Ex-FBI leader rips DOJ over ‘panicked’ call for holiday volunteers to redact Epstein files

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) recently issued a call for volunteers to come into the office over the Christmas and New Years’ holidays to help prepare Jeffrey Epstein documents for release. One former deputy director of the FBI is now accusing the administration of being held captive to its own lack of urgency.

During a Tuesday segment on CNN’s “The Source,” Andrew McCabe – who was deputy director of the FBI under Presidents Barack Obama and Trump – said the DOJ appears to be approaching the Epstein files in a way similar to documents released via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

He noted that in FOIA releases, the government will often take time to black out the names and personal identifying information of anyone who hasn’t been charged with a crime. He then reminded viewers that the Epstein Files Transparency Act was strict in only allowing redactions to protect victims and ongoing investigations — not reputations.

“The problem here is that that that kind of old way of doing business does not seem to be consistent with the way this law was written, this this tranche of information was not put out because of a FOIA request,” McCabe said. “It was put out because of an act of Congress. And I think it specifically states that you can’t redact names of people to avoid embarrassment and things like that. So, yeah, there they are, kind of bringing the old analysis of how to look at releasing very sensitive investigative files to the public, rather than kind of adapting to what the law actually requires.”

McCabe went on to acknowledge that redacting all documents and evidence pertaining to Epstein’s two federal criminal investigations was “a massive amount of work,” but also pointed out that the FBI had earlier this year pored through the Epstein files (and flagged all mentions of Trump). Epstein’s brother, Mark, said in November that a “pretty good source” confided to him that the FBI had been busy “sanitizing” the Epstein files in anticipation of their release.

“They actually pushed hundreds, potentially thousands of employees through the same process of reviewing these materials and redacting victims names, witnesses names, things like that,” McCabe said. “So it’s not clear to me why this this has to be done from scratch this time. But apparently they are still pretty far behind the ball in an enormous amount of work. And that’s why you see these somewhat panicked calls going out for volunteers over the holidays.”