The clip was part of the latest batch of files the Trump Administration released related to Epstein, but was later taken down without an explanation from the department.
The fake video apparently made it into the FBI’s Epstein files because someone had emailed it to the bureau with a query asking if it was real. According to analysis by Wired magazine, the 12-second video appeared to match footage uploaded to YouTube in 2019 with a description that read “rendering 3D graphics”; other outlets, including the BBC, said they had traced the video back to footage posted on the platform in 2020. A document that was posted just before the video in the Department of Justice’s initial release includes a message from outside the government asking if the video is real, Wired wrote.
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request from TIME on Tuesday about why the footage was removed, or why it was released in the first place.
The fake footage was shared widely on social media Monday and has been cited as an example of the challenges the Department of Justice has faced as it works to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Trump signed into law on Nov. 19, giving the department 30 days to make public all of its case files about Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
Well, one of the things that is happening in the background is brain drain - both at a broader national scale, as well as just within the government. Turns out that breaking bad and going fascist doesn’t sit well with most skilled and intelligent people, so they’re at best phoning it in and maliciously complying, and at worst just leaving their jobs so someone less competent steps in.
I have no doubt that, once this administration and our collective national nightmare are over, that there will be thousands of accounts of people in federal service doing what little they can to slow the machine down from the inside.