Jake Tapper Swipes Through 100 Blacked-Out Pages From DOJ’s Epstein Files Drop Live On-Air: ‘The Transparency We’re Getting’ | Video

Jake Tapper swiped through 100 blacked-out pages from Friday’s Epstein Files drop while live on-air, emphasizing the censorship of the documents.

On Friday, the DOJ dropped what they said was “several hundred thousand” pages of the Epstein Files. As journalists began poring over them, they quickly learned that many of the released files were heavily redacted. And, during his Friday broadcast on CNN, Tapper asked if this was the “transparency” the government talked about.

“Talk about blacking out, I don’t know if I can get a close up of my phone,” he said. “This is the documents that the Justice Department released. It’s 100 pages. This is what it looks like, I don’t know if you can see, it’s all black. It’s just 100 pages of redaction. That’s the transparency we’re getting here.”

Journalists began combing through the files on Friday afternoon. Photos of former President Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson surfaced in the search, with Trump officials sharing the former.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said earlier on Friday that the government would release “several hundred thousand” of the Epstein files, but not the government’s entire collection, as the administration is working to redact certain names and stories.

This caused many Democrats to balk at that. In fact, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam of the Oversight Committee explained to CNN that the law made it clear that the Epstein Files needed to be released in its entirety by today.

“The law says they needed to release everything by today, not starting today, not part of it today, all of it by today,” Subramanyam said. “And let’s be clear, there’s no excuse for this. They’ve been redacting files since back in March when they claimed they were going to release the Epstein Files and then again four months ago … There is no excuse for this. They’re in violation of the law, and we will pursue every possible legal avenue.”

The White House has painted a different picture of the situation, however. White House spokesperson Abigail Johnson said in a statement that “the Trump Administration is the most transparent in history.”

“By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, the Trump Administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have,” she said.

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