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Speaker 1: Three million. I just I want you to stop for

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a second whatever you're doing and just let that number land.

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Three million pages.

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Speaker 2: It's almost an impossible number to visualize, right, I mean,

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we're not talking about dry tax code here or some

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municipal zoning plan, No, not at all.

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Speaker 1: This is three million pages of records tied to I mean,

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maybe the most notorious, speculated about, and deeply disturbing criminal

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case in modern history.

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Speaker 2: It is a truly staggering amount of information. And what

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makes it even more intense, you know, and frankly more

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difficult to even begin to process, is how it arrived.

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Oh yeah, it didn't just trickle out. It wasn't a

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slow leak over a few years where reporters could kind

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of digest it in pieces.

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Speaker 1: Oh this was a fire hose.

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Speaker 2: It was a dam breaking. It was dropped essentially all

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at once in this massive compliance release by the Department of.

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Speaker 1: Justice, exactly. And as if that wasn't enough, sitting on

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top of that mountain of paper, one hundred and eighty

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thousand images, two thousand videos released today, Welcome to Thrilling Threads.

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I'm your host, and I think it's safe to say

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we're ready to pull on some very loose ends of

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this massive story and see what unravels.

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Speaker 2: And I'm here to help untangle that. Not yeah, because

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when you hear numbers like that, millions of pages, thousands

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of videos, it's just it's so easy to.

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Speaker 1: Get overwhelmed completely.

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Speaker 2: The natural human reaction is either to just shut down

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because the data is too much, or you know, you

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just read a sensational headline and you move on with

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your day.

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Speaker 1: But that's not what we do here.

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Speaker 2: No, our mission today is different. We're going to slow

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this whole thing down.

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Speaker 1: That's the plan. We aren't just skimming the surface or

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god forbid, reading tweets about it. We are going straight to.

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Speaker 2: The source, the only place to start, really.

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Speaker 1: We are combing through the official Department of Justice press briefing,

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the transcript of the announcement about this release of the

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Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell files. We're going to walk

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you through exactly what they said, what they released, and honestly,

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the incredible logistical nightmare behind getting this information out to

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the public.

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Speaker 2: It's a really fascinating look at the intersection of bureaucracy,

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the demand for transparency, and a very very dark criminal reality.

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The source material we have is the transcript of this

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DOJ official, you know, standing at a podium announcing this

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massive compliance. And I have to say, just reading the text,

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the vibe that comes off the page, it isn't mission accomplished.

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Speaker 1: No, not at all.

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Speaker 2: It's exhaustion.

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Speaker 1: It's pure exhaustion.

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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, you can practically hear the fatigue in the

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written words. This isn't a victory lab It feels more

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like survival, like they just finished running a marathon while

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carrying a filing cabinet full of lead.

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Speaker 1: That is a very very apt analogy. And we have

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to give some context for why this is happening right now.

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You know why today?

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Speaker 2: Why now?

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Speaker 1: The source material, the transcript, it explicitly mentions the driving

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force here. This isn't just some random act of transparency.

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Speaker 2: The DOJ didn't just wake up and feel generous at all.

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Speaker 1: They cite fulfilling President Trump's promise of transparency and more importantly,

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complying with the Act. The Act. It sounds so ominous

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when you say it like that, well sort of is.

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But it's the specific piece of legislation that basically forced

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this door open.

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Speaker 2: Correct, This is a statutory obligation. They are under a

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legal microscope to produce these materials that are deemed responsive.

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So what's so fascinating is that while the volume is

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just enormous, millions of pages, what is not in there

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is almost as interesting as what it is.

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Speaker 1: You're teasing the good stuff early, and we're definitely going

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to get to that. I mean, there are some really

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bizarre details in this briefing. There really are, Like the

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whole mention of commercial pornography found in the files, which

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was a curveball I was not expecting. And the very

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very specific, almost strange redaction rules they had to invent

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for men versus women.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it's redaction protocols. I am sure they are going

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to spark a lot of debate, a lot, I would

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think so. But we have to start with the human element.

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We have to, because getting three million pages ready for

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the public isn't something you just feed into an algorithm.

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Speaker 1: No, it's people, and apparently very very tired people. So

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let's unpack that first. The human costs do it? So

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the DOJ official, he lays out the timeline in the briefing,

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and it just sounds brutal.

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Speaker 2: Brutal is the word they.

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Speaker 1: Mentioned a seventy five day period a sprint.

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Speaker 2: They call it seventy five days and not you know,

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a casual seventy five days of nine to five work.

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Speaker 1: Yeow.

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Speaker 2: The source notes that the professionals involved met twice daily,

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sometimes more during this.

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Speaker 1: Sprint, twice a day for two and a half months.

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That alone is a nightmare scenario for any office job

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I've ever had.

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Speaker 2: I can't even imagine the burnout. But then then they

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drop the hammer on the timing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the part that got me.

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Speaker 2: They specifically call out that these teams, these human beings,

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work through Christmas, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day.

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Speaker 1: It's one thing to say you worked hard, it's another

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to say you gave up Christmas for this.

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Speaker 2: That is the detail that really struck me. We so

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often think of the government or the DJ as this

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faceless monolith, right totally, But the official at the podium

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is taking specific time to thank specific human beings. Over

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five hundred lawyers and professionals who essentially gave up their

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holidays to review the Epstein files.

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Speaker 1: Can you just put yourself in that room for a second.

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It's Christmas morning. Most people are opening presents with their

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kids drinking eggnog, watching a Christmas story m hm, and

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you are sitting in a secure government facility under fluorescent lights,

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staring at documents related to one of the darkest sex

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trafficking rings in history.

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Speaker 2: It's a grim, grim picture. And the source then lists

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the departments involved, which really gives you a sense of

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the scale of this operation.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just one little office tucked away somewhere, not

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even close.

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Speaker 2: It was the Office of the Attorney General, the Deputy

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Attorney General, the Criminal Division, the National Security Division, the FBI, FBI,

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the Southern District of Florida, the Southern District of New York,

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the SDNY, the Northern District of New York.

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Speaker 1: It's a roll call of pretty much the entire Justice

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Department infrastructure.

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Speaker 2: It's an all hands on deck emergency mobilization. And the

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DOJ official he makes a very poignant point about who

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these people actually are. He calls them highly trained reviewers.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's the reviewer's burden you mentioned earlier exactly.

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Speaker 2: He notes that these are people who usually spend their

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careers putting bad guys in jail.

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Speaker 1: These aren't interns they brought in to make copies. These

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are senior prosecutors. These are seasoned investigators, people whose job

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is normally active chasing down leads, building cases in.

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Speaker 2: Court, and for seventy five straight days, including holidays, they

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were all shifted to document review, which is, let's.

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Speaker 1: Be honest, generally the most tedious part of any legal word.

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Speaker 2: The most tedious, But in this context it's also psychologically crushing.

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You're not reviewing documents for a corporate merger. No, you're

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reviewing the internal records, the images, the videos of a

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prolific predator and his network. What does that do to

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a person after seventy five days?

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Speaker 1: It just completely reframes the whole data dump idea. We

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see the file size on a news report, but we

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don't see the five hundred people who were losing their

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minds over Christmas to make sure they didn't accidentally release

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a victim's name to the entire world.

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Speaker 2: And that's the key takeaway for this part. This wasn't

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just dragging a folder onto a public server and clicking share.

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This was a massive, coordinated, bureaucratic mobilization, a seventy five

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day sprint by hundreds of the government's top legal minds

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just to meet a deadline. Said by the act.

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Speaker 1: And speaking of the data, we have to talk about

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the math because the numbers in this briefing were spinning

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my head a little bit.

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Speaker 2: The numbers are absolutely critical to understanding the scope in

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the process.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the headline number we hear everywhere is three

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million pages released today, but the source says the total

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production is actually closer to three point five million pages.

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Speaker 2: Correct, there were some earlier smaller releases.

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Speaker 1: But here's the kicker. They started with six million pages.

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Speaker 2: That is the funnel, the input versus the output. It's

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a key distinction.

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Speaker 1: So my first question is where did the other three

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million pages go? Did they shred them? Did they hide

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them in a warehouse next to the ark of the Covenant?

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What happened to them? No?

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Speaker 2: And the official in the transcript is very very careful

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to explain this. This is all about the difference between

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collection and production. Okay, the source says the DOJ made

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a conscious choice to air on the side of over collection.

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Speaker 1: Over collection. That sounds like what I do with books.

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I'm never going to read. It sounds like hoarding.

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Speaker 2: In a legal context, it's actually a strategy for transparency,

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or at least that's the argument they're making. Oh, so,

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the source explains they wanted to ensure maximum transparency and

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compliance with the Act. So at the very beginning, they

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just grabbed everything everything everything FBI emails between agents, summaries

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of interviews, images, videos, all the generated materials, anything that

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even smelled like it was related to the Epstein investigation.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I see, So rather than trying to cherry pick

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files at the start, they just scooped up the whole pile.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, they cast the absolute widest net possible. That initial

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trawl resulted in six million pages. But then comes the

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hard part, the review process. Right now they have to

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determine what is actually responsive under the terms of the Act.

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Speaker 1: So this is where your attic analogy comes in, right,

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It is.

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Speaker 2: The perfect way to think about it. Imagine you're told

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you have to clean out a massive, chlored attic because

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there are important historical documents somewhere inside.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'm with you, I'm in the dusty attic.

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Speaker 2: The collection phase is you grabbing every single box, every

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loose paper, every old magazine and just dragging it all

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downstairs into the living room. Yeah, that's your six million pages.

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You haven't looked inside anything. Yet you just know it

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came from the attic.

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Speaker 1: Got it, And now my living room is an absolute

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disaster full of chunk exactly.

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Speaker 2: Okay, now starts the review phase. Yeah. You open the

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first box. It's just old receipts from a grocery store

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in nineteen ninety five. That's not relevant to the history

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of the house. That's non responsive. You toss it.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: The next box has the original blueprints for the house.

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You keep that. That's responsive.

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Speaker 1: So the drop from six million to three million pages

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isn't the DOJ burning evidence in a back room.

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Speaker 2: That is the claim.

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Speaker 1: It's them sorting out the trash from the treasure.

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Speaker 2: That is precisely the argument they're making. The source explicitly

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says that the reduction in numbers is due to relevance.

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It's responsive materials versus non responsive.

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Speaker 1: Can you give me a real world example from the case.

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Speaker 2: Sure. Let's say an FBI agent send an email to

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his partner saying, Hey, I'm going to be ten minutes

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late for the Epstein case briefing. Can you grab me

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a coffee?

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Speaker 1: Okay?

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Speaker 2: That email was probably collected in the initial six million

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page sweep because it has the word Epstein in it,

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but is not responsive to the acts demand for investigative materials.

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It's logistical chatter, so it's not in the three million

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pages released to the public.

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Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense, and it actually makes

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the three million page number even more impressive or you know,

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terrifying also, because that means those are three million pages

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of relevant stuff, not just a bunch of coffee orders

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and administrative fluff.

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Speaker 2: Correct. It is, in theory three million pages of substantive

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material related to the investigation and prosecution.

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Speaker 1: And within that substantive material we get to the digital evidence,

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the videos and the images. This part of the transcript

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really really caught me off guard.

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Speaker 2: It's one of the most misunderstood aspects of this entire release,

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I think.

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Speaker 1: So let's lay out the inventory. The DOJ says two

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thousand videos and one hundred and eighty.

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Speaker 2: Thousand images to staggering numbers.

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Speaker 1: When I hear one hundred and eighty thousand images in

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the Epstein files, my brain, and I think most people's

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brains goes to a very dark place. Immediately.

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Speaker 2: Of course, you.

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Speaker 1: Assume these are all documentation of crimes, every single one.

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Speaker 2: And that is a completely natural assumption. But The DOJ

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official takes specific time in the briefing to debunk that

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very idea. He makes a crucial distinction about what these

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which actually are.

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Speaker 1: He does. He says, and I'm pretty sure i'm quoting here,

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they are not all videos and images taken by mister

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Epstein or someone around him.

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Speaker 2: Right, And this is where that bizarre phrase comes in.

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Commercial pornography.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, explain that to me. The source says, large quantities

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of the images are commercial pornography. What does that even

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mean in this context?

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Speaker 2: Think about how digital forensics works. When the FBI seizes

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a computer, a server, a hard drive, say from Epstein's

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island or his Manhattan townhouse, they create a perfect copy

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of everything on that drive, every single file. The source

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states that these files include commercial pornography and images that

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were seized from Epstein's devices but which he did not take.

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This implies that Epstein or people in his network possessed

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a vast collection of adult material that was produced commercially.

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Speaker 1: So not illicit underground recordings they made themselves.

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Speaker 2: At least not all of it. A significant portion was,

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according to the DOJ, stand commercially available pornography, albeit likely

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disturbing given the context of who owned it.

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Speaker 1: So a huge chunk of that one hundred and eighty

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thousand number is just a pre existing collection, a.

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Speaker 2: Stash exactly in a forensic sense. It's clutter. But because

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it was on the sea's devices, it was collected and

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because of the act, every single one of those one

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hundred and eighty thousand images had to be reviewed by

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a human being.

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Speaker 1: But the source does pivot right. They don't say it's all.

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Speaker 2: Commercial, no, and that is the absolutely chilling part. After

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explaining the commercial material, the official admits some of the

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videos though, and some of the images do appear to

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be taken by mister Epstein or by others.

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Speaker 1: So the real evidence, the self produced material is mixed

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in with the commercial stuff.

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Speaker 2: It is the needle in the haystack, but in this

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case the haystack is made of well other deeply unsavory material.

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Speaker 1: Let's just go back to the reviewers for a second.

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We talked about them working on Christmas, but now realize

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what their job was. It was to look at one

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hundred and eighty thousand images one by one and decide

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is this a commercial video that was bought online or

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is this a home video of a crime being committed.

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Speaker 2: The psychological toll of making that distinction over and over

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again is immense. It's beyond comprehension for most people.

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Speaker 1: You're hunting for evidence of abuse in a sea of

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explicit content, and you have to be right every single.

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Speaker 2: Time, absolutely, because if you mistake a personal video of

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a victim for a commercial one and it somehow gets

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released unredacted, you've just destroyed that victim's privacy forever.

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Speaker 1: And if you mistake a commercial one for evidence, you

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waste investigative resources. The stakes are impossibly high.

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Speaker 2: They are, which leads us directly into what might be

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the most controversial part of this whole transcript.

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Speaker 1: The redaction rules, or, as I was thinking of it,

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the art of who gets hidden.

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Speaker 2: This is where the legal rubber really meets the road.

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The DOJ had to balance two powerful opposing forces, the Act,

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which demands maximum transparency, and their core mandate of victim protection.

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Speaker 1: And the solution they landed on is well, it's fascinatingly

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gender it is.

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Speaker 2: It's a very clear, bright line rule they created. The

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source lays out the protocol very specifically. They state we

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redacted every woman depicted in any image or video.

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Speaker 1: Every single woman a blanket.

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Speaker 2: Rule, no exception, well, one major exception.

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Speaker 1: All right, Gislaine Maxwell.

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Speaker 2: Correct, missus Maxwell is a convicted perpetrator, so she is

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not redacted. Yeah, but every other woman, regardless of who

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they are, their age, their role is blacked out or blurred.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So that's the rule for women, protect all potential victims.

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Simple enough. But what about the men?

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Speaker 2: This is where it gets really interesting. The source is

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incredibly blunt. We did not redact images of any men.

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Speaker 1: Woah, just flat out, flat out.

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Speaker 2: So if you are a man and you are in

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a photograph in this document dump, your face is visible

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to the entire world.

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Speaker 1: Unless there's a small caveat.

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Speaker 2: Isn't there a very small one? A man is only

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redacted if it was quote impossible to redact the woman

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without also redacting the man.

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Speaker 1: So if they're standing too close or he's behind her,

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he might get partially obs secured, just as collateral damage

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to protect the woman's identity exactly.

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Speaker 2: But if he's standing alone or off the side, the

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men are completely exposed.

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Speaker 1: Let's really unpack the logic there. Why make that stark distinction.

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Speaker 2: It's a game of probabilities and victimology in the specific

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context of the Epstein and Maxwell case, the victims were overwhelmingly,

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if not exclusively, female, and often underage. Therefore, the DOJ

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is operating on the presumption that any woman depicted in

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these files could be a victim, and since they can't

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possibly interview every single person in one hundred and eighty

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thousand photos to confirm their status.

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Speaker 1: They just chose the safest option redact them all.

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Speaker 2: Better safe than sorry applied to personal privacy on a

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massive scale. But for the men, the presumption is flipped.

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The men depicted are likely not the victims of this

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specific sex trafficking ring. They are more likely to be associates, employees, guests,

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or potentially perpetrators or enablers, So.

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Speaker 1: They don't get the benefit of the doubt. They don't

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get the blanket victim protection reaction.

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Speaker 2: They do not. It's a powerful and controversial choice. It

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basically sends a message, if you are a woman in

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these files, we are assuming you might be a victim

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and we are protecting you. If you are a man,

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you're on your own.

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Speaker 1: That is going to open up a lot of men

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to a hell of a lot of public scrutiny.

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Speaker 2: It absolutely will, and it's a deliberate policy choice made

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at the highest levels of the DOJ.

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Speaker 1: Now there is a kind of escape hatch here, though

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the source mentions Congress.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the congressional loophole this is key.

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Speaker 1: What does it say?

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Speaker 2: The official states that if any member of Congress wishes

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to review the production in its unredacted form, they are

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welcome to make arrangements with the Department to do so.

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Speaker 1: So the original unblacked out versions exist. They haven't been destroyed.

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They're just behind a gate.

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Speaker 2: They are gated. The raw information is preserved. If a

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Congressional committee with oversight authority wants to see exactly who

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those redacted women are or view the raw unedited files,

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they can.

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Speaker 1: Which sudjusts a sort of tiered transparency, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: It does. The public gets the sanitized for victim protection version.

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The official oversight body Congress can access the raw data

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if they have a legitimate reason.

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Speaker 1: Which I guess makes sense from a governance perspective, But

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it also means the full truth is still slightly out

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of reach for the average citizen listening to this right now.

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Speaker 2: That is always the tension in these massive releases. Total

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absolute transparency would mean a total violation of victim privacy,

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so we get this hybrid model.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of things we don't get, let's talk about the

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excluded files. This is section five of our breakdown. There's

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a whole list of things that just simply didn't make

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the cut for release.

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Speaker 2: This is the no fly list of the document. Dum

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categories of information that were completely withheld.

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Speaker 1: The source runs through the standard ones. First PII personally

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identifiable information.

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Speaker 2: Right, you can't relieve people's social security numbers, bank accounts,

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or home addresses. That's standard practice standard.

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Speaker 1: Then medical files.

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Speaker 2: Again standard privacy law hipA and all that.

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Speaker 1: Makes sense absolutely, and then see sam child sexual abuse material.

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The source says this was obviously excluded.

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Speaker 2: Which thank god. The last thing we want is the

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Department of Justice becoming a distributor of that horrific material.

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Speaker 1: Can't argue with that one. Then there's gore violence, images

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of death, physical abuse or injury. Those were polled.

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Speaker 2: Also makes sense, there's no public interest served by releasing that.

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Speaker 1: And finally, active investigations, anything that would jeopardize a current case,

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which is interesting. It is interesting because it implies there

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might be current cases still running that are connected to this.

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Speaker 2: It's a standard clause they put in every release like this.

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But yes, it does leave that door tantalizingly open. But

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the real surprise, the thing that made my ears perk

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up when I read the transcript was the category of

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national security.

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Speaker 1: So this is the big one that this is the

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ultimate trump.

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Speaker 2: Card, right, It's always the ultimate trump card. National security

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is the giant black marker the government uses to hide

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anything embarrassing or into venient.

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Speaker 1: We can't show you this because it would endanger the nation.

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It's the classic redaction tool.

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Speaker 2: It is. But listen to what the DOJ official explicitly

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says in this briefing. He says, no files are being

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withheld or redacted on that basis.

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Speaker 1: Wait what? None? Zero files?

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Speaker 2: None? The Act allows for it. They could have used

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that excuse. The official acknowledges that the law permits withholding

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for national security or foreign policy reasons, but he states

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very clearly they chose not to use it.

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Speaker 1: That feels like a massive twist in the story. I mean,

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how many conspiracy theories are out there that Epstein was

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some kind of intelligence asset, countless that he was working

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for Masad or the CIA, or that these tapes contain

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blackmail on world leaders that could destabilize global politics exactly.

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Speaker 2: The theories are endless and elaborate, and by standing up

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at a podium and stating no files are being withheld

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on national security grounds, the dog is effectively trying to

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pour cold water on all of it.

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Speaker 1: They're saying, whatever is in here, it's not classified intelligence,

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or at.

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Speaker 2: The very least, they are saying, we are not using

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that excuse to hide it from you.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's a crucial distinction. It forces us to look

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at the crimes as crimes, not as some grand spy

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thriller plot.

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Speaker 2: It strips away that veneer of state secrecy. It says,

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if something is redacted in these files, it's to protect

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a victim or a legal privilege, not to protect the state.

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Speaker 1: That's a huge shift in the narrative. It kind of

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grounds the whole thing in a much grittier, more sordid reality.

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Speaker 2: It does. It makes it less James Bond and more

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just brutal, sorted abuse.

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Speaker 1: Now, of course the skeptics will have a field day

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with that.

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Speaker 2: Well, of course they'll say that if there were any

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real intelligence files, they would never have been put in

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this collection to begin with.

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Speaker 1: Right, we didn't withhold them because we never put them

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in the box in the first place.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, you can't prove a negative. But taking the source

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the official DOJ statement at face value, it is a

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significant declaration of transparency on a very sensitive topic.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of declarations, there is a moment in this transcript

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where the tone just shifts on a dime.

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Speaker 2: It's a palpable shift.

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Speaker 1: We've been talking numbers, protocols, reactions, very bureaucratic, and then

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suddenly the DOJ official just gets mad.

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Speaker 2: He does. We move from the official reporting function of

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the briefing to a very personal defending of the department.

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Speaker 1: You called it umbridge, and the speaker actually uses that word,

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doesn't he He.

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Speaker 2: Does, he says, and it's a powerful line. I take

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umbridge at the suggestion that the Attorney General or this

475
00:22:35,039 --> 00:22:38,680
department does not take child exploitation or sex trafficking seriously.

476
00:22:38,759 --> 00:22:40,200
Speaker 1: He sounds personally offended.

477
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:43,839
Speaker 2: He is, And it really highlights the immense political pressure

478
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:47,319
cooking around this entire release. There is a narrative out there,

479
00:22:47,319 --> 00:22:50,680
and the speaker references it as coming from slight members

480
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:53,240
of Congress and some of the public eye that the

481
00:22:53,279 --> 00:22:56,440
DOJ has been dragging its feed, or protecting powerful people,

482
00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,400
or just not caring about the victims in the Epstein case.

483
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,079
Speaker 1: And he is having absolutely none of it. He just

484
00:23:01,079 --> 00:23:03,400
starts rattling off stats like he's in a rap battle.

485
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:05,200
He came prepared with receipts he.

486
00:23:05,279 --> 00:23:09,119
Speaker 2: Absolutely did to prove the department's worth. He pivots completely

487
00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:11,880
away from the Epstein case and just lists what the

488
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,319
DOJ has accomplished in the fight against trafficking last year alone.

489
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go through these numbers, because they're pretty impressive.

490
00:23:17,759 --> 00:23:21,559
He says. The FBI located twenty seven hundred victims of

491
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:23,279
child exploitation last year.

492
00:23:23,559 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 2: Twenty seven hundred people rescued. Yeah, that is not a

493
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:26,799
small number. No.

494
00:23:27,319 --> 00:23:30,839
Speaker 1: He mentions that they terminated three point eight million million

495
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:32,920
dark web pedophile accounts.

496
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:34,720
Speaker 2: Three point eight mone. It just shows you the sheer

497
00:23:34,839 --> 00:23:38,000
scale of the digital fight they're engaged in every single day.

498
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:41,039
Speaker 1: He brings up a specific case in La eleven defendants

499
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:44,400
charged for sex trafficking of illegal immigrants and underage women.

500
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:48,119
And then this thing called Operation Restored Justice, where they

501
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,160
rescued two hundred and five child victims and arrested two

502
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:52,559
hundred and ninety three offenders.

503
00:23:52,599 --> 00:23:54,440
Speaker 2: He's stacking the deck. He's laying his cards on the

504
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:56,799
table and saying, look at the scoreboard. His argument is,

505
00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,160
while you are criticizing us for the speed of this

506
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,319
one compliance report on an old case.

507
00:24:02,559 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 1: We're out here on the front lines arresting current predators

508
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:06,039
every single day.

509
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,039
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a passionate defense of the entire institution. He's

510
00:24:10,079 --> 00:24:13,400
basically saying, don't you dare judge our total commitment to

511
00:24:13,599 --> 00:24:17,119
justice based on the seventy five day timeline of this

512
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:18,519
one bureaucratic task.

513
00:24:19,039 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 1: He really calls out the public in Congress for ignoring

514
00:24:23,039 --> 00:24:26,319
these other successes while quickly pointing a finger. It's a

515
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:29,480
rare moment of like bureaucratic vulnerability.

516
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 2: You can feel the heat on him and the department.

517
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,279
He knows that this release is not happening in a vacuum.

518
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,640
It's happening in a very hostile and skeptical political environment.

519
00:24:38,759 --> 00:24:41,559
Speaker 1: And that defensiveness, it tells you just how high the

520
00:24:41,599 --> 00:24:44,519
stakes are for the DOJ's reputation. They know that no

521
00:24:44,559 --> 00:24:46,759
matter what they release or how they do it, some

522
00:24:46,799 --> 00:24:48,720
people will say it's not enough for that it's a

523
00:24:48,759 --> 00:24:49,759
cover up, which.

524
00:24:49,599 --> 00:24:52,799
Speaker 2: Brings us to the final inevitable reality of a release

525
00:24:52,839 --> 00:24:54,400
of this size and complexity.

526
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 1: Mistakes, the inevitable mistakes, as you called it. The speaker

527
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,640
just admits it right up front. He says that with

528
00:25:01,799 --> 00:25:04,759
three million pages being reviewed under such a tight deadline,

529
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:06,079
mistakes are inevitable.

530
00:25:06,079 --> 00:25:08,319
Speaker 2: It's a smart public relations move if we're being honest

531
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:12,240
about it. How you lower expectations, you pre apologize. If

532
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,039
you stand up and claim absolute perfection and then one

533
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:19,640
victim's name slips through unredacted, you get crucified. But if

534
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:22,000
you say, look, this is a monumental task and mistakes

535
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,519
are inevitable, and then a name slips through, you get

536
00:25:24,519 --> 00:25:27,519
to say we told you this might happen, and we

537
00:25:27,599 --> 00:25:28,640
have a system to fix it.

538
00:25:29,079 --> 00:25:31,799
Speaker 1: And they do have a remedy. They mentioned a specific

539
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:32,759
email inbox.

540
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 2: Yes, they established a dedicated email inbox specifically for victims.

541
00:25:37,599 --> 00:25:40,960
It's apparently been active since December. The sole purpose is

542
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:44,599
for victims to report redaction errors they find in the documents.

543
00:25:44,759 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: So if a victim or someone representing them is going

544
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,839
through the files and sees their face or name unredacted,

545
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:53,960
they can email the DJ and say, hey, you missed one.

546
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 2: Fix this, which is It's good that it exists, but

547
00:25:58,240 --> 00:25:59,799
it's also tragic that it needs to.

548
00:26:00,079 --> 00:26:02,279
Speaker 1: It puts the burden back on the victim, doesn't it.

549
00:26:02,279 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 2: It does. It puts the burden on the victim to

550
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,640
police the DOJ's release and relift their trauma, to protect

551
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:08,440
their own privacy.

552
00:26:08,519 --> 00:26:11,319
Speaker 1: Hi, you guys messed up and broadcast my identity to

553
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:13,880
the world. Could you please fix it? That is a

554
00:26:14,079 --> 00:26:16,200
very very tough email to have to.

555
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:17,519
Speaker 2: Write, extremely tough.

556
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 1: There's also this other weird loose end, this detail about

557
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:25,559
the twenty nineteen law firm documents. What is that about?

558
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:27,759
Speaker 2: This is one of the final pieces of the puzzle

559
00:26:27,799 --> 00:26:30,640
that isn't in place yet. The source mentions a very

560
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,759
small portion of documents that are currently in limbo.

561
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:35,759
Speaker 1: Why are they stuck? What's the hold up?

562
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:38,880
Speaker 2: They came from an unnamed law firm and were produced

563
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,480
to the Southern District of New York back in twenty nineteen,

564
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,160
but they are subject to a protective order in a

565
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:46,359
separate civil lawsuit.

566
00:26:46,519 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: Ah so it's a legal jurisdiction issue, civil court versus

567
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,359
the criminal investigation exactly.

568
00:26:52,759 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 2: The DOJ wants to release them as part of this

569
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,880
transparency push, but a civil court judge has a lock

570
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,759
on them, so or says, the DJ has already filed

571
00:27:01,759 --> 00:27:04,079
the motion to get that protective order lifted.

572
00:27:03,799 --> 00:27:06,599
Speaker 1: So once the judge grants that motion, they go out immediately.

573
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 2: That's the plan. So there is still a small part

574
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:10,759
two coming technically.

575
00:27:10,599 --> 00:27:13,279
Speaker 1: But the bigger next chapter, it seems, is the final

576
00:27:13,319 --> 00:27:14,319
report to Congress.

577
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 2: The final report.

578
00:27:15,279 --> 00:27:19,279
Speaker 1: Yes, the source mentions that a final comprehensive report will

579
00:27:19,279 --> 00:27:22,240
be submitted to both the House and the Senate Judiciary committees.

580
00:27:23,039 --> 00:27:27,519
And this report will specifically list all government officials and

581
00:27:27,599 --> 00:27:30,480
politically exposed persons named in the Act.

582
00:27:30,839 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 2: And that sounds an awful lot like the list that

583
00:27:33,759 --> 00:27:35,599
everyone has been talking about for years.

584
00:27:35,759 --> 00:27:38,319
Speaker 1: It really does. It's one thing to have three million

585
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:40,960
pages of raw data, but it's another thing to have

586
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,880
an official report from the DOJ that names names.

587
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:48,279
Speaker 2: And that phrase politically exposed persons is a very specific,

588
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:52,519
very loaded term in legal and financial circles. It implies

589
00:27:52,559 --> 00:27:54,200
people with prominence and influence.

590
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: So we have the three million pages and now we're

591
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,319
just waiting for the DOJ to hand Congress the needle,

592
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:00,640
or a.

593
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 2: List of all the needles found in the haystack.

594
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 1: A list of needles.

595
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 2: Wow, it's coming in due course, as the speaker says.

596
00:28:06,839 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 1: In due course the favorite phrase of bureaucrats and government

597
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,480
officials everywhere. So let's try to wrap this all up.

598
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:18,720
We've covered the immense human costs, the staggering numbers, the

599
00:28:18,759 --> 00:28:22,480
weird distinction about commercial porn, the very controversial gendered redactions,

600
00:28:22,519 --> 00:28:28,039
the huge national security surprise, and the DOJ's very defensive posture.

601
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 2: It is a massive, deeply imperfect, but ultimately historic data.

602
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,279
Speaker 1: Dump, it really is. And the thrilling takeaway here for

603
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:38,359
me is that dichotomy you mentioned at the start. It's

604
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,480
the central tension of this whole story. On one hand,

605
00:28:41,519 --> 00:28:46,799
you have this dry, exhaustive, mind numbing bureaucracy meetings twice

606
00:28:46,839 --> 00:28:50,440
a day, compliance protocols, redaction rules. And on the other hand,

607
00:28:50,799 --> 00:28:53,839
the subject matter is the darkest, most twisted reality of

608
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,279
human depravity imaginable.

609
00:28:55,359 --> 00:28:58,359
Speaker 2: It's the banality of evil meeting the banality of bureaucracy.

610
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,279
It's just it's such a strange collision. You have highly

611
00:29:01,319 --> 00:29:05,960
paid government lawyers working through Christmas to apply redaction software

612
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:07,799
to photos from a criminal enterprise.

613
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: It's a collision of two completely different worlds. And the

614
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,960
fact that we have the pages now, but the list

615
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:15,400
of politically exposed persons is still to come. That just

616
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:17,039
keeps the suspense alive, doesn't it.

617
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 2: The story is not over, not by a long shot.

618
00:29:21,119 --> 00:29:23,960
This was just a massive chapter being published for the

619
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:24,680
world to read.

620
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: So here is the question we want to leave with you,

621
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:29,160
our listener. We talked about all the trade offs today.

622
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,599
The DOJ official argues they were caught in a triangle

623
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:36,160
between speed, transparency, and victim protection.

624
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:40,279
Speaker 2: It's the classic project management problem, the iron triangle. Fast,

625
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:43,359
good or cheap. You can only pick two. In this case,

626
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,839
it was fast, transparent or perfectly safe for victims exactly.

627
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,559
Speaker 1: And they admitted that with a release of this size

628
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:54,039
under the studline, mistakes were inevitable. So here's the thought experiment.

629
00:29:54,599 --> 00:29:56,880
If you were in charge of this release, if you

630
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,720
are the one canceling Christmas for those five hundred lawyers,

631
00:30:00,359 --> 00:30:01,240
what would you have done.

632
00:30:01,319 --> 00:30:02,079
Speaker 2: It's a tough call.

633
00:30:02,279 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: Would you have prioritized getting the information out faster to

634
00:30:05,039 --> 00:30:07,240
the public, excepting that some mistakes would happen and some

635
00:30:07,319 --> 00:30:09,759
victims might be harmed, or would you have slowed it

636
00:30:09,799 --> 00:30:12,400
all down even more, maybe taken another year to try

637
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,039
and ensure absolutely zero errors and redaction.

638
00:30:15,519 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 2: What is the true cost of transparency when it's measured

639
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:23,039
against the privacy of a single victim whose name slips through.

640
00:30:23,799 --> 00:30:25,920
That's the real human question.

641
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,319
Speaker 1: At the heart of this it is we genuinely want

642
00:30:28,319 --> 00:30:30,359
to know what you think. Head to the comments and

643
00:30:30,359 --> 00:30:32,799
tell us your stance. Would you push the button for

644
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,200
speed or would you hold the line for absolute accuracy?

645
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 2: I am very, very curious to see where our listeners

646
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:39,880
land on this dilemma.

647
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: He too. Thanks for unpacking this labyrinth with us today.

648
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,000
This has been thrilling threads we'll see in the comments.

649
00:30:46,119 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 2: Goodbye everyone,