I was not in the least surprised that the release of the Epstein files was limited and consisted of heavily redacted pages. It was never in the cards that attorney general Pam Bondi, loyal and obsequious sycophant of Trump that she is, would ever allow the release of anything that might even remotely embarrass him. or anyone close to him However, the limited release and the sweeping nature of the redactions has caused an uproar, and has resulted in further dribs and drabs coming out.

One new release today was a sickening letter that Epstein purportedly sent to Larry Nasser the doctor now in prison for sexually abusing large numbers of young women, including members of the US gymnastics team. The letter was postmarked August 13, 2019, three days after Epstein died by suicide.

“As you will know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home,” the letter, which appears to have been signed from Epstein to Nasser, reads. “Good luck! We shared one thing … our love & caring for young ladies and the hope they reach their full potential.”

The letter continues: “Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls. When a young beauty walked by he loved to ‘grab snatch’, whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system.”

The letter is signed: “Life is unfair. Yours, J. Epstein.”
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The letter is postmarked 13 August 2019, notably three days after Epstein died in custody in what was ruled a suicide. It was found by investigators in the jail mail room weeks later after it was returned from a prison in Arizona and marked “no longer at this address”.
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The document comes as questions continue to swirl around Epstein’s death in custody, with his brother, Mark Epstein, continuing to maintain that the sex offender was murdered in his cell.

It has also been suggested that Epstein blamed his former friend Donald Trump for his 2019 arrest on sex-trafficking charges, which came more than a decade after he was granted immunity from prosecution under a 2007 Florida state plea deal where he pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor.

It is not known if this letter is genuine. One doubt that I have is that the letter is grammatically correct, whereas in other communications Epstein was really careless with grammar and punctuation. But those other ones were texts that are notorious for their sloppiness, whereas this was an actual letter. It is not clear why Epstein would write such a confessional letter at all, except perhaps because as he contemplated his miserable life in prison and the possibility that it would last many years, and taking his own life became a real possibility, he wanted to connect with someone who shared his own pedophilic lusts.

However, one factor in favor of genuineness is that the existence of this letter, though not its contents, was reported back in 2023, so if it is bogus, it was not created recently.

The documents also provide a fresh window into Epstein’s behavior during his 36 days in jail, including his previously unreported attempt to connect by mail with another high-profile pedophile: Larry Nassar, the U.S. gymnastics team doctor convicted of sexually abusing scores of athletes.

Epstein’s letter to Nassar was found returned to sender in the jail’s mail room weeks after Epstein’s death. “It appeared he mailed it out and it was returned back to him,” the investigator who found the letter told a prison official by email. “I am not sure if I should open it or should we hand it over to anyone?”

The letter itself was not included among the documents turned over to the AP.

While some in Congress might seethe at this blatant disregard by the justice department of an actual law requiring the release of all the files, taking action to rectify it is not going to be easy.

Legal experts told the Guardian that Congress does possess mechanisms to enforce compliance, but significant obstacles exist. Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, explained that while Congress could hold Bondi or Blanche in contempt, any such referral would go to the justice department itself, which was unlikely to prosecute its own officials.

Rahmani suggested Congress would be more likely to file a lawsuit seeking a court order to compel document production. Eric Faddis, a Colorado trial lawyer and former prosecutor, noted Congress could vote to hold officials in contempt, with the sergeant at arms potentially detaining them until they comply. He added that officials might face federal prosecution for obstruction of Congress or evidence tampering if an investigation found noncompliance.

Faddis suggested another course of action that could work: impeachment.

The California representative Ro Khanna, who co-authored the transparency act, has now called for impeachment proceedings against Bondi for failing to comply with the law – a message echoed by the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican and the bill’s other co-author, posted a screenshot of the law on social media with the 30-day deadline highlighted.

I doubt that Republicans will support impeachment. Most of them have drunk the Trump Kool-Aid.

Some members of congress are warning Bondi and other members of the justice department that they could face repercussions when a new administration takes office in 2029.

The remarks of Rahmani, Faddis and Day came after the US House member Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said that he and his Epstein Transparency Act co-author – the Kentucky Republican representative Thomas Massie – “are exploring all options” after Friday’s deadline passed without a full release of files. Khanna confirmed those options included potentially impeaching justice department officials as well as possibly holding them in contempt of Congress.

Khanna also suggested the possibility of “referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice”. And Massie touted potential prosecutions, too, saying future justice department officials “could convict the current AG and others because the Epstein Files Transparency Act is not like a congressional subpoena which expires at the end of each Congress”.

However, I fully expect Trump to issue blanket pardons to anyone who colluded to suppress any information harmful to him, making this option moot as well. We are in a lawless age.