The Epstein List: Celebrities Named, Predators Redacted

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Välkommen till Max. Hey everyone, Ellie here, wishing you a happy Friday. George W. Bush is back in the news this week. Bush has really chosen to keep a very low profile since he left office. Probably leading the most quiet and private post-presidential life of any modern president. But this week, George W. Bush published an essay on a Substack. He has a Substack now.

Uh about George Washington, which came out on President's Day. And I just want to share a little bit of that with you. So here's something George W. Bush writes, not the first paragraph I'm just picking up in the middle. Few qualities have inspired me more than George Washington's humility. I have studied the corrupting nature of power and how retaining power for power's sake has infected politics for generations.

Our first president could have remained all powerful, but twice he chose not to, meaning once when he resigned his military commission and then when he resigned after being president for two terms. In doing so, he set a standard for all presidents to live up to. His life, with all its flaws and achievements, should be studied by all who aspire to leadership. George Washington's humility in giving up power willingly remains among the most consequential decisions.

and important examples in American politics. Okay. End quote. I love this kind of stuff. Maybe I'm a soft touch or whatever, but especially this year. uh as we come up on our 250th anniversary. I did see some coverage of it as, oh, George W. Bush subtweets Donald Trump or, you know, throws shade at Donald Trump.

I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. Lessons of humility are always valuable to me. And so I I want to make two proposals as we head towards the two fiftieth, which by the way I'm very into. I'm gonna do an event down at Mount Vernon at some point uh in the late summer that I'm really looking forward to.

So number one, let's just enjoy and embrace the cliches and the corny stuff because it matters. Things like one president writing about his predecessors and praising their humility. It's not just Washington in this article. That's valuable. I like that stuff and I think it's worth. stepping back and taking a breath and reflecting and embracing this type of input from our former president.

And the other thing is let's try to not make every damn thing about Donald Trump please. Maybe George W. Bush did have Trump in mind. Yes, it's a particularly good moment. To remember the importance of humility. But does it have to be like, oh, he's shading Donald Trump? Let's just take it for what it is. Let's just take it as a positive message from a former president that hopefully we can all draw some lessons and some inspiration from. Okay, maybe I'm being Pollyanna-ish here, but.

That's my suggestion. Okay, on with this week's column, which will not be Pollyanna-ish. Uh as usual, we'll take a, I think, a sharp view of a current issue. Hope you enjoy. As always, send your thoughts, questions, comments to letters atcafe.com.

What do Elvis Presley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Donald Trump, Jill Biden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Marilyn Monroe all have in common? Now I know this reads like one of those old bubblegum rapper riddles, but it's real. Your answer?

They're all on a Jeffrey Epstein-related list released by Attorney General Pam Bondi this week. More precisely, the named individuals are, quote, government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the Epstein Files, end quote, according to a letter from the Attorney General to Congress filed pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Bondy's list is over 300 names long, and it is, seemingly by design, utterly undifferentiated nonsense.

It includes obvious criminal evildoers, Jeffrey Epstein himself and Ghlaine Maxwell. Bondi also names people who were friends or business associates of Epstein's and, at a minimum, engaged in embarrassing or worse conduct. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, no longer officially a prince, Les Wexner, Kathy Rumler, Peter Atia, and many more. And then Bondi's list includes dozens of people who have never met Jeffrey Epstein and who have done nothing wrong whatsoever.

Marilyn Monroe died in nineteen sixty two when Epstein was nine years old. Elvis made it until nineteen seventy seven. A search of both names in DOJ's Epstein library, which actually has a semi-useful search function, reveals that they're included simply because somebody somewhere referenced them in passing in some Epstein adjacent email. The list isn't even internally consistent. For example, the Justice Department's Epstein files

include various mentions of John Lennon, but he's not included on the Aegis scattershot list, along with his fellow prematurely deceased musical prodigies. Kurt Cobain is listed. None of this makes any sense. It's a wonder Bondi didn't include, I don't know, Thomas Jefferson. After all, he too is quote unquote named in the Epstein Files dozens of times by people referencing his constitutional and political writings, of course.

At this point, simply being named in the Epstein files has no meaning without more. Heck, if you enter my name, Ellie Honig, in the search bar, you'll get six. Hits, don't panic. They all involve references to articles I've written or on air clips from CNN. Bondi's list also includes a slew of modern lawmakers and political figures.

But the vast majority of them had no involvement in Epstein's child sex trafficking ring. For example, if you search Ocasio Cortez, who was a child herself when Epstein was committing his crimes, you'll find nothing but references to public statements she's made recently as a member of Congress. And you'll find no connection whatsoever to Epstein or Maxwell. The list also includes Representatives Thomas Massey and Roe Connor, the primary sponsors of the Epstein Files Law itself.

Neither is remotely tied to any wrongdoing. To the contrary, both have relentlessly battled Bondi and DOJ to gain full access to the documents themselves.

The lesson, as always, is that Bondi and this Justice Department are simply not to be trusted. If you want to see exactly what involvement any individual had with Epstein, then manually enter the name in the Epstein Library search bar and check out the results for yourself. But even then.

You'll likely come up less than fully enlightened. Bondi explains in her letter that, quote, no records were withheld or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official. public figure or foreign dignitary, end quote, and there she's quoting a requirement from the Epstein Files Law itself. This good listener is bullcrap.

Take, for example, a 2014 email to Epstein that reads, quote, Thank you for a fun night. Your littlest girl was a little naughty. Ugh. I don't love reading that, but that's what it says. The name of this skin crawling sender? Redacted. In a 2018 email, Epstein is informed that, quote, I found at least three very good young poor, but we was so tired. I will cover up this week. Meet this one, not the beauty queen, but we both likes her a lot. End quote. Who sent this one?

Redacted. Or, and only one more for now, I promise. How about the person who emailed Epstein in twenty seventeen? Quote, I met name of victim redacted today. She is like Lolita from Nabokov. That's how you say it, by the way. My brother's an English teacher. Femme miniature smiley face emoji. So now I should send you her type of candidates only, question mark, end quote.

Who sent that one? You guessed it. Redacted. And then there's the federal draft indictment that lists Epstein and four purported co-conspirators. You ready for who these are? Redacted, redacted, redacted, and redacted. Fondi ultimately tells us in the letter that DOJ is finally, totally, absolutely done producing the Epstein file.

But this is at least the third time the Justice Department has declared its work finished. In July 2025, last summer, the FBI proclaimed in a memo that it had reviewed all files and quote, no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted. Then in late January, Todd Blanche announced that, quote, today's release of documents marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process, end quote.

If only saying something three times could make it materialize, like when you say Betelgeuse three times, well then DOJ would be in the clear.

Any next steps now sit primarily with Massey, Kana, and other members of Congress. Will they accept the Justice Department's half-assed incoherent document production or will they insist on more? Massey or Kana could apply political pressure by holding hearings or issuing subpoenas and demanding specific answers with the threat of contempt hanging over the proceedings.

Or they might file a lawsuit, though it can be tricky for members of Congress to establish standing, meaning the ability to sue in the first place, to enforce any given law. So what's the game here? It's hard to believe that some intelligent Justice Department professional would have made a reasoned consideration and concluded that, yep.

It makes sense and brings clarity if we bulk up the list with Elvis and Joplin and Cobain, and dozens of elected officials and public figures who provably did nothing wrong. Barring that level of incompetence, and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here. The plain intent was to create a list so large, so undifferentiated, and so utterly nonsensical that it has no practical meaning at all. Thanks for listening everyone. Stay safe and stay informed.