“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned.”
Senator Richard Durbin has alleged that FBI agents assigned to review Jeffrey Epstein’s case files were instructed to “flag” any documents mentioning former President Donald Trump.
In letters sent Friday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Durbin questioned discrepancies between earlier promises of transparency and a July 7 memo that ruled out further disclosure.
“Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?” Durbin asked. He added, “Who made the decision to reassign hundreds of New York Field Office personnel to this March review?”
Durbin said his office learned that up to 1,000 FBI staff were ordered to review about 100,000 Epstein-related documents on 24-hour shifts. “This effort… was haphazardly supplemented by personnel lacking expertise,” he wrote.
An FBI spokesperson declined to comment. The DOJ maintains no Epstein client list exists and found no basis to investigate additional uncharged individuals.