EXCLUSIVE Heavily redacted Epstein flight logs undermine DoJ and Trump's 'transparency' claims and fuel cover-up claims
Hundred of pages of flight records that have been made public include the passengers who flew on Epstein's private plane, the infamous 'Lolita Express' from 2010 to 2019.
But the vast tranche, obtained by Daily Mail through a FOIA request, are heavily redacted, protecting the identities of those who traveled to the disgraced financier's homes in the Caribbean, New Mexico and other locations.
This is despite the fact that other flight logs that have been previously released – some during Epstein-related court cases – were done so without redactions and included the names of passengers.
US Rep. Tim Burchett, who has long called for transparency in the Epstein case, told Daily Mail that the redactions should be removed.
'It should all be made public,' the Tennessee Republican said. 'I'm especially interested in anything that relates to activity on Epstein's island as that's where most of the criminality took place.
'But I worry that we're never going to know the truth. I think there's been a cover up'.
The White House's recent handling of documents related to Epstein's sex trafficking case triggered a civil war within the MAGA world this week, after a memo drafted by the Department of Justice and the FBI announced there was no need to review the files any further.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy Director Dan Bongino now say there is nothing left to release to the public regarding the case.
This is after Bondi had said earlier this year that she had Epstein's list of high-profile clients on her desk ready for review and release.
Even President Trump was forced to address the outrage during a cabinet meeting this week when he told his supporters to move on from it.
A visibly irate Trump said: 'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable'.
The 1,506 pages obtained by DailyMail.com show Epstein's name, but nearly every other name is blacked out.
While flying on Epstein's jet does not prove criminal conduct, the identities of his passengers could reveal the scope of his network as well as who had access to his properties.
Unsealing the names would also be consistent with policy in the 2021 trial of Epstein's so-called madame, Ghislaine Maxwell, during which previously-redacted names were released, revealing a who's who of his inner circle.
The redacted list that the Daily Mail obtained goes right up to Epstein's final flight to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey in July 2019, which ended with his arrest and incarceration.
They covered a period between 1991 to 2005 and included powerful friends who flew on the jet, including Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. as well as many of the pedophile's victims.
Those records had already surfaced in previous legal cases, including the 2008 lawsuit filed against the Department of Justice in Palm Beach in 2008.
They had also been released separately as part of a defamation case brought by Epstein victim and Prince Andrew's accuser, Virginia Giuffre, in 2016.
The redacted list that the Daily Mail obtained goes right up to Epstein's final flight to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey in July 2019, which ended with his arrest and incarceration.
Among those who are known to have been on the plane are Epstein's much-younger girlfriend, a dentist from Belarus called Karyna Shuliak.
Yet her name was withheld under an exemption which states it would be a 'clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy', an excuse which is used dozens of times in the files.
In the records there are 501 pages of TECS reports, referring to the system used by DHS to screen travelers arriving in the US, and hundreds more showing other records - many of which include the names of Epstein's passengers.
There are numerous trips to New York, Palm Beach, London, and Paris, where Epstein had residences, and the US Virgin Islands, where he had his own private island.
Flight crew are also listed in some records. One Epstein flight attendant had claimed she was raped by him dozens of times.
Another known Epstein victim, Nadia Marcinko, was a certified pilot – as was Ghislaine Maxwell, who could fly a helicopter, yet none of their names appear due to redactions.
Other redactions in the documents cite an exemption which is designed to 'protect information compiled for law enforcement purposes that, if disclosed, would reveal techniques, procedures, or guidelines used in law enforcement investigations or prosecution'.
Often multiple examples are highlighted including privacy and law enforcement techniques.
In a bizarre twist, the same files had previously been requested by Darren Indyke, a lawyer who has worked for Epstein for decades.
Indyke resubmitted the request in 2014, when Epstein was still alive and the files were handed over – with the same redactions given to Daily Mail when our reporters made their request.
It is unclear why Epstein would be seeking details of who flew on his plane, however, his victims have claimed that he often used information as leverage against people he knew.
Burchett defended Trump and said that if Trump was on any of Epstein's flight logs then it could have been just him 'hitching a ride' on his plane.
The logs that have been made public reveal that Trump flew on the plane at least seven times, including one trip between New York and Florida when he was accompanied by his then-wife Marla Maples and their daughter, Tiffany.
Another flight listed Trump's son Eric as a passenger.
Burchett said: 'I think Trump is innocent. He's on record saying Epstein was a dirtbag'.
Rather than blame Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has become the focus of criticism for the handling of the Epstein case, Burchett blamed Washington bureaucrats.
He said: 'Law enforcement have to go with what they have in front of them.
'I think the material is gone, they destroyed it or somebody did and somebody in the Justice Department did it.
'When a president comes in he fires the top guy but not the career bureaucrats, they know where all the skeletons are buried'.
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'She's dropped – obviously this is my supposition – some hit pieces on him in various places, including Axios saying he's just having a hissy fit because he was behind the minute before midnight.' The 'minute before midnight' refers to a redacted moment missing from prison surveillance tapes near Epstein's cell - a key detail that has further fueled conspiracy theories. 'That's missing in the Epstein tapes from that cell block, which don't show his cell, but show an area near his cell,' Kelly explained. 'And that he was caught embarrassed because he didn't highlight that minute before midnight that was missing, but it soon came out, and now he's scrambling to sort of look like he's been tougher on this issue than he actually has been.' She also implied that Bondi, once hailed as the MAGA movement's truth-teller on Epstein, may have overpromised - or worse. 'Either Pam Bondi [has] royally screwed up… and the president is just forgiving her because she's a loyal soldier and he likes her, and he doesn't want to go through the messy confirmation process of getting somebody else in there,' Kelly speculated, 'or there is something there, and it's being covered up, and the president blessed it. 'Or there is something there… and it's something short of there's a massive pedophile ring that they're covering up, but it would have some names, those men would have to defend themselves. Maybe the administration doesn't think it's a fair position to put them in. 'Maybe there are questions about the accusers,' Kelly pondered. 'Maybe they're like half-hearted allegations… that a DOJ would not put out, but feels like it kind of might have to given all the promises Pam and prior to taking office, Kash and Dan, rattling about this. 'So I think there could be a middle ground.' Kelly emphasized that she wasn't suggesting Trump was involved in Epstein's crimes, but rather that the administration may be concealing information to protect reputations including its own. 'Maybe the administration doesn't think it's a fair position to put [these men] in,' she said. 'It would have some names, those men would have to defend themselves.' In another explosive aside, Kelly floated a conspiratorial twist, not implicating Trump, but rather suggesting that the Biden administration had deliberately left the files in a way that might politically damage him. 'This may be complete bulls***, but I've heard it from a few different people, so just big asterisks on it,' she cautioned. 'But some have speculated that the Biden DOJ may have left the Epstein files in such a manner that it like leads directly with an arrow toward Donald Trump, just as a middle finger toward Trump. 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