Dick Durbin wrote another of a slew of letters Democrats have sent to Pam Bondi and others about Jeffrey Epstein this year. This one provides details of the review of the Epstein file Bondi ordered:
According to information my office received, you then pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD), including the Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), which handles all requests submitted by the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act, on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could be released on an arbitrarily short deadline. 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.
My office was told that these personnel were instructed to “flag” any records in which President Trump was mentioned.
[snip]
5. Aside from the negative backlash you received over the February 27 record release, what was the purpose of placing almost 1,000 FBI IMD personnel on 24-hour shifts to review Epstein-related records over the course of a two-week period in March?
6. Who made the decision to reassign hundreds of New York Field Office personnel to this March review of Epstein-related records?
7. Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?
a. Please list all political appointees and senior DOJ officials involved in the decision to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned.
b. What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?
c. Is there a log of the records mentioning President Trump? If yes, please transmit a copy of the log to the Committee and the OIG.
Remember: Trump’s appointees have fired two people who would know details of this: the head of the NY Field Office, James Dennehy, who was forced to retire amid allegations the NYFO was sitting on the files, and Maurene Comey, who has been involved in FOIA responses regarding these files.
Either could now give protected whistleblower statements to Durbin.
But they’re not the only ones.
In her bid to review these files, Bondi created one thousand witnesses to what is in the Epstein file — and Bondi’s attempt to politicize the search for Epstein files.
One thousand.
Update: Durbin’s staff has now posted the letter, plus letters he wrote to Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. Of both FBI men, Durbin asked why they said the video was “raw” when it had actually been altered.
13. Why does the July 7 memorandum describe the surveillance footage as “full raw” when it was modified?
a) Please describe in detail all of the modifications made to the “full raw” surveillance footage before its publication.
And of Kash, he asks what conspiracy theories Kash was chasing.
15. What are the conspiracy theories you are referring to in your July 12 tweet that “were never true?” If there are more than one, please explain each in detail.
He also asked why Bongino had to take a day for his fee fees.
15. Is this dispute between you and White House and DOJ officials the reason behind your July 11 absence from work?