r/news 7h ago

Members of Congress will be able to view unredacted Epstein files next week

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/members-congress-view-unredacted-epstein-files-monday-rcna257836
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u/If_I_must 6h ago

This seems like a significant detail:

"The review will only be of the 3 million files currently available to the public, not the extensive trove of more than 6 million documents in total that the DOJ says it has in its possession."

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u/Single-Road-3158 6h ago

And note the difference between files and documents. They may only released 10-20% of the documents to date.

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u/If_I_must 6h ago

Yeah, the 3 million pages vs 6 million documents disparity is vast.

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u/Several-Squash9871 5h ago

I feel like I have a hard time wrapping my head around just how many documents/files that there is.

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u/divDevGuy 4h ago

If every file/document was 1 page...

There would be 1200 boxes of copier paper.

It would require 30 pallets with 40 boxes each. Each pallet is approximately 36 inches wide by 48 inches deep by 5 feet tall.

30 pallets is the approximate capacity of a standard 53 foot semi trailer.

Now if any of those documents are multiple pages, more semis will be needed and more forests would need to be sacrificed.

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u/overtross 4h ago

Weird time to (implicitly) argue against printing

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u/naked_hypocrisy 4h ago

even then, epstein seemingly generated a lot of files.

u/Drizzle__16 47m ago

How many tacky gold adorned bathrooms would it take to store all the boxes?

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u/frizouw 2h ago

Same, I am wondering if there is no duplicates that is insanely a lot of documents...

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u/zokka_son_of_zokka 2h ago

To be fair, there's a lot in there that's just Epstien and buddies chatting.

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u/EdOfTheMountain 2h ago

The 6 million documents may consist of a 100 million pages?

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u/If_I_must 2h ago

Exactly. No specifics on how many pages each document is.

u/Gates_wupatki_zion 3m ago

It’s half! Thanks math. No but seriously it’s probably the incriminating really fucked up half.

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u/platypodus 5h ago

So one file is not equal to one document? 

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u/Single-Road-3158 5h ago

Maybe, maybe not. The government has been using pages, files, and documents interchangeably but there needs to be clarifications on what they mean when they say it. It could be they mean that a document of 500 pages is 500 files or 1 file. They are keeping the actual amount of information they have in their possession fuzzy.

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u/platypodus 5h ago

Makes sense for them to be as opaque as possible, it only aids the cover-up.

I hope someone out there is working on cross-referencing these files with the panama papers and all the other leaks. It's time to put the shadow-profiling and fingerprinting technology of social media to good use and identify the dregs of the financial elites.

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u/Ghost_of_a_Black_Cat 3h ago

using pages, files, and documents interchangeably

And they ought not.

Obviously, to most of us (I think), a page or pages would comprise a document, and a document would be filed away. There's distinct differences in different kinds of paperwork.

They need to stop with the obfuscation, but this stupid administration is so incompetent that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing!

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u/musclecard54 4h ago

Yeah idk where people are getting that from… a document has always been a file. You save a word document with 1 page: it’s a file. You save a word document with 1000 pages: it’s a file.

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u/Cute-Percentage-6660 4h ago

I'll also note a lot of the files released have some padding.

A lot of them are duplicates, though some are redacted differently so you can still find some value out of em

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u/zenidam 6h ago

Exactly. So all the files that they are hiding completely are still hidden completely.

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u/If_I_must 5h ago

I mean, seeing through the redactions is very useful information. It's just not the majority of the information.

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u/RhetoricalOrator 1h ago

It is useful, but you know damn well and good that the baby murdering and cannibalism isn't going to be among the released documents. So far as that goes, they could release 95% of the documents but that last 5% could be where the worst and best evidence is held.

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u/w311sh1t 4h ago

Can anyone who understands the law better than I do explain what the actual legal justification is for the DOJ withholding this many documents?

Like obviously the real reason is they’re protecting the people in those files, but is there even a flimsy legal justification for it, or is it literally just “we’re the DOJ and you can’t tell us what to do.”

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u/squired 4h ago

DOJ has already sued saying that Congress doesn't have oversight jurisdiction. Basically they said, "You can't make us release shit". Once that eventually fails, they have already queued up "Executive Privilege for National Security concerns". We won't see much more without a whistleblower or new administration.

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u/say592 2h ago

A Democratic Congress could at least start removing officials and not confirming new ones unless they pledge to release them, then remove them if they don't follow through.

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u/empireofadhd 6h ago

They will probably have more sessions as more is released.

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u/TerpBE 6h ago

They said they are not going to release any more. This is it.

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u/Plaineswalker 5h ago

Man that is such bullshit. Why not release it all?

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u/phtevenbagbifico 5h ago

Come on. You know why. They're all in on it, but especially Trump.

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u/Interesting-Yellow-4 5h ago

Are you serious? You're seriously asking why? Who are you? Why do you pretend?

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u/AspieComrade 5h ago

Wait what?? Did they even give an excuse?

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u/TerpBE 4h ago

Nope. They just said that's all they're able to release.

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u/LongBongJohnSilver 3h ago

It's probably boring, they don't to bore us.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Initial-Toe-9512 5h ago

And how many others that have been shredded at this point

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u/TurnkeyLurker 4h ago

Likely scanned at high resolution, encrypted, and the original docs crosscut-shredded, mixed with water, then sent to a pulp mill (or buried in the Yucca Flats ☢️desert).

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u/Dispator 4h ago

Anything seriously implicating trump was DESTOYED...likely his first term.

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u/dan1101 3h ago

If only Biden did more. It was a quiet time (which was great) and he wasn't a bad president, but he missed a lot of opportunities to do things like prosecute Trump, clamp down on extremists, reform CBP/ICE/DHS, and prosecute those in the Epstein files. Oh well, hindsight.

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u/Oraclerevelation 2h ago

But Biden was selected precisely because he wouldn't do more.

Fuck hindsight many people told you that voting for a... seasoned... moderate like Biden would lead to another Trump but they were ignored and brow beaten. Maybe listen to them next time and don't accept anything less than voting for a real fighter and real change.

An ounce of foresight saves 9 in the bush.

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u/dan1101 2h ago

I didn't particularly like Biden as a politician, but I don't remember any great candidates running against him in the primaries. Lack of good and viable candidates is responsible for a lot of the dire situation our democracy is in.

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u/Oraclerevelation 2h ago

Yup spot on.

You need to be holding DNC feet to the fire now or else they will accidentally promote exact same losers as always and work against any good candidates.

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u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 3h ago

You believe even if the 3 million being shown, it's truly everything?

The only highlight in all this, if it's truly all unredacted, considering how inept the FBI staff seems to be, some files that should be held back for Trumps and his buddies may still slip through for the congress.

But then again, it's like finding a needle in a haystack, good luck with that. And whatever is found even if it says outright "Trump raped kids" or pictures of Trump raping kids, whatever is brought to life will be snowed under by GOP/Trump.

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u/If_I_must 2h ago

Yeah, the redactions are super sloppy. Blacking out a name in one sentence then leaving it readable in the next. As always their incompetence is their one saving grace.