The Most ████ Administration Ever

[Celerity]

The Epstein files are here, and they are too redacted to satisfy anyone.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/12/epstein-files-release-trump-clinton-redactions/685364/

https://archive.ph/4GmQz



Late on the Friday afternoon before Christmas, and just hours before a deadline mandated by Congress, the Department of Justice released part of the trove of documents known, colloquially, as the Epstein files. The contents, most of which I’ve reviewed, are, at different times, unnerving, enraging, banal, even absurd (in the case of a photo of Jeffrey Epstein posing with a giant Winnie the Pooh mascot). More than anything, they are ████, which is to say, unknown, as many of the files are heavily redacted.

The majority of this tranche of files consists of thousands of documents containing more than 3,000 of photos of Epstein’s homes, in New York City and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, filled with art and photographs of nude and half-clothed women. One photograph in the files appears to be a framed mirror selfie of Epstein and Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist. There are photos of Epstein’s jet-setting lifestyle, a number of which depict either Epstein or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell with former President Bill Clinton. (Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison term for sex trafficking.) The photos appear to show Clinton reclining in a hot tub with a person whose face is redacted, at a table with the actor Kevin Spacey, with his arm around Michael Jackson, sitting at a table with the Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, and on what appears to be an airplane with a woman sitting in his lap (her face is redacted).

Representatives for Spacey, Jagger, and the Jackson estate did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a statement on X this evening, a spokesperson for Clinton said, “There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first.” A couple images of President Trump appear to be in the files—one shows what appears to be his face among a series of photos on a desk, posing next to unidentified women. The files also include a legal complaint that alleges a verbal interaction between Trump, Epstein, and a 14-year-old girl. (In response to a request for comment, the White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson did not address questions about Trump’s appearances, and instead said that the Trump Administration is “the most transparent in history” and “has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have.”)

Many of the images inside the files show Epstein and Maxwell having fun in exotic locations—private planes, helicopters, beach-side villas, yachts, unidentified mansions. Many of the unredacted image files are banal or not explicit. But a number of the redacted ones are, or at least are unnerving: scantily clad women in various poses, with much of their nude bodies and faces blurred out; a framed image of an unidentifiable person in pajamas on their knees in front of a photographer; entire scanned sheets of redacted image thumbnails labeled St. Trop/Clinton Morocco. Nude ████.

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