New Republic • Feb 16, 2026
Attorney General Pam Bondi claims that the Trump administration has released all of the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein—but a new analysis suggests that they’ve published only 2 percent. In emails reviewed by Channel 4 News, federal investigators discussed the massive amount of data that had been seized from Epstein’s properties, including his home in Palm Beach, Florida, his townhouse in New York City, and of course, “pedophile island”—also known as Howard Lutnick’s favorite family vacation spot.“We expect the data to be somewhere around 20-40 [terabytes],” one investigator wrote in an email dated June 2020, noting that the total capacity of the devices seized from Epstein’s properties was around 40 to 50 terabytes.In another email dated March 2025, an investigator suggested that there was “a total of approximately 14.6 Terabytes of archived data to unpack.” That would be equivalent to roughly 15,000 gigabytesSo, how many gigabytes of data did the Department of Justice eventually release? Only 300 gigabytes—or just 2 percent of the data investigators had previously discussed.In a letter to lawmakers Saturday, Bondi claimed that the government had “released all ‘records, documents, communications and investigative materials’” related to Epstein. She also claimed that no records were withheld “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity,” and included a ludicrous list of 130 “politically exposed persons,” which included multiple dead celebrities.