The real 'Epstein files' story is misunderstood. Here's what the government is still keeping secret.

• The Trump administration still hasn't released all the "Epstein files."
• These records could shed light on Jeffrey Epstein's fortune and law enforcement failures.
• The bulk of the DOJ's files come from two criminal investigations — but there are more.

The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is haunting the Trump administration.

Among his many campaign promises, President Donald Trump said he would make government files related to the now-dead financier and sex trafficker public.

So far, the effort has fallen flat.

In February, Attorney General Pamela Bondi published about 350 pages of documents. All but one three-pager had previously been made public through court proceedings. Some of the documents were redacted when they had previously been published in full.

"The Epstein files: Phase 1," as Bondi's binders were titled, disappointed those hoping for new revelations about the financier. Months later, Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have not released anything else.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has fought or been unresponsive to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents about Epstein in its possession and lawsuits seeking to enforce those requests.

The issue resurfaced last week when Elon Musk, during his brief and public feud with Trump, accused the president of holding up the release because "he's in them."

Many members of the public are eagerly awaiting some sort of "Epstein client list," but it's unlikely one will turn up. No such list is referenced or even alluded to in all of the thousands of pages of records that have already been made public. Nor are we likely to get any revelations about some sort of shadowy sex-trafficking operation involving various members of the international elite, which isn't consistent with claims made in lawsuits.

That's not to say that there aren't still lingering questions that the unreleased documents could clarify.

The US government's files, if made public, could help answer some of the mysteries about Epstein. Depending on what the documents reveal, they may also bring new scrutiny on how the Justice Department handled its investigations and fuel litigation against Epstein's estate, which has over $100 million remaining in assets.

Questions about Epstein have persisted since his death by suicide in 2019, in a Manhattan federal jail. How did he get so rich? Did he really have connections to intelligence agencies? Why didn't the FBI pursue him sooner?

The public already has plenty of records related to Epstein, much of it stemming from a lawsuit that Virginia Giuffre, his accuser who killed herself in April, filed against Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking girls to Epstein for sex. Over the years, Business Insider has catalogued Epstein's flight logs, published a version of his "little black book" of contacts, and reported on his estate's victim compensation program.

While Bondi has been under the most scrutiny over the "Epstein files," other agencies also have the opportunity to release records. The Federal Aviation Administration and the US Marshals Service haven't published unredacted versions of Epstein's flight information. And the CIA and other intelligence agencies have been quiet on the question of any files they may have.

Here are the Epstein documents that the government has kept secret, and that could arrive in future "Epstein files" drops:

Evidence seized in the 2019 criminal investigation

The biggest cache of documents could come from the Manhattan criminal investigation into Epstein and Maxwell.

In 2019, following the publication of the Miami Herald's "Perversion of Justice" series that reported on how Epstein got a light plea deal in 2007, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opened a new investigation into the financier.

On the same day the FBI arrested Epstein in July 2019, agents raided his Manhattan mansion and collected computer hard drives, message books, photos, CDs, and other records. Following Epstein's death in jail about a month later, law enforcement agents searched his properties in the US Virgin Islands.

The FBI has declined to make public any of these records beyond a small amount entered into evidence during Maxwell's criminal trial. "Phase One" of Bondi's "Epstein files" included a list of some of the evidence obtained in the investigation.

Business Insider filed a FOIA request for the records last year. The FBI declined the request. Business Insider appealed the denial and pointed the FOIA office to Bondi's public remarks promising to release the "Epstein files." The agency gave a May 16 date to resolve the appeal. After that deadline passed, the agency said it would take at least another three months to handle the appeal.

The conservative government watchdog organization Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department in April over the rejection of a similar FOIA request, which is still pending.

The Justice Department hasn't responded to Business Insider's requests for comment.

Epstein's hard drives

Maxwell's Manhattan criminal trial featured hard drives that might solve a mystery from the Palm Beach investigation into Epstein.

During the earlier criminal investigation in Florida, detectives searching Epstein's Palm Beach house found that "six computer hard drives in the house had been hastily removed, leaving dangling wires attached to monitors in several areas of the house," according to Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown's book about the investigation.

Years later, in Maxwell's trial, one FBI agent testified they found a box full of hard drives while raiding Epstein's Manhattan mansion.

Evidence in Maxwell's trial shows that one of the drives contained data from the early 2000s.

It's unclear what was on the hard drives removed from the Palm Beach house.

Other evidence seized in the 2007 investigation

The public doesn't have all the evidence collected during the investigation into Epstein between 2005 and 2007.

Palm Beach County has made some of the material public, and other files have surfaced in various civil lawsuits. Much of it remains redacted, partly to protect the privacy of victims.

Radar Online filed a lawsuit against the FBI in 2017 seeking to enforce a FOIA request for the material. A federal judge rejected the suit in 2024. It's on appeal.

Alan Dershowitz, who represented Epstein during the Palm Beach investigation, has pushed for making the material public. He says the FBI should release any interview notes and recordings that may mention him, and that he waives any privacy concerns.

Dershowitz says the records would disprove the sexual misconduct allegations brought against him by Virginia Giuffre. Dershowitz and Giuffre reached a settlement after a long legal battle in which she agreed she may have mistaken him for someone else.

Dershowitz said he viewed some of the records as part of a civil lawsuit involving Epstein, but they are sealed.

"They're in court. I've seen them," Dershowitz told Business Insider. "And if they were unredacted, they would give you the names of lots of people who were accused — some falsely accused, some truthfully accused."

Epstein grand jury records

Federal court rules and Justice Department policies sharply limit the disclosure of information from grand jury proceedings. The public doesn't have a full accounting of all the evidence presented to grand juries in Manhattan when prosecutors were preparing indictments against Epstein and Maxwell.

Some evidence in the 2006 Florida grand jury was made public last year through litigation, following the passage of a state law pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Investigation into Epstein's death

A 2023 Justice Department inspector general report about Epstein's death in the Manhattan Correctional Center concluded that he killed himself.

FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bognino, have backed up the conclusion in media interviews — much to the ire of some right-wing influencers who believe he was murdered.

The 128-page report details how the jail failed to prevent Epstein's death, but the Justice Department hasn't released much of the underlying evidence it collected.

Mark Epstein, his brother, has demanded data from the 911 call that was supposed to be made after jail officers found Jeffrey Epstein dead. The NYPD said it was unable to find any records of the call when Business Insider asked for them in June 2023 after the release of the report.

Business Insider filed a FOIA request with the Justice Department inspector general earlier this year requesting transcripts of interviews with key people around Epstein at the time he died, information about inmate interviews, phone call records, and photos and videos referenced in the report. The office says it has "a backlog of FOIA requests and very limited resources with which to process requests" and hasn't provided a timeline for completion.

In recent interviews, Patel and Bognino said the FBI would publish video of the area outside Epstein's cell demonstrating no one else entered it.

"There's just no way that you could have run an op and had people go into that cell and not have any video of it," Patel told podcaster Joe Rogan earlier this month.

Investigation into Epstein's plea deal

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility completed a report in 2020 about US Attorney Alexander Acosta's "poor judgment" in granting Epstein a light plea deal for his conduct in 2007.

The office has not released all of the underlying evidence for that investigation. Business Insider filed a FOIA request for that information earlier this year, and the agency acknowledged the request without saying if or when it would provide the records.

All of the Epstein flight logs

While many of Epstein's private flight records were disclosed by the Federal Aviation Administration and through litigation, certain periods have gaps. The US Marshals Service could also publish its documents from its inspections of his planes, which flew between the US Virgin Islands and the US mainland.

The FAA and the US Marshals Service did not respond to requests for comment.

How the FBI missed Epstein earlier

Across several legal complaints, dozens of Epstein victims have alleged that the FBI failed to stop him earlier, ignoring tips and pleas as early as the 1990s.

The FBI has not said whether it's in possession of intake forms or other records of those complaints. In court, the Justice Department has avoided answering whether it has looked for them. The agency asked a judge to dismiss the most recent lawsuit, filed in Washington, DC, on procedural grounds. The request is pending.

If the FBI were to find records from the 1990s and early 2000s, they could shed more light on what Epstein was doing during that time period, and whether the FBI took any action.

"Unfortunately, the FBI continues to fight survivors of Jeffrey Epstein despite their public proclamations otherwise," Jordan Merson, an attorney representing Epstein accusers in the lawsuit, told BI.