In a significant and unusual move, the White House has directly taken charge of the Justice Department's official social media communications. This decision comes as a direct response to the intense blowback and narrative chaos following the release of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Chaos and Conspiracy Theories Prompt Unprecedented Move
According to a report by Axios, the administration's damage-control effort was triggered by a chaotic release of files, their sudden deletion, and a subsequent wave of conspiracy theories that rattled the Trump administration. Officials, frustrated by the negative public reaction, stepped in to sharpen the government's messaging and steady the narrative on platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Department of Justice (DOJ), under Attorney General Pam Bondi, has been processing a massive trove of over 1.45 million records to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act, which was personally signed into law by President Donald Trump. The pressure intensified when, just one day after posting the first batch, the DOJ reclaimed 13 files without any public explanation.
This action drew immediate fire from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, who publicly questioned Bondi on X, asking, "What else is being covered up?" The Attorney General now faces mounting calls for impeachment and contempt of Congress over her handling of the sensitive documents.
Questionable Redactions and a Fake Letter
The transparency process has been marred by controversy. One of the retracted files contained a photograph of President Trump, aged 79, discovered in a drawer at an Epstein property. The DOJ initially removed it, citing concern for victims, only to reinstate it after further review. An unnamed official revealed that a second batch of files, where the president features more prominently, was released prematurely due to an internal error.
Bondi's department also missed the legal deadline to release all records by a Friday, despite more than 200 staff working through the backlog. The pledge of full transparency has been further undermined by puzzling redactions. For instance, the publicly available addresses of the United States Attorney’s Office and the New Mexico Department of Justice were blacked out in a 2020 letter about seizing an Epstein property.
Journalist Michael Tracey criticised the move on X, stating, "These redactions are so arbitrary, it destroys the credibility of the entire exercise. They’re redacting completely banal documents that have already been in the public domain for years!" A Miami Herald reporter also identified a 2008 document that was unjustifiably redacted under the Transparency Act.
The quality of the released documents has also been questioned. On Tuesday, the DOJ issued 30,000 new records, including an alleged letter from Epstein to convicted sex offender Larry Nassar. The letter, which referenced "our president" liking "nubile" girls, was later determined to be a fake. It was postmarked after Epstein’s death and passed through a mail room unconnected to his New York jail. The DOJ released it anyway in the name of "transparency," only to later post that the FBI had confirmed it was fake, raising serious concerns about the spread of disinformation.
Administration Rattled as Scrutiny Continues
Although no "smoking gun" directly linking President Trump to wrongdoing has emerged from the files, insiders say he remains rattled by the mentions of his name. "The minute he thinks it’s unfair to him and it’s a personal attack, he just goes into fight mode," an administration insider told Axios in November.
With approximately 700,000 files still awaiting review, the scrutiny of the Trump administration's connections to the Epstein case is set to continue. While one official optimistically claimed, "This will end soon," they grimly added, "The conspiracy theories won’t." The White House's takeover of DOJ messaging underscores the deep political and reputational damage the administration fears from this prolonged and messy transparency exercise.
