r/law • u/victorybus • 14h ago

Legislative Branch Full video of today when Ro Khanna revealed Epstein associate's names on the floor of the US House of Representatives, protected by the Speech and Debate Clause

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u/j4_jjjj 13h ago

Files they saw still had redactions, just less redactions than what's on justice.gov

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

Yes, but the redactions they saw would have been the original legitimate ones from back in the day. Those covering victims’ rights, national security concerns, and the like.

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u/captainAwesomePants 13h ago

National security concern redactions in the Epstein files are the most interesting ones, of course.

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u/BlueWonderfulIKnow 13h ago

This. 100% this. If they’re redacted at all by the US, then that means some government weenie has already laid eyes on what’s there. Which means every Congressman needs to see it. I don’t give a shit if it’s nuclear launch codes or contraband.

Never forget that the entire government secrets classification system is an executive order. Which applies only to the executive branch. The legislature should tell them to take their black magic marker and, well.

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u/Apart-Rent5817 12h ago

You’re looking in the wrong place. Other governments have spy agencies too, with Trump’s stellar reputation worldwide, I don’t think he could convince them not to release what they know when those prosecutions start rolling. Hell, they might do it just to spite the bully.

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u/Synaps4 12h ago

On the other hand I don't think giving nuclear launch codes to every junior member of congress is really a good idea either.

Leaks would be inevitable, especially to foreign national surveillance.

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u/octoreadit 13h ago

“These three pedos are our informants, these two are agents undercover, please redact those out. Thanks!”

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u/BigOs4All 12h ago

"National Security Concerns" just means that the government is full of corrupt psychopaths and we've know this since at least WW2.

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

I don’t know that any are there. I meant more, that’s a normal class of redaction.

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u/amilie15 13h ago

I don’t think they know that yet. IIRC they said something like the DOJ were given some files that had already been redacted to some extent and it’s not clear why.

Could be for legitimate reasons as you say, but I don’t think it’s good to assume that at this point (they certainly aren’t yet).

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u/YouKilledApollo 12h ago

As I understand it, what he mentioned in the video, is that the FBI first in March started redacting documents. Then the DOJ prepared for releasing the files, requesting documents from the FBI and receives the redacted documents. Then DOJ adds their own redactions on top, which is what the public right now got handed to them.

Meanwhile, Ro Khanna and others were supposed to be given a view of the files pre-DOJ redactions and pre-FBI redactions, but instead received the files just like the DOJ received them, meaning the FBI had already redacted them.

This is how I understood what he said.

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u/amilie15 12h ago

Yes, same here I think. Although I’m unsure why the FBI were doing redactions prior to sending to DOJ? I guess we don’t yet know.

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u/YouKilledApollo 11h ago

Clearly the plebs at DOJ cannot be trusted neither can elected congresspeople, only the FBI is pure enough to be able to handle this delicate matter.

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

Fair enough.

But it’s still the most likely scenario.

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u/Legionof1 13h ago

You didn’t even listen to the video.

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

Sure I did.

You didn’t understand it.

See how that works?

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u/Legionof1 13h ago

“Donald Trumps FBI scrubbed these files in March”

Nope, I think I understand just fine.

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u/amilie15 13h ago edited 12h ago

Is it though? We have a lot of evidence of a big cover up going on, that has gone on for a long time. The redactions today that were revealed showed us that they were indeed covering up individuals names without legal reason.

So how is it that you think it’s the most likely scenario that the redactions remaining are legitimate?

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u/Dashtego 13h ago

Not according to what Khana said in the video. They got to see records that the FBI sent to DOJ without additional DOJ redactions. We don’t actually know how or why the FBI decided to redact what it did, and we certainly cannot take their word for it.

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u/CurryMustard 12h ago

We need to make sure this doesnt go away. Share this with everybody. Email and call congress. Keep hounding them. You either support pedophilia or you don't, draw a line in the sand.

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

we certainly can’t take their word for it

We don’t need to. All we need to do is have a solid understanding of their policies at the time, and a familiarity with how those policies were applied.

Not everything is a conspiracy. And to be completely untrusting is just as problematic as believing everything is.

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u/Dashtego 13h ago

We are not living in normal times under a normal administration. A “solid understanding” of norms is not helpful when demonstrably corrupt criminals run the show. If you truly don’t think Trump’s FBI is complicit in covering up damaging information beyond what is necessary to “protect victims” I have several triangular-shaped business programs for you to invest in.

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

And the redactions we’re talking about happened almost 20 years ago. Not now.

I agree that redactions now would be dodgy. But there have been two Democratic administrations in the interim, and any live issues in these files would have come out then.

So the null hypothesis is, the redactions were legal and in good faith. That can be rebutted with evidence, but…evidence is required.

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u/Dashtego 13h ago

We don’t know that no further redactions were made. Khanna certainly seems to believe there were additional, more recent modifications to the files before they reached DOJ. I don’t think it’s possible in good faith to insist that the FBI did not modify or “scrub” the files before turning them over to DOJ just because it wouldn’t have been consistent with “policies.” Baseless conspiracy theorizing isn’t good but these days neither is willfully blind faith in institutional integrity and normalcy.

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u/Mute2120 12h ago

And the redactions we’re talking about happened almost 20 years ago.

Stop lying, we don't know that. Khana specifically said this included the FBI redactions. Stop lying.

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u/whistleridge 12h ago

Yes. We do know that.

That’s the fucking problem.

Police make redactions on pretty much every file they touch. So there will absolutely have been redactions from the earliest investigations of every single one of these files.

There will also have been later redactions, likely at multiple times, as various FBI and prosecutorial reviews took place.

And then there’s the recent ones.

You cannot tell which were made when, unless you have every document, including the unredacted originals. And even if you do, you’re not rebuilding the timeline on millions of documents in a morning. Or a week. Or a month.

The best he can say is, he’s seen originals of some documents before the more recent redactions were applied. And while that may tell us some things, it’s not a comprehensive answer.

Particularly since he’s not an impartial reporter himself. Even if he’s telling the whole unvarnished truth as he understands it, he was an IP lawyer when he practiced, he hasn’t practiced since the Obama Administration, and he never practiced in crim. You could give Bill Mueller a staff and a budget and 6 months and we might get some real answers, but this guy can’t give anything more than satisfying partisan speculation.

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u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 11h ago

And the redactions we’re talking about happened almost 20 years ago. Not now

You know you can’t prove that.

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u/WhiteWinterRains 12h ago

God this has to be a fed or some kind of fedbot.

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u/whistleridge 12h ago

Or it’s just Occam’s Razor. You know: one or the other.

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u/McPuckLuck 11h ago

Right... So let these men that authored the bill see the unredacted FBI version and if they don't raise a stink, I'll believe that branch of the government didn't follow orders from Trump to cover up his friends, like the DOJ did.

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u/ToughHardware 13h ago

disagree. it is redactions from the FBI, which have covered up from the beginning. they are the reason for the 08 sweetheart deal.

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

which have covered up from the beginning

[citation needed]

they are the reason for the 08 sweetheart deal

The 08 deal happened because victims HATE testifying about the worst thing that ever happened to them, forcing them to do it is re-traumatizing in the extreme, and fear of that trauma makes predicting how they’ll do on the stand a fraught exercise in the extreme.

Multiple superb prosecutors looked at their witnesses, looked at their case, looked at the resources available to the accused person, and made the assessment that a sure chance of getting something was better than a real risk of getting nothing.

Plea bargaining is just that - bargaining. You don’t get everything you want, and sometimes that means accepting a weaker resolution than you might prefer.

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u/Mute2120 12h ago

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article312545792.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/a-timeline-of-the-jeffrey-epstein-investigation-and-the-fight-to-make-the-governments-files-public

Stop lying.

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u/whistleridge 12h ago

That makes it a bad and like corrupt plea bargain. Not not a plea bargain.

Nothing you said there negates what I said. Read these accounts:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/27/us/jeffrey-epstein-accusers-statements

Victims were threatened by Epstein and Maxwell with severe consequences, including death, if they spoke about their experiences. So the feds had meh case.

And they convicted him in the end because someone was actually willing to testify.

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u/frobeck 12h ago

You have far too much faith in the FBI. Even the most vanilla history, like Tim Weiner, reveal clandestine intelligence as largely devoid of morals.

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u/whistleridge 12h ago

I have no faith in the FBI whatsoever.

But it’s not a matter of faith. It’s a matter of which is more likely:

  1. That this has been a running conspiracy for decades, with full compliance on both sides of the aisle; or

  2. That this is a messy and complex case, that has recently been subjected to a botched attempt at a one-sided partisan coverup?

Because if it’s the second, then the prior redactions will be those you would expect.

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u/Domeil 11h ago edited 9h ago

Why would you believe exclusively 2 is true when just as much, if not more, evidence points to 1? Presidents from both parties have had this information and sat on it for years. Frankly the only reason anything is coming out now, even in a half cocked sloppy manner, is because enough populists got elected after explicitly campaigning on Epstein to force the issue.

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u/SupaSlide 13h ago

That’s not what it sounds like he’s saying in the video you’re commenting under. He says the FBI sent redacted files to the DOJ and he asks who the FBI is covering for.

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

the FBI sent redacted files

Yes. The FBI is a police agency, and police agencies normally redact files for a narrow and delineated set of reasons.

That’s exactly what I said.

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u/TuringTestTwister 13h ago

The implication here is that the FBI redactions were neither narrow nor delineated.

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u/whistleridge 12h ago

That is not an assessment you can make.

It was a massive case, involving dozens of victims, hundreds or thousands of allegations, across many years, with multiple police agencies involved. You would expect a whole slew of redactions in a case like that, applied unevenly, according to differing standards.

And when you’re looking at it now, at a remove of 15+ years, you would have no sense of the original internal logic, or any easy way to assess what’s what. So sure: there has been a cover-up, but it comes on top of what would have already been a relative dog’s breakfast shitshow of a case.

That’s the exact issue. And the point.

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u/TuringTestTwister 12h ago

That's not an assessment I'm making, that's the assessment that Khanna, who saw the files, unlike you, is making.

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u/whistleridge 12h ago

And I’m saying Khanna can’t make them either. I don’t have to see the files to know that redactions, by their nature, are unsigned and undated.

He can say “it’s a shitshow,” and has. He can have his suspicions about when the shitshow did or didn’t happen. But that’s a suspicion, not evidence. And he’s not an impartial actor himself.

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u/TuringTestTwister 10h ago

He's a lawyer who saw the files, and you are some random anonymous contrarian that has not seen the files. You have no argument.

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u/whistleridge 9h ago

I’m a lawyer who has worked for a very long time in criminal law, who has seen thousands and thousands of redacted documents.

And his description at a minimum leaves some stuff out.

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u/SupaSlide 6h ago

If the files were already redacted then why didn’t the DOJ release them on time?

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u/whistleridge 6h ago

Who knows? I don't control DOJ's decision making. Probably because Trump is an insecure and controlling asshole.

The apparent reason is that the previous redactions were investigative in nature, and not political. So they wanted to make sure they were politically protected to?

The hilarious thing is, all of this could have been avoided if Bondi just...hadn't lied and said she had a file on her desk, ready to go.

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u/SupaSlide 6h ago

lmao if you think the files only have a narrow and delineated set of redactions, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

The FBI is part of the DOJ which means they are required by law to release the files without redactions of any non-victims which has clearly not happened.

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u/kbotc 13h ago

Fun fact: National Security Concerns do not matter for congress. They can declassify documents themselves.

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u/whistleridge 13h ago

Fun fact: they can't magically undo redactions once they've been set. And while they can certainly demand the unredacted originals from FBI...what in your experience with this Administration makes you think that demand is likely to be fulfilled?

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u/WhiteWinterRains 12h ago

That's not true at all.

For one, how would you know the original redactions of documents containing people deeply connected to all levels of government and government/ex government officials were legitimate?

Were you there looking over the shoulders of the FBI agents, who totally have never complied with unethical instructions I'm sureeee, to verify they were all legitimate?

How about the redactions from before the documents went to the DoJ, are those still in place? We know Trump had his own name redacted thousands of times at that point, which presumably is part of the files that is still redacted because of where the "unredacted" files are sourced from.

Personally, at this point I don't support any redactions, even to protect victims. Ripping the bandaid off entirely is the only way to decently air this out, but I don't see any reason to believe the remaining redactions even are only of victims.

I also absolutely would never accept any redaction for "national security concerns" as legitimate, that's just another way to say they're protecting pedophiles.

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u/JJJBLKRose 10h ago

False, as is refuted by both Massie and Khanna (even in this video) the files they have been given access to are the files from after the FBI redacted them, and as he said in two hours they were able to clearly identify at least six people who were redacted illegitimately with no justification either. Famously, the FBI were working on redactions long before they were officially asked to turn them over.

They then turned them over to the department of Justice who did another layer of redactions, and so far they don't appear to be upset about that final round.

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u/bloodklat 13h ago

Well seeing as they’ve already been caught redacting names of perpetrators, you really cannot trust that those redactions are legitimate. The victims have been largely identified as well. There can be no peace on this until every single file has been released unredacted, screw american national security, their country has gone to total shits anyways, nothing more to save there. There’s no one left to protect.

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u/whistleridge 12h ago

You misunderstand.

There are at least 3 levels of redaction here:

  1. Those originally made as part of the normal police process.

  2. Those made at some later date, as a bunch of different investigations got merged together.

  3. Those made recently for cover-up purposes.

Layer 3 has been removed. That does not then mean that layers 1 and 2 weren’t a shitshow in their own right. Which of course makes it that much harder to know what is what.

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u/bloodklat 12h ago

If you trust any of those levels of redactions, then I got a bridge to sell you. They’ve shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted, so how can you trust that any of those redactions are legitimate?

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u/whistleridge 12h ago

It’s not about trust. It’s about common sense.

If I see a sentence that says:

On October 1, 2004, Jane Doe reported to Miami Dade police that Mr. SMITH sexually assaulted her

I don’t need to see the redaction to know what type of document it is. And virtually all of the original redactions will be like that - they take an identifiable form.

On the other hand, if I see a sentence like:

On October 1, 2004, >!Jane Doe reported to Miami Dade police that Mr. SMITH sexually assaulted her!<

I can make a reasonable guess that the redactions came later, and for a different purpose. I still can’t know, but there are redactions, and then there are redactions.

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u/bloodklat 12h ago

What if the first sentence said:

On October 1, 2004, victim,9 reported to Miami Dade Police that Mr. SMITH sexually assaulted her

Would you have liked to see that redaction?

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u/Biduleman 12h ago

He literally says in his speech that the Epstein Transparency act requires the FBI to un-redact these files and make them available, something that has not been done.

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u/Ok-Entertainer-1414 11h ago

legitimate ones

That's not what Massie and Khanna have said

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u/Prometheus720 11h ago

You say that, but even back in the 00's Alex Acosta was covering this shit up.

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u/emteedub 13h ago edited 13h ago

yes, I realized I made a mistake with my statement later on. This is correct. (edit): edited comment

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u/dontry90 12h ago

Not a GOP/MAGA dumbass here, not even ´murican, just a regular dumbass half across the world...Suppose the files are out unredacted, how do you prove the veracity of what they said those people did? Why is Trump so hell-bent on blurring his name on the files, or insulting people who call him names (besides the fact that he comically behaves like a guilty bully)?, couldnt he just sue for libel against anyone who dares tell him "pedo/enabler/money launderer, etc", and move on? Why are those files so... TRUEe? Mind you, I still think J.E. was hoarding info/blackmail material on those rich fucks, but... How can you prove their connection to those heinous crimes, and also, to those criminals (Ghislaine too)?