First, approximately 1,000 personnel in the Information Management Division (IMD) and the FBI New York Field Office were assigned to this task, confirming the whistleblower account made to Senator Durbin’s office. I can also confirm that a log exists tracking the mentions of Donald Trump in the files, and that there were approximately 100,000 files containing roughly 300,000 pages. Individual analysts were told to flag mentions of Trump by document and page number by logging them in an Excel spreadsheet, then they’d hand in their spreadsheet at the end of their (sometimes 24 or even 48-hour) shift. But it’s important to note that the agents were not told to flag Trump until later in a process that began mid-March.


But there is a log of instances Donald Trump is mentioned in the files, there are video and PDF trainings instructing analysts to flag Trump, there were multiple instances of Trump appearing in the files, Patel and Bondi wanted victim information and PII, and sloppiness means that more people than previously known had access to the Epstein and Maxwell files. And while there was no indication of a ready-made, A to Z client list beyond the little black book that’s already public, “to say there’s nothing or to say it’s a hoax? Bullshit.”

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Regarding the ever-changing nature of the instructions, which one source described as “full panic mode,” there were at least four different review instructions. Keeping in mind that the Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS) are trained in FOIA redactions but many in the IMD are not, there were multiple video training sessions that went out on an unclassified network on what to mark for redaction, what not to mark, and how to record things that needed to be flagged. That means that video exists of trainers explaining the process of flagging instances of Donald Trump appearing in the files, and those videos went out on unclassified networks within the bureau. It’s also of note that the trainers toward the end were folks from the Department of Justice, and not the FBI.

    SOP for incompetent fascists