The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law by President Trump in November 2025, mandates that the Department of Justice release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In January, the DOJ complied by releasing over 3 million files, many of which were heavily redacted.
Weeks later, after the squawking about the redactions simmered down a bit, and organizations using artificial intelligence and other means to comb through the files, the results are disappointing. There was almost an urban myth and a body of folklore surrounding the Epstein files. Three million pages is substantial, and there must be something in all those pages and videos pointing to others’ wrongdoing.
Let there be no mistake, the activity of Jeffrey Epstein and his cohorts is immoral, criminal, and evil. The trafficking of young women as sexual slaves and the flow of money to questionable characters is abhorrent behavior in need of justice. The big problem is that the information coming from the million pages was, for the most part, already known. Ostensibly, nothing has really surfaced to move the case ahead, at least in the United States.
There appears to be a different response with our neighbors in the United Kingdom. On his sixty-fifth birthday, the former Prince Andrew was arrested last week by authorities and charged with suspicion of misconduct in public office. Long before the files were released. Prince Andrew, the younger brother of King Charles III, was known to be an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein and was rumored to engage in immoral behavior, questionable money deals, and leaking government secrets to Russia.
The accusations against Andrew forced the Royal Family to strip him of his titles and remove him from royal housing last year, months before his official arrest. The release of the files is placing another British individual under scrutiny.
The former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, was arrested in London. Mendelson, another acquaintance of Epstein, was also charged with suspicion of misconduct in public office. Allegedly, Mandelson’s association with Epstein was more about financial matters than sexual ones. He is being investigated as to whether he leaked market-sensitive information to Epstein while he was a national minister.
Three weeks after the document dump, the only government interested in pursuing justice seems to be Great Britain. Politicians on our side of the ocean are bloviating about what serves their purposes, but they talk little about punishing anyone for their crimes. There is growing frustration that the Epstein saga will end up in the bin of other recent U.S. scandals, with no satisfactory conclusion. What appears to be the rule, rather than the exception, is that certain wrongdoing by powerful people never seems headed for a criminal courthouse.
Hence, the frustration that many members of the public must endure yet again. It is not as though the average Joe is out for blood, but justice is another thing. There must be accountability for the wrongdoers, so that the often-misunderstood phrase “no one is above the law” becomes true: the rich and powerful are not insulated from their actions. British law enforcement appears to try to break the privilege of the rich by arresting Prince Andrew.
More than just holding the rich and powerful accountable, there is a need to take steps never to let another Jeffrey Epstein manipulate human beings and become rich in the process. Human trafficking and sex exploitation, and the financial gain from those evil enterprises, are real things, and the public has to get its head out of the sand. One way to do that is to publicize and punish the evil.
So far, after 3 million pages and artificial intelligence engines running full-time, the only result seems to be fodder for political purposes. What a shame.