‘Full panic mode’: FBI accused of covering up Trump links in Epstein investigation, new report reveals

Reports suggesting that federal employees were instructed to comb through Jeffrey Epstein’s files specifically to flag any references to Donald Trump appear to be accurate, according to legal analyst Allison Gill.

Gill, known online as Mueller, She Wrote, said she conducted her own inquiry after initial claims emerged that FBI agents were directed to highlight mentions of the former president during a large-scale review of Epstein’s case files.

“When I saw that over one thousand individuals were assigned to examine the Epstein documents, I put out a request on my BlueSky account,” she explained, referring to a public call she made for inside information from those involved in the document review process.

In the following 24 hours, Gill said she received a number of anonymous responses — including from a former analyst directly involved with the operation — revealing a few key insights.

She noted, “Roughly 1,000 personnel from the Information Management Division (IMD) and the New York Field Office were brought onto this task, which matches what a whistleblower reported to Senator Durbin’s office. I’ve also confirmed that a tracking log exists — documenting where Trump is mentioned within the materials. The cache itself consisted of around 100,000 files, totaling an estimated 300,000 pages.”

Analysts, she said, were instructed to pinpoint mentions of Trump by specific document and page numbers, logging them into Excel spreadsheets before submitting their reports at the end of each shift — some lasting 24 to 48 hours. However, she clarified that the directive to specifically flag Trump-related content came partway through a review process that began in mid-March.

Gill described the broader process as disorganized, with orders frequently shifting. “There were at least four distinct sets of instructions,” she wrote, citing one source who referred to the situation as operating in “full panic mode.”

She also raised concerns about operational security. “An analyst I spoke with anonymously explained that, due to the rushed nature of the effort, the files were hosted on a shared drive with unusually broad access. Unlike typical sensitive projects where access is limited to those assigned, these files could be viewed by nearly anyone in the division,” she said. “Even the internal SharePoint system used to distribute files toward the end lacked the normal security restrictions.”

She further revealed that training materials, including videos that demonstrated how to flag Trump-related mentions, were shared internally over unclassified networks — making them potentially accessible to a wider audience than intended.

Notably, she said that DOJ trainers, not FBI staff, were brought in toward the final stages of the project. As for the content, she confirmed that one analyst encountered at least one reference to Trump in the files. While it’s known that other mentions exist, the total number and context remain unclear.

“But the log exists,” she emphasized. Read the full Substack post here. The piece is called The Epstein Cover-Up at the FBI.