Nomia Iqbal

Olen Nomia Iqbal. Olin USA-palvelussa BBC-palvelussa 5 vuotta. Nyt olen kotona Yhdysvalloissa. Työskentelen vielä Epsteinin kertomisesta, mutta tämä on ensimmäinen kerta, kun menen USA-palveluun.

and really looked at the whole Epstein saga, not just from the American media point of view, but also from here as well. It's really hit home how global the story is, that this man moved in really powerful circles internationally.

It is so overwhelming, Tristan. Three and a half million pages of documents, then you've got 180,000 images, 2,000 videos. Now, if I was to go through all those documents, the full three and a half million, I think it would take me years and years to actually get to the point where I had finished all the documents and understand what these documents mean, because...

A lot of the stuff that you look at, there's no context to it. There aren't even any captions. There are flight manifests from Epstein's jets, there are financial records, there are property bills, there's emails between him, Maxwell associates, there's law enforcement, private correspondence, police reports, grand jury related documents.

FBI interview reports. It's really hard, though, getting a sense of what it all means, because you're trying to work out, is there a story here? Is there actually evidence of anything? Is this reinterpretation of material that's already out there? Is any of this legal evidence or anything like that?

There are so many people at the BBC doing that. We have teams in different areas looking at the political staff, looking at the royal aspect. We are just going through them all the time and then there are new lines coming out nearly every day.

The Department of Justice said it identified 6 million pages, but so far has released about 3.5 million. So maths-wise, I'd say that's about 60%. Now, it's important to say that the Department of Justice has said that there's a lot of reasons why they haven't released everything, because there are duplicates in that material, this sensitive material, this privileged material. There was a real rigorous process to redact details to protect victims against invasion of their personal privacy,

We now know that they did actually release a lot of survivors' names who didn't want to be identified, which has been a bit of a catastrophe for the Department of Justice. Also in those pages, the Department of Justice says there's violence. There's things that they do not believe are appropriate to show. They said that they were continuing to review the material. I think there is this view that

by some, especially lawmakers and survivors, that the Department of Justice is sitting on a lot of explosive material and it just doesn't want to release them. And they're saying, well, hang on, just release it. That was the whole point of being transparent. Let us make our minds up.

There are lawmakers who think that, that the files have been treated in such a way that it protects Donald Trump and his allies. Certainly the Republican representative Thomas Massey, you've got the Democratic representative Ro Khanna, they co-sponsor the transparency law. They were really angry that there were lots of prominent individuals whose names had been redacted without any legal justifications.

I can tell you going through the files so far, Donald Trump's name is mentioned multiple times. There were serious shocking allegations against the US president. Now, many of these appear to be based on unverified tips received by the FBI. They were made without any supporting evidence. President Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

He himself has not been accused of any crimes at all by Epstein's victims. He said that he cut contact with Epstein many, many years ago. And when we asked the Justice Department about Donald Trump's name being in these files, they said that the claims are unfounded and false. And if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already. And what they mean by that is, remember, these files have been in possession of

by the Department of Justice for a long time. That was under President Biden's presidency as well.

But I think what I would just maybe conclude to Andy's question is, I don't think that Donald Trump has been uniquely erased from the records. There isn't any clear evidence of a sort of coordinated partisan protection of Donald Trump. What I think there's more of a strong evidence of is just this bureaucratic chaos by the Department of Justice in releasing these files.

When Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2019, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office set up this dedicated tip line. And that was an opportunity for people to come forward with any information regarding him. And so lots of people sent in tips doesn't mean that they are true. It's anyone can ring a tip line. Anyone can offer information.

You do see in the files, Tristan, you do see tips that were sent, the accusations that were made, the allegations that were made, as I mentioned, against President Trump. But the Department of Justice said that they were without evidence, the claims are unfounded and false.

But what survivors are saying, did you follow any of it up? Did you investigate any of it? And there's no evidence that I've seen so far at the time of talking to you right now that any of that was followed up. And I think that's what lawmakers, this congressional committee, and as I say, survivors and victims want. They want to know, did you follow up on any of these tips? Mm-hmm.

The Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanch said that they aren't carrying out any investigations at all. The only institution that's doing any kind of investigating is Congress, is the Congressional Committee, but of course they don't have any charging powers.

We knew that Ghislaine Maxwell would not say anything, and that's because she's trying to appeal her conviction ever since it happened. She has always argued that she's a scapegoat, that because the government couldn't get Jeffrey Epstein due to him dying in 2019, they went after her. So no new charges or releases are happening. But the interesting thing about Ghislaine Maxwell is that she seems to now be suggesting that she has information.

that could exonerate President Trump and President Clinton, whose names are in the files, but as we know, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. But she's clearly seeking some sort of pardon. Her lawyer, David Oscar Marcus, he said, if this committee and the American public truly want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a straightforward path. Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly of granted clemency by President Trump. Only she can provide...