Newly discovered Epstein docs: Ex-Watergate prosecutor weighs in

The fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein file release was on President Trump's mind over Christmas. He used one of his dozens of holiday posts to wish, quote, Merry Christmas to all, including the many sleazebags who loved Epstein. It comes as the Justice Department now says it has uncovered more than a million additional documents potentially related to the case and that it may need a few more weeks to review and release them to the public. Under the law signed by President Trump in November,

all the DOJ Epstein documents were supposed to be released last Friday. Joining me now is Nick Ackerman. He was an assistant special Watergate prosecutor and a former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

All right, so these Epstein files, they go back decades, right? How can something like this happen, where the DOJ on Christmas Eve, mind you, suddenly says, hey, we're now become aware of more than a million more files,

potentially related to Epstein, that it's gonna take us weeks now to send out to the public?

Total nonsense. They had to know that these files existed right from the get-go. First of all, we know that prior to May of this year, Pam Bondi had lots of FBI agents going through all of these files

to determine whether President Trump's name was in these documents. So she knew where the documents were, but on top of that, even more glaring is the fact that all of these documents they had to know were in the Southern District of New York that prosecuted the Maxwell and Epstein criminal cases.

Why is that? Because when you're a prosecutor, you are obliged, you're commanded to return over to the defense exculpatory evidence under a Supreme Court decision known as Brady. And in order to do that, you have to get every file that's in the federal government, whether it's in the FAA or some other agency, they have to be under your control

so you can comply with your Brady obligations. And certainly Todd Blanche, who was in charge of this whole matter, was a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. He should have known that. So they had to know that these were there.

There's no excuse for it.

All right. I do want to ask you about the process of going through these documents to make the redactions, which can be a tedious thing. Is it any surprise with the number of years this case has gone on with a number of victims in this case, that it didn't meet its deadline, that the DOJ was not able to put everything out.

Well, they should have been able to because they knew who the victims were. It's a matter of just putting a black mark over people who are victims. That was it. There's certainly nothing in there for national security.

There's no other really valid reason not to turn over all this information. This should have taken no time at all. They should have been able to do it in that month. They knew where the documents were. This is just a lame excuse.

I do want to ask you, you know,

you've gotten bipartisan criticism of how this Pam Bondi has handled this, how her office has handled the release of these files. What do you think it is doing as far as the way people feel towards the DOJ, the public trust?

Oh, I think the public trust is completely dissolved. There is no public trust in the DOJ anymore, whether it's appearing in court before judges or whether it's just what they're doing with the public and telling the public what they have or don't have. I think she's got zero credibility at this point.

And when it comes to how these were put out, you had all of this back and forth where a couple of times the DOJ put documents out, then they rescinded them saying there are some issues here that we need to do some redactions and they put a hugely redacted where you couldn't see anything, just pages and pages

that were darkened. I mean, is this a normal process for putting out information to the public?

Not at all. Even when you do a federal, you know, Information Act request, you get things back that are redacted. You saw the Mueller report, that was redacted. But it's just little bits and pieces

so that you can't understand something that might relate to personal information or be really confidential on another investigation. There's none of that here. I mean, this is stuff that goes back to, you know, 2010 and before, that they should have

had ready to produce at the moment that law passed. I mean, this is, there's no excuse for any of this.

They were given a month, and there are a lot of documents, but they also had some inference that this was coming because it was discussed over and over and over again. And then Congress finally passed the law. The president signed it. Nick Mackerman, thank you for giving us some insight into how this should work and how you see it breaking down.

We really do appreciate it.

Former federal prosecutor Elise Adams is joining the chat. So Elise, first, let's look at this. I think it was surprising to a number of people that all of a sudden there are another million documents here that they will need to go through. Did that surprise you?

Well, Eric, I think from a process standpoint, this seems to indicate more of a diligence issue than a coverup. Look, the amount of documents don't surprise me because what's happened here is the searches have expanded. We aren't talking just about narrow searches

related to a case against Jeffrey Epstein. We are now talking about searches related to every possible mention of Jeffrey Epstein. So when this law was passed back in November, DOJ was going to have to cast a wider net for all possible relevant documents. So we knew that there were going to be – there was going to be voluminous.

The issue is timing, because they've had over a month and we're now hearing that there's over a million documents. So for me, sloppy, maybe. Suspicious, not necessarily.

But let me just follow up on that point, because based on your experience, right, as a former federal prosecutor, given the fact that, yes, the law was passed in November, but DOJ essentially knew this was coming. They knew that there was this push. It had been going on for months, even though it took a while to get there. Is this something that in your experience, if there was a big issue coming down the pike, that DOJ would have been preparing for and would have been reaching out to the SDNY,

for example, to say, we need you to just start getting ready?

Well, Erica, that's an interesting question. I think, look, they did know this was coming down the pike. That's why I said this was a diligence issue, right? Would it have made sense, especially knowing that the legislation was likely to pass to get everybody at the ready? You know, DOJ is saying they have hundreds of attorneys

working on this around the clock. So it would have made sense to do those things earlier. You know, and in my experience, we were extremely diligent. But that being said, the DOJ was not required to do this until the law passed, and now they have to comply. And it seems like their compliance has been hindered by those internal processes.

So it's very hard to speculate, and it's hard to draw a comparison, because this is an unprecedented situation. But that being said, to say you now need more weeks to comply with a law where the deadline was December 19th, again, indicates that they have not been as diligent as they should be, and they should be continuing to work around the clock to satisfy their obligations under

this law.

And, Ashley, there's been a lot of pushback on that, that this in fact is an unforced error, specifically if we just look at it from the perspective of survivors. I've spoken with a number of survivors, both prior to the release and then in the last week since these documents have come out, as well as their attorneys. Their frustration is that they're hearing from Todd Blanch, this is all about transparency and we want to protect the victims. They were not notified. They have not really, they feel,

been considered in all of this. Is this, I mean, I guess I go back to Ashley, is this an unforced error?

Well, first of all, I think you're exactly right, Erika. The survivors are the most important part of this story and protecting them is absolutely the number one priority. But however, I don't know if you've seen, I'm sure you have, is that they've been asking for volunteers of former people

that are in the prosecutor's office or formerly in the prosecutor's office to work over the holiday to try to speed up these new million documents that were given to them from the Southern District of New York and the FBI. I think that, as was mentioned,

that you had to wait until the law was passed. They weren't gonna pre-do it. But the bottom line is this just feeds into this conspiracy theory that has been starting. Listen, the Republicans started this, that there was a lot there, there's more there,

we should do this, and so it's just continuing that story, which, you know, is not good at all, I think, for the survivors.

Not good at all for the survivors. Eugene, is it also in some ways, based on what we're seeing, the delays that we've seen, now the new documents, Eugene, is it also taking away from perhaps what should be the focus, which is maybe there's a frustration with the DOJ and its conduct, but this is about Jeffrey Epstein's conduct and the impact that it had on hundreds and hundreds of women.

Well I think there's actually enough time to focus on both of those issues. We're talking about victims here who feel like they've been violated and not respected by their government or their elected officials that some of them I imagine supported with the hope and belief that justice would be served. But the ongoing concern since before Donald Trump

even returned to Washington that the Justice Department would be more focused on working for him instead of the American people, it's just one that is not anywhere near close to being addressed or at least eradicated considering this. Concerns about transparency, concerns about honesty

and independence are being questioned even on the right, even some of the people who wanted to support Trump and believed that he would handle things in a way that it doesn't seem like he currently is. And so I think both of those issues are issues that we'll continue to see people face and address

that we'll continue to see people face and address as we move forward in the new year.