📱

Get Our Mobile App

Take your business learning on the go!

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

I Watched 14 Hours of Epstein Videos. Here’s What I Saw.

The Free Press8:35

Transcription

On January 30th, 2026, the Department of

Justice released hundreds of gigabytes

of material related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Buried within that data dump were some

2,000 videos that had never been

released. And while they're technically

public, they are stored in a way that

makes them very hard to find or browse.

The public then has two choices.

download hundreds of gigabytes of data

or click through hundreds of web pages

one by one. I did both. The vast

majority of the videos, and by far the

most revealing ones, live in data set

10. These are videos seized from

Epstein's devices, footage he recorded

himself, received from others, or

downloaded from the internet. Taken

together, they paint the most vivid

picture yet of Jeffrey Epstein's dark

world. his lavish lifestyle and

worldview, his mannerisms and quirks,

his sense of humor and sense of

impunity. We've published all 14 hours

of this footage, excluding only obvious

duplicates, audio only files, and fully

redacted videos that contain neither

sound nor image. You can watch them

yourself. As I watched hours and hours

of this footage, here's what stood out

to me. These are the first unredacted

videos in data set 10. The ID page of

Epstein's passport issued on March 8th,

2019. Then the endorsement page of that

passport. It reads in part, "The bearer

was convicted of a sex offense against a

minor." Then comes a sleek 10-minute

drone reel of Epstein's two private

islands in the US Virgin Islands, Little

St. James and Great St. James, produced

by the architectural firm overseeing

their redesign in 2018.

And then this 7-second clip.

>> Watch together. These first few files

inadvertently deliver a blunt message.

Epstein may have been a convicted sex

offender, but he was also obscenely

rich. Many of the videos in the set

showcase the luxury lifestyle. manicured

island alleyways glowing in the morning

sun. Meals at high-end restaurants,

parties on the yachts and private jets.

One nearly 38 minute VHS tape of

Abstein's Island looks like something

out of the succession opening credits.

And it carries the same unease. Because

no matter how glossy the footage looks,

you can never quite forget that what

you're watching is a potential crime

scene in progress. Partly because

whenever women appear on camera, their

faces and often their bodies are

obscured by black squares.

>> Tell us what you'll be learning today.

>> Yay.

>> Exactly.

>> Some videos appear to be ones Epstein

sent. $100 bills fanned out in a hand,

glittering jewelry, and what looks like

explicit videos of himself. Far more

appear to be videos sent back to him.

Young women dancing or sitting or lying

down in bed, their bodies obscured by

black squares with naked limbs

occasionally slipping into view. A large

brown teddy bear sits on the bed of one

young woman whose videos recur

throughout the data set. Those videos

are extremely difficult to watch. More

disturbing still are the occasional

moments, more often than you'd think,

when the redaction fails, when a girl's

face is visible for a few frames or even

for an entire clip. Another set of

videos filmed by Epstein himself offers

a clearer look at how he treated women.

>> Look, look a little happier. Smile when

you smile like that. Go ahead. Just want

you smile. It's okay.

>> Look at me like you love me. In one

clip, he seems to urge a girl to do

something she's clearly uncomfortable

with.

>> Just think about it.

>> In later clips, she appears to be

shaking her head. But perhaps the most

disturbing videos are those that without

context look almost innocent, like this

one of a young girl in a candy store

picking out jelly beans. Or this one,

which would look wholesome were the

girl's face not redacted. One clip shows

a toddler, possibly even an infant,

making noises as the voice behind the

camera, which sounds like Epstein's coos

and touches the child.

>> Hello, Tootsie.

>> One fully unredacted video shot from

above shows a toddler in a white t-shirt

and shorts walking down the steps.

Combined with videos showing a paternity

test on Epstein's desk, the question

that lingers in my mind is, who is this

child, and why is he here? In some

videos, Epstein appears on camera with

his potential victims. They dance, they

laugh. In one clip, he chases someone

around a white marble kitchen island.

In another clip, Epstein seems to lift a

girl's shirt mid video. She protests

weakly before giving up. The video has

no sound.

Then there are videos that appear

accidental. Epstein posing with

well-known figures who seem to think

they're being photographed, like this

one outside the Louvre with former

French culture minister Jack Lang, or

this one on a private jet seated across

from psychologist Steven Pinker. There's

also a whole cluster of videos featuring

new age guru Deepac Chopra,

self-recorded monologues about the

nature of consciousness and universe and

reality.

>> You evoke the universe in every act of

perception.

You are the universe.

>> Another category includes videos Epstein

appears to have downloaded. One is a

lowresolution Spanish subtitled version

of the hot crazy women matrix video in

which a man named Dana Mcccleen charts

women on axis of hot and crazy.

>> Hot is as usual measured from 0 to 10.

We're all familiar with that.

Crazy is measured from 4 to 10 because

of course there's no such thing as a

woman who's not at least a four crazy.

>> There is a 4-minute animation of a

bicyclist writing through the musical

notation of Beethovven's fifth symphony.

A folks news segment anchored by Tucker

Carlson about John Balden. A Britain's

Got Talent clip featuring a talking dog

named Wendy.

>> Come on. Hey, say something.

>> No.

>> And then there's porn. A lot of porn.

The sheer volume of these videos is

revealing in and of itself. So are the

watermarks in the corners of the screen.

The only visible part of those clips

towards the end of the first batch of

videos in data set 10 is a nearly

two-hour interview between Epstein and

Steve Bannon reportedly filmed for a

sympathetic documentary. The

conversation drifts through philosophy,

economics, science, and Epstein's ascent

to elite institutions. One of the wilder

and most revealing exchanges comes at

the very end when Bannon challenges

Epstein on whether institutions should

accept money from a tier one sexual

predator.

>> Tier one.

>> You're tier tier one's the highest and

worst.

>> No, I'm the lowest.

>> You're the lowest. Okay. Tier one.

You're the lowest. Um but a criminal.

>> Yes.

>> Epstein defends his philanthropy by

arguing that the recipients like mothers

of children receiving polio vaccines in

Pakistan would not care about the source

of the funds. And that's where it gets

truly bizarre.

>> I think if you told him I told him the

devil the devil himself

>> the devil himself said, "I'm going to

exchange some dollars for you to your

child's life."

>> Do you think you're the devil himself?

>> No, but I I do have a good mirror.

>> It's a serious question. Do you do you

think you're the devil himself?

>> I know. Why would you say that?

>> Because you have all the attributes.

You're incredibly smart. You remember

the devil? Somebody knows what the the

devil's brilliant. You read Milton's You

read Milton's Paradise Lost.

>> No, the devil scares me.

>> None of these videos reveal a new

Epstein. They reveal the same one over

and over again, operating in plain

sight, insulated by wealth, surrounded

by enablers, and confident that the

videos, like everything else, belong to

him. You can watch the full videos of

data set 10 at dfp.com.