Epstein Files Update!
Judicial Watch Sues DOJ for Epstein Records Subpoenaed by
House Committee
The U.S. Department of Justice is
sitting on information about Jeffrey Epstein that the public should
have.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit
against the Justice Department for records subpoenaed by the U.S. House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding Epstein, the accused
sex trafficker (Judicial
Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-04123 )).
The Justice Department should immediately release this
information. Americans deserve the truth. It’s time to end the leaks and
the guessing games.
We sued in the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia after the Justice Department failed to respond to
an August 22, 2025, FOIA request for:
All records provided to the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform or any member thereof in
response to the subpoena transmitted to Attorney General Bondi on or about
August 5, 2025.
All records relied upon during the preparation of any
response to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoena
transmitted to Attorney General Bondi on or about August 5,
2025.
All records of
communication between Attorney General Bondi or Deputy Attorney General
Blanche and any other individual or entity regarding the Department’s
response to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform subpoena
transmitted to Attorney General Bondi on or about August 5,
2025.
In August 2025, James Comer (R-KY),
chairman of the House Oversight Committee, issued deposition
subpoenas to former high-level officials including Bill and Hillary
Clinton; former
U.S. Attorneys General William Barr, Alberto Gonzales, Jeff Sessions,
Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder and Merrick Garland; and former FBI Directors
Robert Mueller and James Comey — seeking testimony and documents related
to the investigation of Epstein. Additionally, a subpoena was issued to the
Justice Department for records related to Epstein. For example, the
subpoena cover
letter to Gonzales states:
On July 23, 2025, the
Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement of the Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform (“Committee”) unanimously voted to approve a motion
directing the
Committee to authorize and issue a subpoena to you for a deposition. Your
tenure as U.S. Attorney General, from 2005 to late 2007, coincided with a
time period when the FBI investigated Jeffrey Epstein for sex crimes, an
Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida prepared a
draft 60-count indictment of Mr. Epstein, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office
for the Southern District of Florida offered a plea bargain to Mr. Epstein,
leading to the signing of Mr. Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement only
one week after you left office. Pursuant to this direction, please see the
attached subpoena for you to appear at a deposition on August 26,
2025.
On July 6, 2019, federal authorities arrested Mr.
Jeffrey Epstein and two days later an indictment was unsealed in the U.S.
District Court for the Southern District for New York charging him with sex
trafficking of minors and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of
minors. According to the indictment, Mr. Epstein sexually exploited and
abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, Palm Beach, and
other locations. Among other things, the indictment alleged that Mr.
Epstein enticed girls as young as 14 years old to engage in sex acts with
him in exchange for money. This was not the first time that Mr. Epstein had
been investigated for committing sex crimes. In 2008, he pled guilty in
Florida state court to two prostitution offenses, and, in exchange, he and
his co-conspirators received immunity from federal prosecution through a
non-prosecution agreement that was negotiated during your time as Attorney
General.
We have been actively pursuing details of
the Epstein case.
In October, we filed a FOIA lawsuit
against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for records involving any
role Epstein might have played in connection with the agency, his business
dealings, travel, victim or witness information, and records concerning his
death.
In September, we sued
the Justice Department for communication the department had with the media
outlet Axios regarding the outlet’s “exclusives” on the release of
audio of then-President Joe Biden’s August 2023 interview with
then-Special Counsel Robert Hur regarding Biden’s handling of secret
documents and the July 2025 memo that states there is no Jeffrey Epstein
“client list.”
In a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit, a
“joint
status report” filed on July 7 in federal court reported that the
Justice Department and the FBI were continuing to search for and review
records in response to our FOIA lawsuit for records regarding Epstein. The
lawsuit requests any records on the identities of clients or associates of
Epstein. The Justice Department’s disclosure is at odds with the leaked,
unsigned and undated Justice
Department/FBI memo that suggests no more Epstein records would be
disclosed to the American public. The memo was first disclosed late on July
6.
Also in July, we sued
the Justice Department for all interviews and other records provided to the
FBI by Epstein victim Virginia Louise Giuffre, who reportedly
committed suicide on April 25, 2025.
Judicial Watch
Sues for Jack Smith’s Emails Targeting
Donald Trump
We are working to find the
communications between former Special Counsel Jack Smith and the state and
federal actors who took part in the lawfare against President Donald
Trump. The American people deserve transparency about the about the
abuses committed against Trump and other Americans.
We
filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
against the U.S. Department of Justice for Smith’s emails with officials
in Georgia, New York, and the White House, plus congressional and law
enforcement offices regarding his investigation into then
President-elect Donald Trump (Judicial
Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-03849)).
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
after the Justice Department failed to respond to two FOIA requests. The
first, on November 13, 2024, asks for:
On November 21, 2024, we
requested:
All communications of
any current or former member of the Smith’s office since November 1,
2022, regarding investigation into President-elect Trump, including those
with:
Any New York State governmental or law enforcement
office
Fulton County District Attorney’s office or Georgia
secretary of State’s office
White House, Congressional or Senate
office
Any federal law enforcement or government
office
Smith reportedly
coordinated prosecutions of Trump with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin
Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Fulton County, Georgia,
District Attorney Fani Willis. The House Judiciary Committee recently subpoenaed
Smith for a deposition about the federal prosecutions he brought against
Trump during the Biden administration.
We are a national
leader in exposing the lawfare and abuse targeting Trump and other American
citizens.
In June 2025, we sued
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes for her communications with Smith (Judicial
Watch v. Kristin Mayes and Arizona Department of Law (CV
2025-020674).
In March 2025, we sued
the Justice Department for details of any investigations, inquiries, or
referrals concerning potential misconduct of any person working for Smith
(Judicial
Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-00801)).
Also in March, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was
ordered to turn over 212 pages of records to a state court judge. The
court also ordered Willis to detail how the records were found and the
reason for withholding them from the public. The records were belatedly
found in response to a Judicial Watch request and lawsuit for
communications with Smith and the House January 6 Committee (Judicial
Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)).
New Air Marshal Assistant Director has a Questionable
Past
If you’re a frequent traveler you won’t
be comforted by personnel moves in the Federal Air Marshall Service, as our
Corruption Chronicles blog reports.
In the latest controversy to rock the Federal Air Marshal Service
(FAMS), an agency veteran, who created a wasteful VIP Congressional
Concierge and oversaw a surveillance program that put Americans—including
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—with opposing political
views on a terror watchlist, has been promoted to assistant director. His
name is Serge V. Potapov, and he has risen through the ranks at FAMS
despite playing a key role in highly questionable programs and a documented
history of misconduct
that put him at the center of various investigations over the years,
according to agency documents reviewed by Judicial Watch. Now Potapov, a
former U.S. Marine who recently served as a counselor to Homeland Security
Secretary Kristi Noem, is second in command at FAMS which operates under
the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), created after 9/11 to
prevent another terrorist attack. Both agencies function under the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and have been plagued by controversy
and mismanagement that has left the nation vulnerable from a security
standpoint, say multiple DHS sources interviewed by Judicial Watch over the
years.
FAMS in particular has experienced tremendous
instability with four
different directors in around as many years and flagrant mismanagement
that includes controversial deployments of the uniquely skilled law
enforcement officers to the Mexican border to perform duties unrelated to
transportation, such as welfare checks, hospital watch and chauffeuring
illegal immigrants. TSA has admitted it does
not know the operational impact that the air marshal border
deployments had on aviation security. During the chaos last year FAMS named
a deputy director, Pauline (Polly) Hanson, with a shady history that
includes being investigated for fraud and conflict of interest as chief of
the Amtrak Police, a federal law enforcement agency of about 500 charged
with protecting the nation’s railroad system. Hanson’s appointment
rattled many inside FAMS and raised questions about the criteria to qualify
for the top-secret clearance required for the position. Hanson stepped
down after a few weeks on the job because Judicial Watch exposed her
record, which was brought to our attention by the Air Marshal National
Council, the union that represents thousands of agents nationwide and has
uncovered a multitude of problems at the agency in recent years.
Now, the union is battling against another highly questionable
figure quietly elevated to assistant director at the ailing agency. As of
this week Potapov is Assistant Administrator at FAMS despite a lengthy
history of wrongdoing. His misconduct began at the Federal Air Marshal
Training Center in New Jersey where he simulated shooting a female
instructor in the head, kicked her during training, pulled her hair and
told women “You don’t belong here,” according to documents provided
to Judicial Watch by the Air Marshal National Council. Potapov was
suspended and involuntarily transferred to the Philadelphia Field Office
before being promoted to help lead the Insider Threat Unit, which got
blasted in a DHS audit for its many failures during his leadership. An
agency insider told Judicial Watch Potapov helped build a unit later
condemned as structurally broken. Yet in 2020 he was promoted to Assistant
Special Agent in Charge in Washington D.C. where he helped create a special
VIP
Congressional Concierge that pulled air marshals off high-risk flights
so members of Congress could get extra protection on flights that did not
meet the threat criteria, usually determined by the FBI, for air marshals.
In 2021 Judicial Watch exposed the program, reporting that FAMS were yanked
from a high-risk flight so California Congresswoman Maxine Waters could
have extra security during a trip to Minnesota though she was already
covered by a four-man detail consisting of two Capitol Police officers and
two Secret Service agents. The
story led to the program’s elimination, DHS sources confirmed.
After launching the outrageous VIP Congressional Concierge,
Potapov was promoted to executive director of flight operations, which
oversaw another scandal-plagued program called Quiet Skies that secretly
surveilled Americans on flights in the name of preventing terrorism.
Hundreds of Americans, including then Hawaii Congresswoman Gabbard, were
put on a watchlist and deemed threats to national security for holding
political views against the Biden administration. In fact, Gabbard was
added to the Quiet Skies program on July 23, 2024, one day after she
criticized the Biden administration in an interview. The Trump
administration ended the Quiet Skies program over the summer and in the
fall a Senate
Homeland Security committee confirmed the Biden administration
weaponized the watch list against everyday Americans, deeming them threats
to national security simply for holding opposing political views. As
Executive Director of Flight Operations in 2023, Potapov oversaw Quiet
Skies and all global FAMS deployments, making him a strange choice to help
lead the agency.
In an internal memo announcing Potapov as
his number two guy, FAMS Director Brian C. Belcher fails to mention his
sordid past, instead promoting him as a 23-year FAMS veteran who has
demonstrated “exceptional
leadership and dedication to our mission of safeguarding the nation’s
transportation system.” Belcher also praises Potapov’s expertise and
commitment to operational excellence that make him uniquely qualified to
serve in this leadership position. The reality is much different, says
David Londo, president of the Air Marshal National Council, who says many
inside the agency are outraged. “His career provides a clear example of
systemic breakdowns in federal accountability, leadership vetting, and
taxpayer stewardship,” Londo said, pointing to Potapov’s
court-confirmed misconduct, failures documented in federal audits, warnings
from a congressional investigative unit and widespread internal
concerns.
Until next week,
