“We’re going to release the files, but we’re making it so they’ll only have democrats in them”
They will redact anything related to the victims. The victims in this case are old man pedophiles. SMH.
Now obviously Trump and his dogs are going to redact everything related to him and his allies, but there’s a good chance he lets some people go down—most likely, political enemies. This, in my opinion, will force those who are implicated and revealed to go scorched earth on Trump in return. I guarantee Trump will fuck this up somehow. I’m hoping for a metaphoric shootout at the OK Corral where there’s no one left.
There will be more than a few that will gladly sacrifice themselves for their great leader.
I can’t remember who said it…
“For my friends anything, for my enemies, the law!”
And here we are
Watch them post fully blacked out pages but embedded metadata will the full text. These people are fucking idiots.
Or they’ve simply changed the background colour of the text.
God I hope so
PSA: When they release heavily redacted files, and you see some Nazi on the internet say “actually technically they did release the files”, do not give them the benefit of the doubt.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity - and American fascists are not adequately explained by stupidity. At this point it’s simply stupid to believe they’re acting in good faith.
They’ve not acted in good faith the entire time
I hate that rule, it has caused so much harm, and is at least part of the reason why were in this mess right now. People simply didn’t take the threat seriously
Besides, does it even matter? Whether someone does harm by stupidity or malice, you get them the hell out of a position or power by any means possible, clearly it’s not good for them to be there
You didn’t really think they were just gonna give over the unredacted Epstein files after they’ve spent so much time protecting Trump?
They were always gonna weaponize it against their enemies.
However, the bill does allow Bondi to redact records in specific instances, including documents that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”
There it is…
We knew it. We’re not stupid (some of us). We’ll see how it plays out I guess. No surprise here. They know we know, and how obviously transparent this is.
I think our only hope is if enough MAGA drop their support, which is a lot to fucking hope for.
A lot of MAGA are and they’re taking up a new slogan “America First, America Only.”
The entire thing is adb am active investigation so we’ll get this, except for democrat names, and just enough context to imply guilt, even if they’re just being indirectly referenced.
What do you make of this?
Ok I agree it is very suspicious that Congress suddenly got their shit together for this one thing. But people keep doomposting this bill without actually reading it. And it deserves to be read in all the beautiful airtight glory that it is.
Massie and Khanna anticipated every single excuse DOJ normally uses to bury sensitive records, and they wrote the law to shut all of them down. To be clear, the DOJ will still try to hide, but it’s going to fail.
Here’s what the bill actually does:
They can’t hide anything for “embarrassment,” “reputational harm,” or “political sensitivity.”
That’s an explicit statutory ban. No shielding Trump, Clinton, Gates, etc. The law literally forbids it.
The argument of “Everything will suddenly be classified!” doesn’t work either.
The bill forces DOJ to declassify to the maximum extent possible and if anything stays classified, they must publish a public unclassified summary for each redaction.
That’s not optional.
“New investigations” don’t block release.
The “active investigation” exception is temporary, narrow, document-specific, and requires a written public justification in the Federal Register.
You can’t just open a random investigation and hide whole categories of documents under this bill.
The best part? Congress still gets the full list of names.
No matter what gets redacted publicly, DOJ must give Congress an unredacted list of every government official and politically exposed person named in the files. No exceptions. Not for classification. Not for investigations. Not for national security.
And enforcement is real. This is a mandatory “shall release” statute. If DOJ drags its feet, it goes straight to D.C. District Court, which has zero patience for agencies abusing secrecy laws.
This isn’t a symbolic transparency bill. It’s one of the tightest, most loophole-proof disclosure laws Congress has ever passed — which is exactly why all of their objections on the GOP side were never successful or just weak attempts to attack a statute that defines CSAM.
People can be cynical all day, but the text is the text.
And the text is a brick wall against the usual bullshit.
Since when has this administration ever followed the law?
Hopeful. Time will tell.
It’s slop. Read the bill for yourself to decide what you think of it.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4405/text
The bill is not long and everyone who is tracking this should take the time to read it.
Your concern is valid, but Bondi isn’t given completely free reign.
SEC. 3. Report to Congress.
Within 15 days of completion of the release required under Section 2, the Attorney General shall submit to the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary a report listing:
(1) All categories of records released and withheld.
(2) A summary of redactions made, including legal basis.
(3) A list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials, with no redactions permitted under subsection (b)(1).
So if Bondi were to follow the law, the AG’s office will have to provide congress a summary and justification for everything that is redacted.
Which isn’t to say that I have any faith in the AG’s office following these requirements, but it should give us reason to pressure congress into holding Bondi et al. to these requirements and would give them cause for impeachement of Bondi if she does not comply.
if Bondi were to follow the law
There’s your problem. This regime has proven time and time again that laws are rules for thee, not me. If the laws help them, their hands are tied. If it hinders them, they just close their eyes and whistle until it goes away.
Yeah but the fix was in long ago when the 1,000 FBI agents or whatever we’re removing Trump’s name from the files. If his details were already redacted then they can’t tie that back to Bondi, right?
This seems so obvious that I must be missing something
It certainly seems to me like there’s a ton of wiggle room in there to interpret things however you want.
First of all it requires the release of:
Internal DOJ communications, including emails, memos, meeting notes, concerning decisions to charge, not charge, investigate, or decline to investigate Epstein or his associates.
Which, holy hell, is that NEVER actually going to happen lol.
As for redactions it just requires the DOJ to submit a list of:
All categories of records released and withheld and a summary of redactions made, including legal basis.
What does that mean exactly? Idk but it sure seems like that could be as simple as “we redacted information from these emails/memos/voicemails or whatever because it was sensitive information to the victims or pertinent to an ongoing investigation.” That’s a summary and the legal basis fully abiding by the bill.
I’m very very far from a government bill expert so I’d love to be wrong here but by the letter of that bill, it seems insanely easy to still redact pretty much whatever you want.
I’ll start by saying I have all the same concerms as everyone else, and don’t fundamentally disagree.
I do think we should try to look at this in a a balance of power point of view.
More legislative specificity isn’t going to stop a corrupt DOJ. Who is going to bring charges against a corrupt attorney general? Congressional impeachment is the only avenue to remove Bondi et al.
An ironclad bill would be more likely to be challenged and struck down in the supreme court. The AG’s office has all sorts of precedence on witholding files for active investigations and preserving victim/witness identity. Pushing this risks the whole thing being thrown out.
I think there’s reason to indulge in the “this time feels different” optimism. I truly believe that most of congress including republicans hate being under Trumps thumb. Congress critters are almost always power hungry creatures and all want to be top dog, so they have to have compelling motivations to fall in line. So far, the Trump brand has monopolized power on the right. Anyone who has spoken out against MAGA has ended up like Liz Cheney. So individuals can’t go against the group without getting punished. The group has been satisfied to go along with Trump because he’s a fantastic lightning rod and bully who before now was increasing their power. Congress was able to cut ACA benefits and pass tax cuts for the ultra rich and the MAGA base enthusiastically supported them for it because of Fox News OANN propaganda around Trumpism. Trump also seemed to be making huge strides in permanently securing Republican control in the House through gerrymandering. That’s something that House members can’t push for themselves because they will righlty be called out for grabbing power.
So as humiliating as it is to kow tow to Trump all the time, he was more of an asset than a liability. The recent elections showed that the political calculus has changed. Trump is now a big liability that turns out opposition voters in large numbers and if he’s not on the ballot he won’t turn out the MAGA faithful in sufficient numbers to counter the opposition. This didn’t show up in just a couple places, but all over the country. Add in Trump’s obvious mental decline, and the GOP needs an exit plan.
Congress still can’t just discard Trump though. His rabid base is still needed if they ever want a chance at winning another election. So the GOP is stuck between needing move on from Trump and still needing his loyal devotees. Here’s where the epstein files come in. Q’anon was a huge part of converting evangelicals into devoted fanatics. Conspiracy theorists turned voting for a gross con man into a moral imperative. So what better way to try to peel off supporters than to keep reminding them that Trump at the least knew about the pedophile class and chose to associate with them anyway. The true belivers will cry that Trump was an informant, but even heavily doctored Epstein files will greatly discredit that narrative.
Not even congress can directly go for the king. The dems don’t have the votes, and republican dissenters get punished and lack the moral fortitude to do it out of principle despite the personal cost. So any strategy has to be at a party wide level. Hence this taking so long and the near unanimous votes.
The american people view this bill as beung about pursuing justice, but for congress that’s at the bottom of their list of goals. Primarily, they don’t want Q’anon anger turned toward themselves. Voting for this is a pretty good cover. But the bigger play is to start giving congress more leverage again. This whole year, evryone on the left has been asking why congress has stood by and ceded so much of their power to the corrupt executive. I think it’s because most of what Trump was doing seemed to entrench GOP power, and they assumed they could just take back control at any time.
This bill lays the groundwork for congress to start taking back power. It gives Bondi and Patel enough rope to hang themselves, and congress would have the backing of both the left AND Q’Anon to impeach DOJ members who collude in a cover up. So to congress, trying to make a more ironclad bill doesn’t make impeachment easier, it doesn’t stop a corrupt DOJ, and it makes Supreme Court challenges more likely.
I see this as putting the Trump loyalists embedded throughout the judiciary and executive branches on notice that congress is considering taking the wheel back. They are sending the message that protecting Trump is no longer the safe play, and the careers of loyalists can be ended if they don’t work with congress instead.
Where this goes from here is anyone’s guess. We are now fully reliant on congress to achieve any measure of justice because the DOJ is fully compromised. I hope that this bill gives congress both the motivation and political backing to start cleaning up the DOJ, but that’s a delusionally optimistic take at this point.
I do expect to see candidates in both parties start to run on a reform/anticorruption platform going into the midterms.
There are carve outs to that exception. Names of individuals who are not victims cannot be withheld.
And full summaries of all items withheld must be provided.
It will still likely end up in court.
“Names of individuals who are not victims cannot be withheld.”
I guess that is Trump’s cue to use the Ballsroom to have a mass non-consent orgy among the Turdpublicans. Eh presto, everyone is a victim!
…I hope this timeline isn’t stupid enough to have that sort of…something.
And it begins.
They didn’t release shit.
Republican —» redact
Democrat —» highlight
Whoa! How’d you get a copy of Bondi’s orders already?
I’m calling every single person in the government who has access to those files and chooses not to leak then a spineless coward protecting pedophiles.
fuck them all. regardless how they voted.
Pam Bondi is the last person I would want to redact anything. If trump needs to piss, that bitch is there to catch it. I’ve never wanted to punch a woman as much as I want to with her. Fuck Pam Bondi!
Agreed. Although it’s a tight competition between her, Leavitt, and Noem over who is the worst MAGAt woman.
It’s a sad and weird time when Handjob boebert and crazy Marge don’t get in the top 3 of this list. Wow.
Who would have thought there was something at the bottom of the barrel under Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Really? Anne Coulter comes to mind
So they can open an investigation on everyone they want to protect and give themselves the justification to redact any info in the files. Since nobody sees the unredacted files, nobody can confirm if the info is part of an investigation? I mean this is the kind of shit people with a brain were saying would happen when the division of powers and the roles of the branches aren’t upheld.
No this reporter didn’t bother to read the bill either.
(2) All redactions must be accompanied by a written justification published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress.
(3) To the extent that any covered information would otherwise be redacted or withheld as classified information under this section, the Attorney General shall declassify that classified information to the maximum extent possible.
(A) If the Attorney General makes a determination that covered information may not be declassified and made available in a manner that protects the national security of the United States, including methods or sources related to national security, the Attorney General shall release an unclassified summary for each of the redacted or withheld classified information.
(4) All decisions to classify any covered information after July 1, 2025 shall be published in the Federal Register and submitted to Congress, including the date of classification, the identity of the classifying authority, and an unclassified summary of the justification.
SEC. 3. Report to Congress.
Within 15 days of completion of the release required under Section 2, the Attorney General shall submit to the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary a report listing:
(1) All categories of records released and withheld.
(2) A summary of redactions made, including legal basis.
(3) A list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials, with no redactions permitted under subsection (b)(1).
There is zero chance my brain knows what any of that actually means in practice.
If they classify something they have to provide general description to a closed session to determine the classifications validity.
The big one though is that they have to provide a list of every single alleged client name even if they’re redacted to closed session.
The bill says Bondi can redact parts of the records that “contain personally identifiable information” about victims that would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Nobody plays the victim better than Republicans. Gonna have to redact all of them.
sigh.
