Trump's Trials - With few Epstein files released, conspiracy theories flourish and questions remain

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

Reports say the Justice Department is reviewing more than 5 million Epstein-related files. NPR's Stephen Fowler reports on why there has been a delay in releasing all of the files in question.Then, NPR's Michel Martin talks to Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who co-sponsored the law that mandates their release.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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If you're not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will. We all serve at the pleasure of the president. The golden age of America is upon us. We are in the golden age. Every episode, we bring you one of NPR's latest stories about the 47th president and how he is trying to remake the federal government. Today's story starts right after this. I'm Michelle Martin.

And I'm A May Martinez. It's been two weeks since the Justice Department was supported. post-release saw the Epstein files in its possession. The DOJ has failed to fully meet a deadline set by a law signed by President Trump. The documents that have been made public also have extensive redactions, and it's unclear how those redactions are justified or in line with what the law intended. The government also says some of what is released should not be trusted. In a few minutes, we'll speak with Democratic Representative Rokana, who co-sponsor the law mandating the release of these files related to Jeffrey Epstein. First, though, let's get the facts.

We're joined now by NPR's Stephen Fowler. December 19th, Stephen, that was the day that hundreds of thousands of Epstein files were supposed to be released. My desk calendar says it's January 2nd, small fraction of that release. So what's the deal? Well, the Justice Department says it's working on it, and there could be well over a million more pages to come. They say they're taking time to review and redact information to protect victims required by the law. What we do have a is about 40,000 pages, most of them redacted in ways that it. make them unreadable, and there's very little new information. Here's one example. I found a file

that blacked out part of the zip code of the very public U.S. Attorney's Office in New York City, plus hundreds of pages completely blanked out with no explanation. At some point, the DOJ is supposed to explain to Congress what's under those black boxes and why they haven't shared it. Speaking of sharing, these new files are posted publicly but aren't organized in any sort of chronological or contextual order in a way that's led to numerous controversies and conspiracies swirling about in the absence of full files and full transparency into what we're looking at. Hmm, such as what?

Well, there are some documents made public that are fake but are included because under the definition of the law, they are files related to the investigation that are supposed to be released. There are unverified fantastical claims about Donald Trump, Epstein, and others included in FBI tip forms. fake video purporting to show Epstein's death by suicide in this federal prison cell and a forged letter that appeared to be written by Epstein for convicted sex offender Larry Nassar that claimed Trump shared a, quote, love of young, newbile girls. In fact, when the Justice Department posted about the Nassar letter being a forgery,

they also said that, quote, just because a document is released by the Department of Justice does not make the allegations or claims within the document factual. All right, so just so we're clear, the federal government is saying that the Epstein files that they have released very little of are not to be trusted. Well, pretty much. This outcome of distrust across the board was in some ways inevitable, though. During the 2024 election, President Trump promised to release the Epstein files. It was part of a campaign message arguing the government was run by powerful people hiding the truth from Americans.

At the start of 2026, many people agree and believe that President Trump is now one of the powerful few keeping the public in the dark. The White House disagrees, and I'll note, conspiracies are not limited to Trump's supporters. I've seen recent viral social media posts that use these unverified salacious allegations and out-of-context court records to claim without evidence that Trump is accused of criminal wrongdoing and that the government is altering records to cover it all up. All right. So what are you watching for in the coming weeks related to this? Three things. One, what is Congress going to do about the Department of Justice failing to meet the deadline and over-redacting documents? especially since the law doesn't include punishment or enforcement mechanisms.

Two, what actually comes from these million-plus documents that do eventually get published. And three, what will the political fallout continue to be, especially as President Trump continues to call this a hoax, attacking Democrats and Republicans who disagree with them? That's NPR's Stephen Fowler in Atlanta. Stephen, thanks. Thank you. We're going to hear now from one of the co-sponsors of that bill requiring the release of the Epstein files. That's Democrat Rokana, who represents California.

17th Congressional District, and he's here with us now. Good morning, Congressman. Thank you so much for joining us once again. Good morning. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. So the New York Times and others have reported that the Justice Department is reviewing roughly 5.2 million files, and that it could be weeks before more documents are released. As we just heard, the Justice Department says the agency's goals are to be transparent and also to protect victims. So a couple of questions about this. First of all, do you have a sense of what's causing the delay? They've already violated the law by having this delay. They are claiming that the file is so big that they need to put hundreds of lawyers and they need the extra time. They frankly should have been doing this months ago when Massey and I introduced the law. But Thomas Massey, my co-author, and I are less concerned about the delay and are more concerned about the documents that are being withheld. We want to see the survivor's statements to the FBI where they name other rich and powerful men who abuse them. them or who covered up the crimes. And we want to see the draft prosecution memos, which explain why many, many men were involved in the cover-up and abuse. So just briefly, you said you're not as concerned about the delay, but given how extensive these documents are, I was curious if you knew that the file was that extensive and given that was the deadline realistic to begin with. We did know, and that's why we sounded the alarm six months ago.

Cash Patel testified in front of Congress that it's a 300-megabyte file. and of course they've released less than 1%. We have offered for six months to meet with the Justice Department to help them get the right documents out. And we're now going to be intervening with the Southern District of New York to ask those judges to appoint a special master and ensure that all the documents are released. But my interest here is to see justice for survivors. It's not to be punitive. And what I want to see over this next few weeks, over these next few weeks, is for the documents actually to start coming out that the American people want to see and the survivors want to see, which is the documents that name the rich and powerful men who are on Epstein's Rape Island.

So you've given us a lot to sort of think about here. You said that you're going to ask for a special master. As you just mentioned, you have a colleague and co-sponsor, Republican Thomas Massey. Does he also agree with you on this, that there ought to be a special master appointed at this point? He does. We both are working and a plan to announce something early next week. We're also working together on inherent contempt for Pam Bondi. That means that after a 30-day grace period, she could be fined every day that these documents are not released. Would she be fined personally, or would she be fined in her capacity as Attorney General, in which case the government would provide, would cover any fine that was handed to her?

She would be fined personally. Now, this needs a majority of the House of Representatives. We have some bipartisan support. And whether we have all of the votes now or not, and we're working towards. And there are a lot of Republicans and MAGA Republicans who would sign on. So there is tremendous political discontent for her within her own base. And then finally, impeachment is an option as well. But our interest is not to take down Pam Mondi.

Our interest is to take down the rich and powerful men who abused over 12,000 survivors and to finally see justice and to not have an Epstein class in this country that gets to flout the rules, live by its own values, and not. suffer consequences. So you're saying that you're willing to give the DOJ more time, even though they've already bypassed, they've already sort of blown past the deadline that was set in the law, as long as it produces like specific kinds of information like FBI witness interviews and prosecution memos. What are you specifically hoping to learn with documents like that? Well, we know in those documents are the rich and powerful people who either visited

the Epstein Rape Island or who sex trafficked with these survivors or who covered it How do we know because the survivors have told us that they told the FBI that in those statements, the survivors' lawyers have told us that. We also know in these prosecution memorandum that there are many co-conspirators and those charges were never brought. In fact, already in the documents that have been produced, we know there were 10 co-conspirators. So this is not just limited to Epstein. So what our interest is is full transparency.

That is Democratic Representative from Kahana of California. Congressman, thank you so much for talking to us once again. You've been very accessible on this issue, and we appreciate it, and we do hope you'll come back and tell us whether you're getting the information that you expect to see in these files. Thank you, Michelle. Absolutely. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters

break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.