FBI agents were told to 'flag' any Epstein records that mentioned Trump, Sen. Durbin says [View all]

Source: CNBC

FBI agents assigned earlier this year to review investigative files in the criminal case against notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were instructed to “flag” any documents that mentioned President Donald Trump, Sen. Richard Durbin said Friday.

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“According to information my office received, the FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD) … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline,” Durbin wrote to Patel.

“This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests,” the letter said.

“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned.”

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Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/trump-epstein-fbi-durbin.html

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Durbin sent letters to both Bondi and Patel about discrepancies between the handling of the Epstein files and the reported findings. The order to FBI agents was brought up in the letter to Patel.