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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Now: Trump DOJ Releases Trove Of Epstein Files. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired December 19, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:03]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We'll have much more on the files and what is in them on THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT, which starts right now.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: We do start this hour with breaking news. The Epstein files have just been released by the Justice Department. We are sifting through them now, and we're going to bring you what we find as we and our teams find it throughout this hour.
Let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA. My panel is here and we're joined by CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz and CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes.
Katelyn, first to you, I know that our teams are digging through these files. Is there anything you can tell us so far about what we've learned?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It's called the Epstein library that's being released by the Justice Department. And, Kasie, it does include quite a lot of different types of materials about Jeffrey Epstein, some of which is already out there and some of which is very likely to have never seen the light of day before. The categories right now that the Justice Department is saying they're releasing the records on, and they have them all available for the public to view, that includes court records, freedom of information releases, some of the things that have already been out there, as well as documents that the House Oversight Committee has obtained and has been releasing, as well as the big part of this, the Justice Department's own disclosures.
I'm looking at it now, and it's really extensive. There's multiple pages here. There's a lot of different lists of what's being put out in the public view. Some of that includes Epstein files that are being required by this law to be transparent by today. It looks to me like there are very large files here. Data sets of information, and also some things we haven't seen before or, I'm sorry, things we have seen before. Things like video from the Bureau of Prisons, from when Jeffrey Epstein was in that facility, as well as audio of Ghislaine Maxwell, speaking to the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, earlier this year, in a taped interview. So, all of that is collected. We are going to be looking through it to
see what's new. But, Kasie, I was just reviewing what is already out there. There is a great deal already out there, but what is in this is also likely to be very sensitive, even just in reading the end of the trial against coconspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, there is extensive discussion about the victims and how severe these crimes were. Girls as young as 14 being recruited from single family homes, largely to become people that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were both grooming through enticing them to be massage therapists or to be the recipients of massages.
And there is extensive evidence already out there in the public record as to how, how great and vast this conspiracy went, how it existed over many, many years. In addition to that, I'm also looking for especially how the Justice Department has handled Epstein and Maxwell in the 20 some years of knowing that this conspiracy existed until Maxwell was convicted of crimes in 2021. That is something that we haven't seen a full autopsy of. We've seen bits and pieces of it, but seeing exactly how those choices were made, how the internal communications may have played out within the Justice Department to choose not to prosecute Jeffrey Epstein very severely in 2007 or 2008, and then to choose to indict him and Ghislaine Maxwell again in 2019, 2020, 2021.
Those are all things to look for in these records. It's going to be a long night. And as the justice department has made clear, today is not the only day of this release. There could be many more documents to come for the weeks ahead -- Kasie.
HUNT: Weeks, indeed.
Kristen Holmes, to that point -- I mean, how is the White House been bracing for this?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The White House doesn't want to talk about this. They have been doing everything they can for the last several months to try and distance themselves from the story, but it is the story that they just cannot shake. And now, we're looking at day one of what is expected to be a brand new chapter in the entire Epstein saga. Now that we have these documents and this is going to continue for time and time again, because the fact that it will involve president Trump in some way.
Now, one of the things I hear from these White House officials, they are convinced that there is not going to be some kind of smoking gun in these documents that show President Trump did something illegal. They have argued to me time and time again that if there was something like that in these files, that it would have been brought out a long time ago. Particularly under a Democratic administration.
However, they are also keenly aware that anything, any document, any part of these files that shows or reinforces the relationship President Trump had at one time with Jeffrey Epstein is likely to dominate any media coverage.
[16:05:11] It's going to eclipse anything else that President Trump is trying to do, or is actually doing, and they have no appetite for this. And there's also someone else who has no appetite for this, and it's President Trump. And that was very clear when he was asked questions or when he was delivering remarks earlier today. And, man, who almost always takes questions did this at the end of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I really don't want to spoil it up by asking questions, even questions that are very fair questions that I'd love to answer. So I think we have to just stop right here. I don't want to be asking questions, having to do with anything else. Thank you very much, everybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Again, this is a White House, this is a president who is very aware of what is happening today with regards to the Epstein files being released. So, it certainly seems like he did not want to have any part of that. When reporters in the room were certainly going to ask questions.
HUNT: They certainly were. All right. Kristen Holmes Katelyn Polantz, I think you'll likely be standing by for us as we sift through all of this, but I do appreciate your reporting here off the top.
Elie Honig is with us from New York as well. He's our senior legal analyst.
Elie, can you remind us how we got here? And I actually -- you know, I'd like to kind of set you up with what Ro Khanna, one of the congressmen on the House Oversight Committee had to say today about what we may see here. And, you know, obviously they have been going through these documents to redact sensitive information about victims and other things.
Let me show you what Khanna said, and we'll talk about it on the other side. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Anyone who tampers with these documents or conceals documents or engages in excessive redaction will be prosecuted because of obstruction of justice. We will prosecute individuals regardless of whether the attorney general or a career or political appointee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Elie, can I just get you to, you know, give us your legal expertise on what that could mean?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Sure. So were here, Kasie, because Congress passed a law, overwhelming margin for 27 to 1 in the House, unanimous in the Senate, signed by Donald Trump 30 days ago. That law gave the Justice Department 30 days to turn over. And I quote the law, all of DOJ's documents relating to the investigations and prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Now, the law does have some exceptions in it. It allows DOJ to withhold documents if they relate to victim identities, if they relate to ongoing criminal investigations, or if they might undercut our national security or our foreign diplomacy. Now, as to Representative Khanna's point there, it would be obstruction of justice if somebody, for example, destroyed evidence or altered or tampered with intentionally. Theres no evidence any of that has happened at this point. So I think he's thinking sort of speculatively and into the future.
So, at this point, they've made the first production. That's the link that's now available that Katelyn Polantz and others are going through. But again, important to note, the deputy attorney general this morning, Todd Blanche, said this is actually not the whole production. He said this will be hundreds of thousands of pages and we will continue to produce more over the coming weeks.
Technically, that's not what the law says. The law says all the documents today, but DOJ apparently has just not been able to do that.
HUNT: Remarkable.
Stand by for me. I want to go back to Katelyn Polantz because she has been poring over these documents as we have been talking.
And, Katelyn, I understand you're seeing some photographs as part of this. I don't -- I don't think we're prepared yet to show them to our audiences. We're working on that. But please do tell us what you've learned.
POLANTZ: Yeah. And were also going to be cautious about describing what's in the photographs as were seeing them, given the sensitivity, so many sensitivities around this issue. But what I can say here is in the data sets that are being put out by the Justice Department, there are many, many photos. And they are stripped of context. They are just images.
Many of them do show Jeffrey Epstein. Of course, they would be from the files around him. There are also images of Ghislaine Maxwell, but this is the sort of thing that people will be clicking on. Seeing that you'll see around as people go photo by photo, I mean some of these.
There are -- there's clearly hundreds of them. They're posted in dozens of pages of data on the Justice Department website, and they don't say where they're from, why they were taken, where the location of the photos are. So a lot of those context clues, that's a sort of reporting and questions that will need to follow up on in understanding what the meaning of these photos might be.
But it's not just photos. There are other documents as well. Some of them, like I mentioned before, are going to be the sorts of things we've seen already out in the public sphere. A lot of the audiotape and the documents around Ghislaine Maxwell speaking with Todd Blanche while she is serving her time in federal prison. Some of the documents of the communications from the attorney general saying that she wants to have a release of the documents, something that has dogged the Justice Department over many months this year.
But there is data here, and it does appear that there is information that's coming out from the Justice Department that is new. Exactly what that is, we're going to report and look very closely at what it is. But there's a lot here, and it's accessible to the public.
HUNT: Indeed. Okay. I'm going to let you get back to it. Come back to us when you've got some more.
My panel is here.
And, Elliot Williams, I do want to -- one of the things that Katelyn was talking about is that a lot of the images she's seeing are stripped of their context. Would the Justice Department possess that? Would they be expected to possess that context and have taken it out here? Or how would an investigation normally have come together in this way?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Nothing is normal about how this all came together. The Justice Department can certainly anonymize information or blur out information that the public might find uncomfortable. So that's not abnormal here, particularly when you're talking about releasing materials in the public interest.
But, you know, protecting, for instance, if there's, if it's sensitive information about victims or sensitive information about non-charged people like individuals who might have been present for interactions with Jeffrey Epstein but haven't been charged with crimes and ought to have their identities withheld.
HUNT: Uh-huh. Elie Honig, can you tell us a little bit more about the kinds of documents that we would expect? You know, as a former prosecutor, you kind of know what types of material we might see in this dump.
HONIG: Well, so first of all, there were three primary investigations by DOJ that should be included in this tranche of documents. First of all, remember Jeffrey Epstein was originally investigated by federal prosecutors in the southern district of Florida back in 2007 into 2008. Ultimately, he was given a state level plea deal, not a federal deal. But that was the deal that sort of started this all.
So, there should be DOJ documents. There certainly will be DOJ documents relating to that case. And I think the big question on people's minds is why did those prosecutors, led by Alexander Acosta, give Epstein such a sweetheart deal? So that's number one.
Number two, you have the 2019 federal prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the southern district of New York, that resulted in Epstein being locked up. He died in jail during the pendency of that case.
And then finally, you have the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, 2019 into 2021, also by federal prosecutors, southern district of New York.
She was tried, convicted, sentenced to 20 years, and now she's serving that. So those are the three main investigations in terms of what type of documents I expect, based on the law to look like, what my old files might have looked like at DOJ, you'll have what we call FBI 302s, which are summaries of witness statements. You will have phone records, financial records, travel records.
You may have internal memos laying out. Here's what we think of the evidence. It's strong here. It's weak here. This law is really quite broad, Kasie. And what it requires DOJ to turn over. So, we should get an unprecedented look behind the door at DOJ.
HUNT: Really remarkable.
All right. Joining us now -- Elie stand by for me -- Democratic congressman of Illinois, Raja Krishnamoorthi. He sits on the House Oversight Committee. They have been releasing batches of images and documents that have come in from Epstein's estate prior to this particular deadline.
Congressman, thanks very much for spending some time with us.
I actually -- a top line question for you. Is it your understanding that the Epstein estate had provided the documents that they've provided to the Congress, also to the Department of Justice? Or do you not know the answer to that question?
REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): I don't know the answer to that question, but once they made them available to us, I think that they got released, as, you know, to the whole world, as soon as -- as soon as possible.
HUNT: So, Congressman, let me ask you about your initial reaction here to this news. I mean, what are you looking for as we -- and again, we're being very cautious as we report out kind of what we're seeing here in these files. And well of course, bring the news as we've -- as we've sifted through it.
But the fact that they did in some capacity meet this deadline today, but they are saying also that there's going to be more after today that doesn't seem to meet the deadline. Your reaction?
KRISHNAMOORTHI: Yeah, I think that's unacceptable. I think everything should be released all at once. They've had years to prepare this and certainly 30 days to get this ready to be released to the public. So, any foot dragging, any excessive redactions or tampering would be in contradiction of the law.
[16:15:05]
In terms of what I'm looking for, I actually went to the DOJ website just now to start looking, and the thing that I'm looking for are financial records. Theres $1 billion of financial transactions associated with this. Just ghastly child sex trafficking ring. And so, what I'm looking for is who got paid what and for what purpose? I think you got to follow the money to really understand what has
happened. And up to this point, we have not seen the financial records associated with this horrible child sex trafficking ring.
HUNT: And you don't have financial records from the Epstein estate?
KRISHNAMOORTHI: No. Not yet, although it's possible they might still release them. They've been releasing them on a rolling basis. And so, I'm hopeful that there will be more of that. But I think that is really, to me, the heart of kind of what has happened in this whole, you know, horrible episode. And that gives us clues as to who might still be out there. That poses a risk to people.
I mean, those the survivors have been incredibly eloquent when they came to Congress and telling us that perpetrators of this child sex trafficking ring are still in our midst. They gave us a variety of names, so I'm sure that we'll be looking for those names as well. With these within these records. But I think they really stiffened our resolve. Democrats and Republicans, to get to the bottom of what happened and hopefully give them some measure of justice.
HUNT: One thing that your committee did not specify, or that this, excuse me, that this law that Congress passed, did not specify is what's the penalty if the Department of Justice does not meet its obligation to release all of the files by today being the deadline, and your side of the aisle oversight and judiciary Democrats put out this statement saying, quote, "We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law."
One of your colleagues seemed to suggest that the prison time for the attorney general might be on the table. And what do you think are the best options?
KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, first of all, I hope they comply today. If they don't, there are different remedies, including going to court. There's precedent for that, as you know, and Congress and Democrats have gone to court to force the administration to comply with the law.
A good example is, for instance, we have the ability under the appropriations law to perform congressionally obligated, oversight and inspection of ICE detention facilities that had been in dispute with the Trump administration. A court finally ruled in our favor. And today, I actually inspected an ICE detention facility for myself.
So, if that type of court process is required, we'll do it. Whatever it takes. We need to get to the bottom of what the law requires and get all the files.
HUNT: But one thing that one of your colleagues on the oversight committee actually told us here in THE ARENA is that the committee possesses photographs of sexual acts being conducted. Have you seen such photos?
KRISHNAMOORTHI: No, I have not. Not yet.
HUNT: Do you know if they exist? KRISHNAMOORTHI: I don't. I -- I know that a lot of material has been
redacted, and we are redacting materials as well. But I have not seen those myself.
HUNT: One other question is whether some of the prominent Democrats that are named in some of these documents may come to congress in some capacity, including, of course, the Clintons. Do you think that the Clintons should come and speak with the committee?
KRISHNAMOORTHI: Yes. I think everybody -- anybody who's implicated in this particular situation who could shed light on what has happened, needs to cooperate with the committee because, again, it's about getting justice for the survivors, but also its about preventing this from ever happening again. And, you know, we have to do everything we can after 20 years of this saga to finally do something material to do justice for the victims.
HUNT: Congressman, I want to thank you very much for your time. If you're willing to stand by as you are, as you mentioned, you're looking through these files yourself. As we get more information here, I would love to have additional reaction from you throughout the hour. I do want to expand our conversation for a couple of minutes, but thank you.
And do let us do let the control room know if you're willing to stand by for us.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: Okay. Thank you, thank you.
HUNT: All right. Jeff Zeleny, I want to talk about the politics of this for President Trump, because this has been something that has just dogged him and has been one of the first examples we've probably seen of his base splintering from him in any way. What is your sense, what's your reporting about how the White House is kind of bracing for this, what they know or don't know about what the publics about to see?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, they're very apprehensive about it. I think Susie Wiles perhaps probably said it best in one word. Earlier this week in the vanity fair explosive piece that Pam Bondi whiffed on this. And that's been kind of a word that really could be used to describe the entire administration's reaction.
Imagine if this had been dealt with earlier in the year. It would be long behind them. But it is now just a few days before Christmas. This clearly is going to go into bleed into the New Year. So, the politics of it and of course, there are many more important things aside from the politics.
But just right now, the politics of this are not good for the president, because the reality here is this was the first example when the house voted to release these overwhelmingly. It was the first real example of House Republicans effectively rolling the president on this. I mean, Thomas Massie of Kentucky led the charge, and others as well.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, all the Democrats to release these. And then the train left the station here.
So, for the president himself, I would assume that they know everything that's in the files because their justice department obviously has had the entire year to look at them. But it's just a remarkable series of really comedies of errors here that everything led to this, and now they're being forced into this position on the defense as opposed to just kind of doing it at the very beginning, because, again, this is something that his own base wanted, and it was really a soundtrack of the campaign.
We all remember from rallies and things. This meant a lot to people. And then once they came into office, they just kind of didn't take that seriously. And now this is what is playing out.
HUNT: Yeah. And, Bryan Lanza, you have the distinct disadvantage of being the one Republican sitting on our panel today. We're very grateful that you're here.
This can't be a good day for the White House.
BRYAN LANZA, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: Yeah. Listen, I think Jeff is right. What Susie said earlier in the week, it's a major whiff. And this is an example that's been a whiff for several months now, and it accumulated today. You know, the release valve is being released. You know, there'll probably be a few more stories as suspect, if nothing is really directed to the president. And then we'll move on to the next issue.
But it is -- it is absorbed a tremendous amount of energy. And you're right, it was the first example of the base, at least the congressional base offering some type of check and balance to the president.
HUNT: Yeah. It seems rather optimistic that, you know, just in a few days this is all going to be behind us after it's strung out for months and months.
LANZA: It's always something next.
HUNT: Let's watch a little bit about of what Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who remember used to be President Trump's personal lawyer, went down to interview Ghislaine Maxwell.
After that interview, she was moved to a cushier prison. He was talking about the redactions of this material because that, of course, is going to end up being incredibly closely scrutinized. So, he was asked, are they going to take out references to President Trump?
Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Will every document that mentions President Trump, every picture of him, every video, every bit of information related to him in these files be released today or at some point in this process?
TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GERNERAL: Assuming it's consistent with the law. Yes. So, there's no effort to hold anything back because there's the name Donald J. Trump or anybody else's name. Bill Clinton's name, Reid Hoffman's name. There's no effort to hold back or not hold back because of that. And so -- but again, we're not -- we're not redacting the names of famous men and women that are associated with Epstein.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: What do you make of that, Elliot?
WILLIAMS: No, I think he's right. He's absolutely right there in that nothing that does not comport with the law can really be released. Along those lines, and it's something interesting that Elie Honig had said a little bit earlier in the program about this idea of coconspirators and other, you know, there was there was the sweetheart deal that Jeffrey Epstein had gotten, and Elie mentioned that.
One thing that Congress specifically requested and required in the law was information on coconspirators and immunity deals, like deals that people got to not be prosecuted from this. And I'd be really curious to see. And these hundreds of thousands of pages, who else either was a subject of investigations and was not prosecuted? Who else, in exchange for their testimony or cooperation with the government, might have struck a sweet deal with the government, or nobody else. But that's the kind of information that, you know, after they cross out the names of who they shouldn't, that they should be putting out there. And he's right.
HUNT: Yeah.
Adrienne Elrod, you have worked for Bill and Hillary Clinton in your career. How concerned are Democrats about what they're going to find in this material? Because, listen, this is clearly turned out to be a pox on everybody's houses. It's big tech, it's Hollywood. It's -- you know, it's both political parties. It's not just, you know, constrained to one or the other.
ADRIENNE ELROD, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yeah, it certainly runs a whole political spectrum here. I mean, look, the Clintons have been very forthcoming, especially President Clinton, that, you know, he did not visit the island.
[16:25:02]
We have certainly seen some photographs.
But I think the Clintons feel very good about, you know, that they're -- he was not -- I mean, he knows that he was not involved in any of this stuff. And then, of course, you saw Susie Wiles make it very clear in vanity fair this week that this is a nothingburger, and we need to, like, quit talking about that.
But I think it's also interesting to see Todd Blanche. The White House seems to have lost faith and confidence in Pam Bondi. You see Todd Blanche going out there. He's the one who seems to be the face of going out and talking about, you know, these files. He's obviously trying to mention other people's names other than Trump, like mentioning Reid Hoffman there to try to divert from, you know, all the exposure being on the Trump administration.
But it does also seem to me that Pam Bondi has lost the faith and confidence from this White House. And they're putting Trump's former personal attorney out there.
HUNT: Yeah. And for those who aren't aware, Reid Hoffman, of course, is Silicon Valley billionaire, I believe, who is, you know, funds the Democratic Party. Many of them have started to fund the Republican Party.
Bryan, I think my question also for you is that, I mean, look, this was a law that Trump had to sign, right? Put these files out there. Okay.
There are pictures of Trump signing an executive order, getting rid of paper straws. There are pictures of Trump signing an executive order to proclaim Gulf of America Day. There's pictures of him signing a piece of paper that changes the Department of Defense, the Department of War. In theory, we have these pictures somewhere. They do exist.
But there is no picture of him signing this law. It does not exist.
LANZA: He can't sign every -- not everything needs to be public, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, you get to highlight what you want to highlight. And why would you highlight a loss?
HUNT: Jeff?
ZELENY: But the law is signed and the reality is whether there's a picture or not. I mean, I would put that in the same category as the president did today, did not answer questions. He knew this was coming. Obviously, he's traveling to North Carolina later this evening. And then he's beginning a long holiday break in Mar-a-Lago. And just imagine the -- I mean, that is where so much of this started.
But I think what the what this is really going to just re -- sort of agitated again is just the close friendship that Donald Trump had with Jeffrey Epstein. And it's not -- it's not new. It's not new, but it's regurgitating it. That's my point. It's coming up again.
And Alex Acosta, when you think back to the first Trump term, Alex Acosta, all of those federal documents from that first sweetheart deal prosecution is also going to be relitigated. So, I'm not sure anything new is going to come out. We'll find out. We don't know. I'm sure there will be something new.
But the reality is just relitigating it. It may drive the president mad over break -- trying to choose my words here.
HUNT: I was going to say, Jeff, be very, very precise with his word choice. ZELENY: It's very -- something that's very close to him.
HUNT: We should -- we should all be monitoring the president's Truth Social feed, as we are sitting down to Christmas dinner. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah. Okay. Let's bring in CNN national enterprise correspondent M.J. Lee.
And, M.J., you know, I'm really -- I'm very glad that you're here because you've been recently talking with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein as this push to release the documents is really heating up.
And, you know, centering them, as, you know, the piece of this story that is the most important, I think matters a lot. And we've seen kind of dribs and drabs from the House Oversight Committee. We've heard some survivors say that has been difficult for them to deal with.
What are they preparing for here with this massive trove coming out today?
M.J. LEE, CNN NATIONAL ENTEPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Kasie, you know, this entire process has been incredibly emotionally challenging, at least for some of the Epstein survivors that I've been in touch with. As you mentioned. Because this isn't sort of the first time that they have seen certain documents, certain files, photographs coming out that are related to Epstein. I think sort of the anticipation leading up to today has been really challenging, but I think the incremental releases have also been challenging.
You know, I'll tell you, the survivors have made clear again, at least the ones that I have spoken with that they feel it is really important that any identifying information, names about victims and survivors to be redacted. And, you know, as we are going through these massive troves of documents, you know, there are certain sections where you're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and practically every page is redacted, which gives you a sense of how much information in here there is going to be that is related to Epstein victims, whether it is, you know, written information about his victims or in some cases, it's clear that some of the potential victims faces are being redacted and not shown.
And I think that's just like a really painful reminder, again, about what you said about how, at the end of the day, you know, we can talk about the politics, we can talk about what, you know, big name, high profile folks we might encounter in these files. But at the end of the day, we really do need to bring this back to the survivors and the victims who suffered so much abuse and have been waiting so many years in some cases for any semblance of justice.
[16:30:08]
I will also note, just on the issue of the redactions, you know, I'm sure you've seen this too. I think you actually showed it on the screen earlier. You know, there's a notice that says the DOJ basically tried to make all efforts possible to make sure that personal information pertaining to victims are held back from disclosure. But it says because of the volume of the information involved, the website may nevertheless contain information that inadvertently includes nonpublic, personally identifiable information.
So, if you're -- I mean, just think about that. If you're a survivor, a victim, perhaps you are making the difficult decision to start going through some of these files. You're basically sort of being told, we can't guarantee that there might not be something that could be extra triggering. So, all in all, just an incredibly challenging day for the folks that I've been in touch with.
And finally, the fact that the DOJ is not releasing everything that it has and the fact that it's guaranteed that it's not going to end today, but it's -- this is sort of just the beginning of the release of the Epstein files. That is very, very challenging for the folks I'm talking to as well.
HUNT: Yeah, just so difficult to imagine. M.J. Lee, thanks very much for that. All right. So, we here at CNN are continuing to go through these files, detail by detail, line by line. We're going to take a quick break.
We'll be back with much more of this breaking news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:35:58]
HUNT: All right. We're back now with CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz.
Katelyn, I know you and our team are going through these extensive documents. We're certainly doing it here on set in the breaks. A lot of it's pretty difficult to look at.
What are you learning?
POLANTZ: It is difficult to look at partly because there is such a volume of material here, and a lot of it is out of context, out of any context. When you look at the files that the Justice Department have put up labeled as the Epstein library. There are court records. There are lots and lots of photographs. There are CDs, just you can see the way that the justice department scanned in the CDs and see them, and some of them have very benign things in them.
Sorting out the things of importance in this compendium, from the stuff that is just, you know, the sort of everyday material you might collect from someone when you grab a bunch of things from their home. In the case of how Jeff Epstein had several of his properties searched, some of these CDs are labeled with things like clouds, and indeed, there are many photos of people taking a picture out of the window of an airplane just looking at clouds.
So, we are still looking through these. There are images of substance, that's for sure. Some of these images have clearly very sensitive information in them. People's heads are blacked out in a lot of them, especially women. But this is a cache of information that is going to take a lot of time and effort to figure out not just what it is, but why it is there. Why did Jeffrey Epstein have photos of these people and what was happening in the room when these photos were taken? Where were they taken? Even those things aren't labeled.
The other thing I'm going through right now is some other documentation, the types of documents the Justice Department is supposed to be unveiling related to grand jury records related to the criminal cases against Jeffrey Epstein and his coconspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, and then related to the Justice Department's own internal communication. That's in here as well. Maybe not everything, because the Justice Department does say its going to take more weeks, several weeks to release hundreds of thousands more pages of the Epstein files.
But there is at least a bit of that in the record and in the public domain now, in the Justice Department's Epstein library.
HUNT: Katelyn, I guess I'm wondering, do you have any context? You keep underscoring, obviously, that a lot of this just has no information associated with it at all. Do we know anything about whether these documents come from the initial investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, where he got that sweetheart deal, and how much of it comes from the later investigation that ultimately sent him to prison?
POLANTZ: Yeah. Great question. It's -- as far as the photos. The photos are totally stripped of all context. So, I have a really hard time understanding where any of those sorts of things are coming from. However, when you're looking at the Justice Department's portion of the website that has documents from various court cases, civil lawsuits, there were many over the years, especially involving victims and then criminal cases. I am seeing documents from the criminal cases against Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell beginning in 2019.
But you're right, those documents from what the Justice Department was doing back in 2005 to 2007, when they cut that deal with Jeffrey Epstein, those I have not found yet. That doesn't mean that they're not there, but there is a lot to wonder what is there, because we do know there was an indictment that someone who was an assistant U.S. attorney had prepared against Jeffrey Epstein way back in the day when a 14-year-old girl's parents had initially gone to the Palm Beach police department and the Justice Department and the West Palm beach FBI office when they started investigating things for possible federal crimes.
Ultimately, that potential indictment was ripped up. And instead, there was a non-prosecution agreement filed against Jeffrey Epstein, essentially what you would call a sweetheart deal. But we've never seen a lot of the background of there. There was a part of the Justice Department that looked into it further, but if -- we can find those documents, that could be quite illuminating.
HUNT: Let's -- Katelyn, thank you very much for that. And I know you're going to continue to sift through these files. Kristen Holmes is at the White House for us with some new information.
Kristen, what are you learning?
HOLMES: Yeah, we have just gotten a statement from the White House on the release of these files. It is exactly what you would imagine. And it is lines that we've heard before. But now, given the actual release, we should read it again. It says, "The Trump administration is the most transparent in history by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein's Democrat friends. The Trump administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have," and then they go on to attack Democrats there.
This came from Abigail Jackson, the White House spokeswoman. We've heard these lines before, that president Trump is the most transparent president, that that's why they are putting these files out there. Obviously, it took a very long time to get from point A to point B if President Trump actually calling for those files to be released, as I know you guys were talking about on the panel, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, quote/unquote, whiffing when it came to the Epstein files.
But they are saying that this is a showing of how they want to put all of this information out there
HUNT: Interesting.
Okay. Katelyn Polantz, you do -- we just -- we just said hello and goodbye, but now you had to have additional information here to share with us about what you're learning.
POLANTZ: Yeah. One of the things that is coming out, obtained by our own Annie Grayer on Capitol Hill, is a letter that Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, is sending to the members of congress notifying them that the Justice Department is making this production today. And they believe that they are complying with the transparency act around Jeffrey Epsteins files. They are characterizing it as a historic effort, never before has an undertaking like this happened in American history to be this transparent.
However, they are also saying, we're holding back a lot, not just protecting victim's rights. There's even a section about how there are privileges, attorney client privileges, deliberative process privileges. So, discussion within the government, those things the Justice Department says, yeah, we're not going to release those either, even if it wasn't spelled out in the act of Congress. That's something that we'll have to watch for, to see if members of Congress take issue with it.
The other thing that's interesting is the reasoning the Justice Department provides for not putting everything out right now in these files, there are several hundred thousand files that are not being released today. What Blanche writes in this letter is that several parts of government just provided documents this week to the Justice Department.
So, not only was the Justice Department working up to this deadline to go through the documents they've had for years, from the Epstein files and the FBI investigation, there's also incoming to the Justice Department from other parts of the government that they're going to be going through, and that we may not even be seeing for several days -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Katelyn, thank you very much for that update.
Joining us now to discuss further, victims rights attorney Gloria Allred. She's represented several Epstein abuse survivors.
And, Gloria, I know that you're digesting what we're learning from the Justice Department right along with everyone else, but I'm hoping you can give us a sense of what a moment like this means to the women who were victimized by Jeffrey Epstein and others in Epstein's orbit?
GLORIA ALLRED, VICTIMS RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Well, I'm glad that you asked, Kasie, because this didn't just happen. It is happening because of the courage of many survivors speaking out and pushing and pushing elected officials to this point, elected officials in Congress and also the president. And that is a tribute to them. And they deserve that commendation, because it took a lot for many of them to speak out and let people know what had happened to them.
And they did it in order to achieve the release of the DOJ's Epstein files, which they only got partial release of today. Of course, the deputy district -- the deputy attorney general, Mr. Blanche, has also indicated that part of his reasoning for not giving everything that the law requires today, is that he wants to be sure that the victims' identities are protected, and also their names.
And in addition, any child sex videos. And we know there are child sex videos that were made by Jeffrey Epstein without the knowledge and consent of the child, underage girl. And of course, they couldn't consent because they're underage. So, we definitely don't want that released. It's pornography.
And in addition, he cites pending investigations. I don't know what exactly that means. Of whom those investigations are taking place. We do know that the president ordered the Department of Justice to investigate prominent Democrats. So, there is a whole political overlay to this legal release of files. I don't know why prominent Republicans or people who never indicated if they were Democrat or Republicans would be spared from an investigation.
So there are a lot of questions, I might add, that I do know that the Department of Justice, in the release of the files, and I've only had a chance very briefly to look, has indicated to the public who is reviewing them and to the press that if accidentally, any names of survivors are released in those hundreds of thousands of pages to please notify the Department of Justice asap. So that there can be a correction made and those names and identities or images will be removed.
HUNT: Remarkable statement there for sure. Gloria, do you take the deputy attorney general and the Justice Department at their word that they have the victims best interests at heart here? ALLRED: Well, I know that I was contacted to make sure that the names
of the individuals that I represent would be redacted so that it would be important that they have those names of those who wish to be redacted. I can't speak for anybody else. But I'm, you know, based on, you know, their communication.
I have confidence that they're going to try to redact the names. But let's face it, the survivors have had the Department of Justice fail them for more than a decade. They've, you know, failed them in the sweetheart deal that you discussed earlier involving Alex Acosta in Florida and not prosecuting federally and shifting it to the state where the sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein, it failed them again in New York when they -- when the DOJ and the federal investigators arrested Jeffrey Epstein. And then he died either by suicide or homicide while he was in the custody of the federal government, meaning that the survivors did not have an opportunity to confront Mr. Epstein in a court of law, in a trial.
So, you know, and the fact that there seemed to have been resistance by this administration, there was resistance to releasing the Epstein files, and in fact, they fought it until Congress made it clear they wanted it done. They wanted it released. And then it was signed into law by the president.
But the question is, is there a cover up? What are they hiding? What is in there that, you know, perhaps some powerful people would not like revealed? And after all, Kasie, what's the point? Why are the survivors fighting to have the release of all of the files? And the reason is because they want accountability.
If there are rich, powerful, famous men who engaged in or insisted, assisted in or conspired to sex trafficking underage girls, you know, they want to know who those people are. They want to know what the evidence against them was. They want to know if, as and when they should have been prosecuted or if they will be prosecuted.
So, we don't know what is going to happen next. We do know that it's important to have all of the files released with the exceptions or exemptions made by Congress, and we do need reliable narrators, meaning the press, to tell us what's in there in a way that makes sense. We need to know the context.
Some things have been released, but as has been pointed out in your show, Kasie, without the context, we don't know what that means. And just because the names of powerful men are in there doesn't mean they committed any crime or wrongdoing.
On the other hand, is there any information about what they were doing that might lead us to think that maybe somehow they should be criminally culpable?
HUNT: Yeah. All right. Gloria Allred, thank you, as always for your time. I really appreciate it.
ALLRED: Thank you.
HUNT: All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with much more breaking news on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right. Welcome back. We are continuing to follow this breaking news. The Department of Justice releasing a significant portion of the Epstein files. We are combing through all of these details, and we are going to try to bring it to you as coherently as possible as it comes in. In the meantime, our panel is here.
And, of course, Elliot Williams, one of the things that people are really interested in is the list or a list, any list of names of powerful men who were involved here, right. And this is a list that the attorney general, pam Bondi, had said when the Trump administration came into office the second time, she said, its sitting on my desk right then. Of course, we have not seen it.
Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff said this week that the attorney general whiffed on this matter entirely. But I want to play what Congressman Thomas Massie, who's a Republican, he really led the charge in Congress to get this law passed.
And this law is the reason we're seeing all these files. What he said about what might be in them.
Let's watch
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): I wanted to talk about some of the things to look for and what we may be anticipating. The victims' lawyers have been in contact with me, and collectively, they know there are at least 20 names of men who are accused of sex crimes in the possession of the FBI. So, if we get a large production on December 19th and it does not contain a single name of any male who accused of a sex crime or sex trafficking or rape, or any of these things, then we know they haven't produced all the documents. It's that simple.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Elliot Williams, what say you?
WILLIAMS: are this idea of a list, a single list that bullets out the names of all everyone who was engaged in wrongdoing maybe exists. Maybe it does exist. It would seem odd for that kind of thing to actually happen.
And to some extent, the failure is on Pam Bondi for going out there and saying all these things she had, including a list. Kasie, you and I, look, I've been on television with you probably for the greater part of a decade.
And you know two things about me. One, Star Wars is the greatest movie franchise ever. And two, Pam Bondi screwed this whole thing up by being out there and promising the public that which the Justice Department may actually not be able to provide. And it's just not clear what's going to be there, I think because -- HUNT: Let's not hate Star Wars by bringing it to disastrous
conversation.
WILLIAMS: Touche. But it is great. It is a beautiful thing.
But no, but, you know, were nearing the end of the hour just to sort of go big picture here. I think what the public already knows about what's in these files is that, number one, Jeffrey Epstein was engaged in awful misconduct, usually involving young girls or young women.
Number two, a lot of really powerful people, including two former presidents of the United States, Hollywood, tech and so on, have personal connections to him.
And three, there were crimes committed somewhere.
HUNT: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: The question is, what else will we find out about those three buckets? And I think that if people go in expecting that and not some smoking gun list, I think the world will be far more satisfied with whatever the Justice Department provides.
HUNT: Yeah. Although, Elie Honig, you've been hanging with us throughout the hour, which I very much appreciate.
I mean, the reality is everybody's looking for a list and you've seen or you've seen so much of this kind of material in your career as a prosecutor, do you think there's a list?
HONIG: No. I mean, all the reporting is there's -- no, not in one discrete place, like a list. Number one, two, three, four or five.
To the bigger point about other people who may be involved here. Let's remember the exceptions. This law does allow the Justice Department to hold back any information that might relate to an ongoing investigation, or that might undermine our national security or foreign diplomacy. There's a lot of discretion, a lot of wiggle room there for Pam Bondi to hold things back in her discretion. That's point one.
Point two, to Representative Massie's point earlier that if we don't see sort of high profile names, then well know they have not turned over everything. Guess what? We know they have not turned over everything because Todd Blanche has said so. He said, "I know we were supposed to under the law, this is just some of them. And there's a lot more still to come."
HUNT: Elie, on that point, I mean, do you think why do you think Todd Blanche is doing this? I mean, the fact that this -- it represents a delay from what the law says.
HONIG: I don't know, I couldn't begin to make excuses for him. They gave the DOJ 30 days to pull this together. Yes. It was a gargantuan task. We've had reporting here at CNN about how there was a mad scramble behind the scenes at DOJ. But if the end result of that is sorry, Congress, sorry, Mr.
President, who signed the law, we just couldn't get there in time. That's just unacceptable. That's just outrageous.
So, look, I suppose this will give rise to theories that maybe they're trying to drag this out if the documents are going to slowly leak out over the next two weeks, we all know what's happening the next -- it's Christmas, it's New Years'. People are going to be halfway paying attention.
But it's a huge error. It's a flub by DOJ to not have these already. Now, maybe worse than that even, they did not comply with the plain language of a law passed by Congress, signed by the president.
HUNT: And in the absence of a penalty for failing to comply with that law, Elie, what is that part of this mean?
HONIG: Yeah, there's not a heck of a lot that can be done. You've had members on earlier, members of Congress suggesting they may sue. Maybe, but that will take time. And perhaps in that time this will get worked out.
As you noted earlier in one of your interviews, Kasie, there's not a mechanism built into this law that says if DOJ fails to comply, the punishment will be A, B, or C. It just sort of leaves it out there unaddressed. So ultimately, it's going to have to come down to political pressure and political will from Congress.
HUNT: Political. It's -- it has been a remarkable thing to see actually, this the way that Republicans in this particular case have actually exerted political will over the wishes and will of the president of the United States to get us this far. But I think it's good to underscore that delay.
Elie Honig, thank you.
Thanks very much to my panel as well. Really appreciate it.
Thanks to you all at home for watching. Very grateful to have you.
Don't go anywhere. There's much more breaking news.
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