Dem
47
GOP
53
No posting is truly complete these days without a touch of Epstein news. The news today isn't big (well, in a sense it is very big, though) but it has real potential. The DoJ has announced that it is reviewing 5.2 million pages of Epstein-related files. This is a much larger number than previously reported.
So far, the DoJ has released 100,000 pages of material and previously said it was reviewing 1 million more. Now that number has jumped 5x. It is trying to enlist 400 lawyers to help in the process. If this is true, it could take weeks before it is all out there.
If this number is correct, that is probably bad news for Donald Trump. With so many pages tor review and such a big hurry, things that Trump doesn't want out there might slip through. The instructions to the lawyers are probably to black out the names of victims. Maybe they are also under orders to search for items harmful to Trump and put them in the nearest paper shredder. The trouble with that kind of instruction is that with 400 lawyers involved, that instruction might leak out. If the lawyers are simply blacking out victims names and no one is actually reading the documents, just skimming them looking for names, the odd bit of truth here or there could end up being released.
After that it will be up to reporters to go through the 5 million documents. That could take years. The Internet is going to come to the rescue, though, as there are several projects already in place that involve farming the scrutiny out to an army of volunteers. A total of 5 million documents divided by 400 people is a lot—12,500 documents each. But 5 million documents divided by 50,000 people is much more manageable—100 documents each. Or, if you assign each document to two or three people to make sure there's no cheating and that nothing is missed, 200 or 300 documents each. Obviously, a motivated volunteer can work their way through hundreds of documents with greater thoroughness AND more quickly than an overworked government lawyer can work their way through 12,000+ documents.
And there is more. A recent batch of surveillance videos from jail where Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell raises new questions about whether officials have been telling the truth about Epstein's death. The new footage contradicts some of the prior statements made by prison officials.
The new footage contains over 400 1-hour clips from the time a month before Epstein's death. According to official statements, videos are kept for only 30 days. So, why are videos from July 5 showing up now? One expert noted that the videos were written to a hard disk and the system was set up to avoid overwriting old data unless it ran out of space. Something is fishy here.
Also, the new footage includes several hours from a camera that officials said was broken and not recording. It provides an unobstructed view of the entrance to the stairs leading to Epstein's tier. Some of it was from Aug. 12, 2019. However, officials said that camera stopped recording on July 29 and was not repaired until Aug. 14. This was clearly a lie. The new footage raises the question of which cameras were recording and when, and whether officials are telling the truth and whether all relevant video has been released. (V)