“Justice” Department Fighting to Hide Records of FBI’s Protection of Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein was apparently a Mossad agent who was also given credentials as an American intelligence agent so that he could operate his underage sex blackmail ring in the United States without being bothered by the authorities.

It’s an embarrassing situation for everyone.

Miami Herald:

A federal judge on Tuesday kept alive a citizen muckraker’s quest to pry loose for the public’s benefit tens of thousands of FBI documents about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, including his time as a government informant.

Self-styled public information crusader Angela Clemente sued in May, seeking to force the FBI to release the documents on the grounds that Epstein is now dead, albeit under mysterious circumstances, and that there is an overarching public interest in releasing documents. The Justice Department, representing the FBI, is fighting the effort.

Clemente’s lawyer, James “Jim” Lesar, told McFadden that the FBI continues to sit on documents for which it had already cited other provisions that effectively waived privacy protections. And in any event, Epstein is dead, and the public has a right to know about Epstein’s relationship with the FBI.

“There’s a national and global press interest in this case, and the press has the right to know now, not a year from now, what those documents … say,” Lesar argued.

Documents released more than a decade ago, he argued, established that Epstein was given a light sentence in Florida when accused of sex crimes against underage girls and in exchange agreed to become an informant.

“Of utmost interest to the public is how much Epstein was being paid for his informant activities,” Lesar argued, citing unverified claims that Epstein had ties to drug traffickers and organized crime. “The taxpayers have a right to know immediately what their money was being spent on.”

Multiple news reports in late February said that a top Justice Department official was taken by surprise during a closed-door congressional briefing when lawmakers demanded to know if the FBI maintained a relationship with Epstein.

The Justice Department is likely taking Clemente seriously. She achieved a measure of fame for her dogged pursuit of FBI records regarding mobsters who were on the FBI payroll, even as they murdered rivals. Her digging, featured in a New York Times long profile of her in June 2013, led to the indictment of an FBI agent alleged to have protected mob bosses.

No one is mad about this because the media isn’t telling people to be mad about it.

People will say they don’t trust the media, don’t like the media, etc. But they will only ever do whatever the media tells them to do, and if the media doesn’t tell them to get mad, they won’t get mad.