left, he said. He was not absolved. According to a New York Times review of the millions of documents using a proprietary search tool, more than 5,300 files. contain more than 38,000 references to Trump, his wife, his Mar-Lago club in Florida, and other related words and phrases. Previous releases included a separate 130 files with Trump-related references. For controversies such as the Russia investigation or even Trump's first impeachment, the personal stakes were low for most voters. But the more serious Trump's problems become, whether that's inflation, immigration agents, pepper spraying, or shooting bystanders,

attacks on voting or the president's history of paling around with a sex trafficker, the more likely it is that the average voter stops filtering out arguments on autopilot and starts to truly listen. Trump will keep using these tricks, but the magic is wearing off. All right, that is it for what the right and left are saying. I'm going to pass it back over to Isaac for his take and today's reader question. Isaac, over to you. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take.

So public anger over Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and his enablement by those closest to him, it is not abated, which is good. The crimes are horrific. And his enablers and co-conspirators, if there are more we don't know about, they should face consequences. The push to learn more about how his vast, horrendous abuses took place over decades has reasonably turned into demands for more and more information. But the pursuit of justice can easily turn into mobbed rule. and with every Department of Justice release,

we seem to be getting closer and closer to the latter. Today is the fifth Epstein files release, or Epstein-related edition, we've published since July. As many suspected, the emails show that many of our society's most elite figures were willing to look the other way to maintain their relationships with Epstein. From Bill Gates to Noam Shamski,

many wealthy and well-connected people continued to curry Epstein's favor, spend time with him, and seek out his advice well after, his offenses had come to light. After scouring the files myself and reading all the various news articles about them, I'm just left feeling despondent.

Not only did this dump complicate the lives of so many people, innocent and unsavory alike, not only did it fail to dissuade the insatiable conspiracy mongering, but it also inadvertently named the Epstein victims we are supposed to be fighting for and included unredacted nude photos of women and possibly teenagers.

At the same time, millions of nude. documents and thousands of explored rabbit holes have produced no new evidence of an elite pedophilic sex ring. No smoking gun, no legitimate leads, no real vindication of the thing many people have been screaming from the rooftops for years. This leaves a lot of people grasping at straws with every new drip of evidence, often going after individuals who only have a passing association with Epstein. Take Nellie Bowles, for example. Bulls is the wife of Free Press founder and recently anointed head of CBS News, Barry White. Likewise, Bowles is a former New York Times reporter. Given Weiss's meteoric rise and our controversial

status among many on the left and Bowles' public-facing work as a writer, they're both natural targets for public criticism. The latest file dump provided an opening when it revealed an email exchange in which Bowles tried to set up a meeting with Epstein. The exchange was about as innocuous as it could be. Bowles took a friendly tone in the thread and afterward turned the meaning into two separate stories for the New York Times. No criminality, no wrongdoing, nothing really interesting at all, aside from a look at how some journalists approach a potential source, even when that person is a bad guy. Yet the Daily Beast ran with the headline that the Maga Curious Wife of Barry Weiss was busted, ingratiating herself with Epstein.

The Columbia Journalism professor impugn bulls his character further, claiming that she got along well with Epstein and met up with him just for fun. This is a smear. that Bulls doesn't really need me to defend her from, and she gave a rip-roaring retelling of her meeting with Epstein and a reminder to hack journalists and professors that, yes, sometimes journalism requires being nice to bad people. Another example is Glenn Dubin, a hedge fund manager. One of the files released this week contains a picture of Dubin

with his arms around his children on a couch. The DOJ redacted his kids' faces, making Dubin seem to be in an intimate position with anonymous minors. Social media posts with the image went viral. One account depicted it as Dubin, quote, fondling and making out with what appears to be children on Jeffrey Epstein's island, end quote. This one post has hundreds of thousands of views. That description doesn't even match with the photo shows, and of course, once you know it's his children, the image becomes completely benign. How many people who saw the initial posts about Bulls and Dubin will never see the responses?

How many will go on believing someone like Dubin is a pedophile? roaming free in society. Less sympathetic characters are also getting their moment in the canon. Take Peter Attia, the health guru and CBS news contributor, who apparently advised Epstein for many years and also used Epstein's considerable connections in elite circles to advance his career. In some exchanges with Epstein,

Atia makes crude, crass, offensive comments about women and sex. In some exchanges as recent as 2016, he even tells Epstein's assistant he wants to visit the island, though there's no indication. he ever does. They are cringe-worthy to read, and they reflect poorly on his character. He is rightly ashamed and embarrassed, and he may even lose his job at CBS. Attia is not a sympathetic character. I don't mourn for a best-selling author who is likely making millions of dollars a year selling longevity practices that sound, frankly,

a bit like quack medicine. I don't even think it's a disproportionate response if he loses his job and fans for being friendly with a sex offender. At the same time, I can't say I feel totally comfortable with this treatment either. I don't think hundreds of his private communications with a dead criminal should be sprayed across the internet, years after they took place with zero goal or purpose aimed at bringing justice to any victims. It's cathartic for a moment, yes, but after the initial rush of seeing someone like him get what they deserve, it still doesn't feel like real justice, more like digital vigilantism. I even have questions about the treatment of the truly inexcusable and worse-looking

people here, like Bill Gates. In a batch of emails Epstein sent to himself, he seems to be noting for the record that Gates had engaged in extramarital sex and that Epstein had helped get him drugs to deal with, quote, the consequences of sex with Russian girls, end quote. He also noted again in emails to himself that Gates had requested he delete emails about a sexually transmitted disease and wanted antibiotics to give to his then-wife, Melinda. Melinda's response to this story is powerful. Her incredible sadness, as she puts it, is palpable, and she gives a poignant reminder of the impacts Epstein's influence had on real people, even second or third hand. But again, something is just odd here, isn't it? The public is taking emails that Epstein sent to himself with accusations

about Gates as fact. But why would Epstein send himself such emails or leave a record like this, and why should we believe that everything in the emails was written in good faith or truthful? Is this really how we want this to go? Everyone who ever exchanged an email with Epstein is now in the files, time and context and facts be damned. Even if you didn't email him, if Epstein emailed himself and talked about you, these statements are true and your guilt is obvious. This kind of character assassination was always a risk of bringing more and more of Epstein's workings into light. But the velocity and breadth of it has me genuinely unsure if the error toward transparency principle is right in all cases. worse yet, the file release doesn't dispel any of the broadest and least believable conspiracy theories.

For example, the latest files contained a video. Epstein recorded of a conversation he was having with then Israeli Minister of Defense, Ahud Barak. It is a remarkable, fascinating clip where Barack is seeking advice from Epstein about how to live a profitable life in the private sector once he leaves office. It's all very slimy, but it also adds the predictable and obvious context for Epstein and Barack's relationship. Far from being a Mossad spy, Epstein was just a wealthy, well-connected guy who advised people like Barack on something like how to get rich in exchange for more connections and social status.

It's all a mess, and it feels like we have little left to responsibly learn from it. Now, with Bill and Hillary Clinton set to testify publicly, and Democrats and Republicans gearing up to smear each other with whatever evidence they can, I fear we're just at the tip of the irresponsibility iceberg. All right, that is it for my. I take, we have a staff dissent today from Associate Editor Lindsay Canuth. So I'm going to pass it to Lindsay for that and I'll be back with your questions answered. Hi, I'm Associate Editor Lindsay Canuth and I'm here with a staff dissent. First, I found the central failure of this release to be the

disclosure of nude images of girls and women, some of which were almost certainly taken non-consensually. And in my opinion, it far overshadows the reputational concerns for public figures Isaac focused on. Second, I agree with Isaac that the files don't yet criminally implicate figures like Peter Atia, but I disagree that we should now be questioning the transparency the law required. Full transparency means that some people who weren't engaging in wrongdoing will be in the public eye. That trade-off is worth it in order to gain a full accounting of Epstein's crimes. Epstein is one of the most prolific human traffickers in American history, and if you associated with him, especially after he was convicted of soliciting an underage girl for sex, then you

should have to reckon with that. Asking for an explanation is not dragging someone through the mud. At the same time, as Isaac says, we ought to consider those explanations with an open mind and weigh their defense in context. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, thank you, Lindsay. That's it for our staff dissent, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Marion in Philadelphia, PA. What's up, Marion? Nice to hear from someone in Philly. Marion said, is it possible to explore the Russia tanker thing? The internets are saying the seizure of the Russia ship is actually an act of war. Is that right? Okay, so this is a complicated story, as a lot of this stuff is. On January 7th, after the United States captured and arrested Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the United States also captured the Bella One, a Russia flag tanker after a pursuit beginning in the Caribbean Sea. In a vacuum, this seems like an aggressive act. that could lead to war. But important context is missing from that read. First, the U.S. and several other countries have sanctioned Russia for its aggression in Ukraine since 2014 and well before Putin's

all-out invasion. Those sanctions include limitations on the sale of Russian oil and have always included the threat of enforcement. However, years of caution led to a delicate dance, whereby Russia would use a shadow fleet of unflagged tankers, usually older vessels that travel without insurance provided by reputable companies in the global financial system to get around sanctions, as the West looked the other way to avoid a major escalation. Second, to take advantage of this state of place, some oil traders sail under a Russian flag to allow for illicit trading, knowing that the United States and other naval powers wouldn't stop them for fear of starting a crisis. In fact, the Bella 1, which briefly changed its name to the Marinera, was a stateless vessel that had only

recently started flying the Russian flag. Also in January, the U.S. caps, the M.T. Sophia, which was not Russia flag, but was part of what U.S. Southern Command called a stateless sanctioned dark fleet. Bluntly, the boarding and seizing of these tankers are not acts of war. Their acts of enforcement against either Russia's shadow fleet or fraudulent stateless vessels. And it's not just the U.S. enforcing these sanctions and maritime laws either. In late January, 14 European nations, including Britain, France, and Germany, warned they could start intercepting shadow fleet vessels, and France has already seized one in the Western Mediterranean. All right, that is it for your questions answered.

I'm going to send it back to Will for the rest of the podcast, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Thanks, Isaac. All right, jumping back in with today's Under the Radar story. On Saturday, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant at a house in Las Vegas, Nevada, and recovered evidence of an alleged illegal biological lab.

official said the house is registered to a Chinese national who's connected to an investigation into another alleged illegal biolab in California. More than 1,000 samples were collected from the Las Vegas House, and the house's property manager was also arrested and charged with illegally disposing of and discharging hazardous waste. The FBI is testing the recovered samples, but officials said there's no ongoing threat to the public. Fox News has this story, and we'll put the link to it in today's show notes. Finally, here's today's Have a Nice Day story. A rare drawing of a lioness by the 17th century artist Rembrandt has added to the Dutch master's legacy in a surprising way. The picture titled Young Lion Resting is expected to sell at auction for $20 million,

and the proceeds from the sale will benefit the global wildcat conservation group, Panthera. The auction is time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the nonprofit, which was founded by art collector and philanthropist Thomas Kaplan. Nice news has the story. story, and again, we'll drop the link in today's show notes. All right, that is it for today's edition. Hope everyone has a great Thursday, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

Until then, peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Woll. Today's episode was editives and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To run more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.