FBI agents were told to 'flag' any Epstein records that mentioned Trump, Sen. Durbin says

A video still from the NBC archive showing Donald Trump talking with Jeffrey Epstein at a party in Mar-A-Lago from 1992. NBC

FBI agents assigned earlier this year to review investigative files in the criminal case against notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were instructed to "flag" any documents that mentioned President Donald Trump, Sen. Richard Durbin said Friday. Durbin's claim came in letters the Illinois Democrat sent to the Justice Department and FBI asking them to explain discrepancies between past statements about a promised release of the Epstein files and findings from a July 7 Justice Department memo, which said no such release would happen.

Ranking member Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., arrives for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Dirksen building on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

Durbin's letters, addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, add to the pressure on the Trump administration over Bondi's decision to withhold from the public evidence about Epstein despite her past promises. Durbin is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over the Justice Department and the FBI. "Who made the decision to reassign hundreds of New York Field Office personnel to this March review of Epstein-related records?" Durbin asked in his letters. "Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?" he asked. An FBI spokesperson told CNBC in an email, "The FBI has no comment," when asked about Durbin's letters.

Trump is a former friend of Epstein, who died from suicide in a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on child sex trafficking charges. On Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that a "bawdy" letter bearing Trump's signature was sent to Epstein in 2003 for this 50th birthday. Trump has angrily denied writing such a letter and said he will sue the Journal. Durbin's letters detailed Justice Department and FBI actions in March, in the weeks after Bondi told Fox News on Feb. 21 that the so-called Epstein client list was "sitting on my desk right now to review." On Feb. 27, Bondi drew criticism after releasing binders of documents related to Epstein to conservative influencers and commentators, which turned out to consist of files that were previously publicly available. "After intense blowback from this incident, Attorney General Bondi then appeared on another FOX News show, Life Liberty Levin, and claimed that a 'whistleblower' told her that [Manhattan U..S. Attorney's Office was] 'sitting on thousands of pages of documents'"; that 'we will get everything'; that she was 'assured' there was more; and that the country would eventually see 'the full Epstein files," Durbin wrote. Durbin said his office had learned that after that, the "FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then 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," the letter said. "My office was told that these personnel were instructed to 'flag' any records in which President Trump was mentioned."