Alan Dershowitz’s account reframes the entire controversy around who controls Epstein-related records. He insists there is no secret “client list,” only FBI affidavits in which victims named alleged abusers, with those identities redacted under judicial orders. In his telling, two Manhattan judges, not federal officials or the Trump administration, decide what stays sealed — and they do so, he says, to shield accusers rather than protect powerful friends.
His remarks land amid renewed frustration over secrecy, as federal judges in both Florida and New York refuse to open more files, including grand jury transcripts from the mid-2000s investigation that ended in Epstein’s plea deal. While Dershowitz argues that most relevant names are already public through books and reporting, the continuing court-imposed blackout feeds suspicion. The battle over these records has become a proxy war over trust: in institutions, in victims’ safety, and in whether the justice system still bends for the well-connected.
