THE 85 GIGABYTES

Inside the FBI's Emergency Review of Epstein's Digital Evidence, and the 10.5 Terabytes They Never Reviewed

Date: 2026-04-05
Databases searched: full_text_corpus.db (6.3 GB, 2.91M pages)
Documents analyzed: 44 unique EFTAs across DS9, DS10, DS12, and DS99
Search terms: 1B136, 1B144, 1B145, 1B146, CEHTTF, Squad C-20, DCAP, CART, responsive material, Highly Confidential

Evidence item 1B136 entered FBI custody on January 26, 2021. It was an 85-gigabyte portable hard drive derived from Epstein case evidence — later described in FBI summaries as containing nude images, videos, and child sexual abuse material. The public EFTA record shows no documented review of it for more than four years.

Then, on February 25, 2025, Senator Marsha Blackburn publicly pressed newly confirmed FBI Director Kashyap Patel for unredacted Epstein files, including "all video surveillance footage." The FBI's internal timeline characterizes her letter as concerning "recordings." That same day, the Bureau pulled the 50D case evidence report — the master inventory of all evidence in the primary Epstein investigation — and prepared a response. Within two days, FBI New York received a request to send Epstein evidence to Washington. Within two weeks, the hard drive had been pulled from storage, routed through CART, and placed on DCAP for review.

(EFTA00172473 p.3; EFTA01655686)

On the evening of March 16, a Sunday, an email marked High importance went out to a small group of agents:

"Happy Sunday! Epstein 1B136 is complete and available for review in DCAP now. We must begin review first thing in the morning."

"136 is essential to get reviewed ASAP."

(EFTA01649036; EFTA01657079)

By Monday morning, fifteen agents had been reassigned to review its contents. Within three days, the FBI Director was added to the review platform. Within ten days, the Deputy Attorney General was asking what public figures appeared in the images. And when it was over, reviewer names were removed from the final report before it was sent up the chain.

The documents do not prove that Blackburn's letter caused the review. They do show that the letter, the mobilization, and the review happened back-to-back.

No major outlet appears to have reconstructed this sequence or connected it to the 10.5 TB of backup tapes that remain unreviewed.

1. What Is 1B136?

Evidence item 1B136 is a portable hard drive logged under FBI case 50D-NY-3027571, the SDNY Epstein investigation. The FBI evidence report (EFTA01684602 p.93) records a collection date of January 26, 2021 and classifies it as "Digital" evidence.

The Epstein Dashboard, an internal daily briefing document (marked UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO) dated March 31, 2025, provides the description:

"1B136: Highly responsive material on a portable hard drive to include nude images and videos from digital evidence processed. This information is not in Relativity due to the sensitive nature of the images, which includes CSAM."

(EFTA01657136)

That second sentence is the critical one. Relativity was the e-discovery platform used for the public production pipeline reflected in the EFTA release. Material "not in Relativity" was outside the public EFTA release pipeline reflected on justice.gov. This report has not identified any document in the public corpus showing separate congressional review of 1B136 itself. The 34,203 files on this hard drive were reviewed through DCAP rather than the Relativity pipeline used for the public production.

1B136 is one of four evidence items at the center of this story:

The record suggests 1B136 does not appear to have been a raw seized device but rather a CART-processed derivative set assembled from previously seized digital evidence. The dashboard describes it as material "from digital evidence processed" by the FBI's Computer Analysis Response Team (CART). The broader evidence universe processed in the case spans the 2006 Palm Beach investigation and the 2019 SDNY arrest, encompassing over 70 devices from Epstein's New York mansion and US Virgin Islands properties.

2. The Physical Transfer

On March 10, 2025, two FBI special agents from the Washington Field Office Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force drove to the V Street Evidence Control Room in Washington to pick up four evidence items. The transfer order came from the Acting Assistant Director in Charge (A/ADIC) of FBI New York.

The email chain documenting the transfer (EFTA01649116) reads:

"We are sending 2x SAs now to pick up the below 1B items for passage to WFO CART. Per conversations with [redacted], WFO CART is the best situated to handle the decompression of 1B144 and 1B145, and 1B146 is believed to have logs that will assist with understanding the previous work completed by CART on this case. 1B136 contains CSAM and will be handled per policy."

The agents drove the items to the Northern Virginia Resident Agency (NVRA) and handed them to WFO CART. That evening, the CART supervisor began restoring 14.6 terabytes of archived data from the LTO tapes. 1B136, already on a readable hard drive, was "secured" separately as "obscene material" pending a decision on how to proceed.

By March 11, the restore of the first 8.5 TB set (1B144) was underway. The CART examiner uploaded 1B146 (the log DVD) to DCAP and verified it. 1B136 remained locked down.

Five days later, on Sunday evening, 1B136 went live on DCAP. The review order went out within hours.

3. The Monday Morning Scramble

At 9:00 AM on March 17, 2025, three agents from FBI New York's Squad C-20 (the Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, or CEHTTF) logged into DCAP and began opening folders.

By 12:30 PM, the operation had expanded. Agents from Squad C-9 (Criminal Guardian Investigations) and Squad C-19 were pulled in. The review team grew to fifteen people within three and a half hours.

(EFTA01660774)

The first sitrep went out that afternoon:

"Today we were tasked with reviewing 1B146, 1B136, 1B144, 1B145. Initially from 9:00 AM - 12:00PM we had 3 personnel working on the review. At approximately 12:30 PM more personnel were added from C9 and C19 as well as additional C20 totaling 15 people."

The 85 gigabytes were organized into 30 folders on a network path:

\\nv-f041cases041\50D-NY-3027571\notes\1b136\responsive - highly confidential\

Each folder was assigned to an individual agent. An Excel spreadsheet tracked progress with per-folder tabs. The guidance, issued by the C-20 squad supervisor: describe in detail what you see, note the file size, note the creation time, note any CSAM, note anything "perceived to be pertinent." For videos, record the length and timestamp any images of people.

(EFTA01660765; EFTA01660779)

The agents worked fast. By March 21, four days in, 20 of 30 folders were done. Five more agents had been added from HVRA and LIRA divisions, bringing the total to roughly 20 active reviewers.

(EFTA01657129)

By March 28, the daily dashboard showed 31 agents in New York and 3 at FBI Headquarters assigned to the effort.

On March 31, the dashboard recorded completion: 34,203 files reviewed. 100%. The personnel count dropped from 34 to 4.

(EFTA01657136)

4. "Former U.S. Presidents, Secretary of State, and Other Celebrities"

While the C-20 agents were reviewing 1B136, a parallel dispute was unfolding in the redaction pipeline.

The 1B evidence items include more than just digital files. The full 1B inventory (EFTA01684048) lists 146 items for case 50D-NY-3027571: hard drives and laptops, but also physical photographs, CDs labeled "girl pics nude book 4," VHS tapes, cassette tapes, yearbooks, and red-rope folders marked "Highly Confidential." These items were being processed by IMD-RIDS (Information Management Division, Records and Information Dissemination Section) for potential public release.

On the morning of March 17, as the DCAP review began, an IMD supervisor sent an urgent request up the FBI chain (EFTA01649100):

"BLUF: IMD RIDS requests guidance redacting photographs -- who is protected under this transparency task?"

"50D-NY-3027571 -- 1B Items contain photographs of multiple individuals to include the subjects of this investigation (Epstein and Maxwell)."

"IMD-RIDS needs clear and specific guidance to redact those photographs. Some photographs depict: victims, unknown-unidentified females and males, former U.S. Presidents, Secretary of State, and other celebrities."

"The software does not have IA facial recognition to assist with the identification of some of public officials and celebrities."

By 11:46 AM, an A/SAC was asking: "Do we have clear guidelines for redacting images?" By 12:28 PM, the question had been forwarded to "Chad" (a CID supervisor) with a note that IMD had reached out to DOJ on two separate occasions with no response. By 1:11 PM, the answer came back:

"Guidance now is to move forward in the main investigative files (documents) and to not apply redactions to media. That said, we will need our OGC reps to start preparing a second memo specific to the media, i.e. that FBI is providing 1B materials without redaction -- and all the associated legal authorities and constraints for awareness."

"NY-CID-IMD redacting teams should continue with redactions of text."

Text gets redacted. Images and video do not.

But the CSAM question lingered. The A/SAC asked: "None of it is CSAM? Just child erotica?" An agent responded: "I am tracking 1B136 contains CSAM. We should consult with Case Agent and TFO Case Agent for clarification and assurance. The images that have been brought to my attention only Child Erotica."

The final guidance from the A/SAC: "Copy. All CSAM and Child erotica to be redacted."

This exchange establishes that the FBI's redaction team believed the 1B materials included photographs depicting "former U.S. Presidents, Secretary of State, and other celebrities," and that the initial guidance under discussion was to avoid redactions to media except for CSAM and child erotica.

The references in the redaction email to former presidents, a secretary of state, and celebrities do not establish wrongdoing, context, or even the nature of the images; they establish only that FBI personnel believed such figures appeared somewhere in the 1B photographic materials under review. The corpus does not specify what the images depict, which evidence items they appear in, or in what context. But the redaction team felt the question was urgent enough to send to the A/SAC on the first morning of the review, and the guidance that came back was to leave media unredacted.

5. The Director Gets Access

Two days later, on March 19, 2025, the requests started coming from higher up.

An email from WFO CART to FBI NY, subject line "Deliverable of electronic archives to Director's office -- 50D case" (EFTA01660810):

"Reaching out to see if DOJ/the Director's office has determined DCAP acceptable interim solution to review the unredacted 50D evidence items. I have generated a forensic copy of 1B136 and 1B146 on a hard drive for this tasking as it is the only items of the four 1Bs I am capable of producing on hard drive in this short timeframe."

"Please let me know if I should deliver this hard drive to CID or if DCAP is acceptable."

The response from WFO CART supervisor Stacy Shahrani:

"Following up on our conversation, I understand DOJ has agreed that DCAP is an acceptable interim solution. Leaning forward to the 'hard drive' request, we will make sure that CID receives the hard drive copy of 1B136 and 1B146 that has already been generated. We will also plan on making hard drive copies of the other data when its fully restored and available."

CID is the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division.

But it goes further. The FBI's own internal timeline document (EFTA00172473 p.3), titled "Epstein Overview: FBI Response," records the following entry for March 19:

"The following DOJ users were added to DCAP for review of 1B136: [redacted] and Kashyap Patel."

The FBI timeline states that Kashyap Patel was added to DCAP for review of 1B136, indicating access to the review platform rather than just a written summary. This happened on March 19, with the review only 33% complete and two weeks before the final report was delivered.

The same timeline entry for March 16 notes: "1B136 Highly Confidential Responsive Material one-pager." Patel received a one-page brief on the contents before getting platform access.

6. The Attorney General Wants Answers

On March 25, the requests stopped coming from FBI supervisors. They started coming from the top of the Justice Department.

At 4:24 PM, the IMD Acting Branch Director sent an email relaying an urgent request that had just been delivered to their office in person (EFTA01657101):

"[Redacted] was just in my office and asked if you can please send to him an overview of the content of the videos your team is processing, in order to provide to the AG."

The request was for a categorical breakdown: how many videos depicting home footage, how many depicting explicit content, how many with a given subject matter. The agent asked if they could respond by 10 AM the following morning. The answer came from OGC:

"The DAG has specifically requested, and we meet with him at 9 am. Could you [have] something for me at 8:30 am? It does not need to be complete, simply a scope of the type of images and footage that the videos contain."

The Attorney General wanted a summary. The Deputy Attorney General had a 9 AM meeting and needed material by 8:30.

The C-20 team pulled together a briefing overnight. At 5:13 AM on March 26, the review notes went up the chain (EFTA01657107; EFTA01657122):

"Evidence Item 1B136 contains responsive data obtained through sealed search warrants."

"Review Stats: 23 out of 30 folders comprising of various images and videos from 1B136 have completed review. We are at 73% review completion, 62GB out of 85GB."

"Review Summary: The majority of the files are Internet image and video based files, including commercial adult pornography. Some images are of nude, age difficult females in sexually suggestive poses, in various locations including a beach, and an apartment. Some images are of nude, age difficult females appeared to be located at various residences owned by Jeffrey Epstein. In these images, the women are solo, or with multiple women, and in approximately 20 images, Epstein is with topless women. Some images contained identifiable CSAM possessed by Epstein, but none of the CSAM was produced by Epstein."

The FBI reviewers used the phrase "age difficult" in their summaries to describe subjects whose age could not be determined from the images; this report preserves that wording only in direct quotations.

The review also noted: "Some nude images are of an adult former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein."

That morning, the A/SAC forwarded the summary and asked the agent: "No videos reviewed to date?" The agent confirmed there were videos, but none fitting the categories beyond bullet point 1 (commercial pornography).

Then OGC came back with follow-up questions. These were not their own. They had "received a request for more information" (EFTA01657101):

• "Are there images of third parties, besides Epstein, especially men?"
• "If there are depictions of third parties, please briefly describe them generally, based upon your review so far?"
• "Anything of particular interest, for example public figures (if recognizable)?"
• "A description of what is contained in the approximately 5.7 TB of data in the hard drives."

The follow-up questions show that senior DOJ leadership wanted to know whether the reviewed material included third-party men, recognizable public figures, and additional relevant content beyond the initial summary.

The corpus does not contain the answer to these follow-up questions. The email chain in the EFTA production ends with OGC's request. Whatever the FBI reported back about third parties, public figures, and the 5.7 TB of hard drive data does not appear in the public release.

7. The Cleaned Final Report

The review finished on March 31. The Excel spreadsheet, with 30 tabs corresponding to 30 folders, sat for several days while the supervising agent prepared it for delivery.

On the evening of April 4, the supervisor sent the spreadsheet to a colleague with instructions (EFTA01649024):

"Here's the attachment. I removed the first tab with the reviewer details somehow."

"1. Please save a copy and remove line #3 within every tab (30 total) which states 'Reviewer: Agent Name'"
"2. Attach to a clean email with below content."

"Spence knows you'll be sending tomorrow. Thank you so much! (I hate One Drive)"

"Spence" is A/SAC Spencer R. Horn, FBI NY Criminal Division, whose name appears unredacted in multiple documents in this chain (EFTA01660810; EFTA01660790).

The colleague confirmed (EFTA01649133): "No problem, will do!" The next day, the cleaned version went out. The cover email (EFTA01649022) noted: "I removed all the 'agents/reviewers names'. As discussed, the document should only display the following: 1. Folder name. 2. # of images. 3. # of videos."

On April 5, the cleaned spreadsheet was delivered to A/SAC Horn (EFTA01649021; EFTA01649215). The final summary:

• Most of the files are Internet image and video-based files, including commercial adult pornography.
• Some images are of nude, age difficult females in sexually suggestive poses, in various locations including a beach, and an apartment.
• Some images are of nude, age difficult females appeared to be located at various residences owned by Jeffrey Epstein. In these images, the women are solo, or with multiple women, and in approximately 20 images, Epstein is with the topless women.
• Some images contained identifiable CSAM possessed by Epstein, but none of the CSAM was produced by Epstein.
• None of the non-commercial videos and images with nude females have 3rd party men.
• None of the non-commercial videos and images depict adults engaging in criminal activity.
• Epstein was observed in multiple videos but not engaging in sex.

Two things changed between the March 26 DAG briefing and the April 5 final report. The detail about "an adult former girlfriend" was removed. And the assertion that there were "no third-party men" was added, apparently answering the OGC follow-up question that had been asked ten days earlier.

The specific instruction to remove reviewer names from all 30 tabs, combined with the pre-written cover email, shows the spreadsheet was being normalized into a cleaner final deliverable. Whether the omitted "former girlfriend" detail was removed for sensitivity, brevity, or some other reason is not clear from the record.

8. The 10.5 Terabytes That Would Require a New Warrant

Through March 2025, the daily dashboards tracked 1B144 and 1B145 alongside 1B136. The numbers never moved. As of the March 31 dashboard, 1B144 (8 TB) showed 0% reviewed. 1B145 (2.5 TB) showed 0%. The note read: "1B144 and 1B145 are being discussed regarding if there are responsive materials or not."

(EFTA01657136)

A later document in the corpus provides the answer to that discussion. A summary of all completed reviews (EFTA00163971 p.18) states:

"50D: 1B136 (responsive material) review was completed, and summarized. (1B144 and 1B145 contained complete images, including non-responsive data, of all evidence processed, and were not reviewed, as this would require a new search warrant. 1B146 contained FBI log files from the CART examination process.)"

CART restored data from the tapes as part of the technical processing effort, but the later status summary states that substantive review of 1B144 and 1B145 did not occur because doing so would require a new warrant. The FBI's position was that because these tapes contain full forensic images of all digital evidence in the case (including non-responsive material outside the scope of the original warrants), reviewing their contents would constitute a new search requiring fresh judicial authorization. The tapes were not merely deprioritized or delayed.

The corpus contains no evidence that such a warrant was sought. The final status summary states "there are no outstanding reviews" for the 50D case. A sealed warrant application or a post-corpus-cutoff development would not appear in the EFTA production, so this cannot be stated with certainty. What the documents do establish is that as of the last recorded status, the tapes remained unreviewed, and the FBI's stated reason was the warrant requirement.

To put the scale in context: 1B136, the item that consumed 34 agents for two weeks and triggered AG/DAG briefings, represents 85 gigabytes of a potential 10.5 terabytes sitting on those tape cartridges. The FBI's own characterization (EFTA01649116 p.3): "We believe 1B144 and 1B145 will contain a backup of all digital evidence in the case file."

In effect, the FBI ran a high-priority review of a sensitive derivative subset while leaving the much larger backup archives untouched for warrant reasons.

9. The Blackburn Letter and the Timeline

The 1B136 review did not happen in isolation. It was part of a larger evidence mobilization that began in February 2025.

On February 24, 2025, Senator Marsha Blackburn's office announced that she had sent a letter to Director Patel and AG Bondi requesting "complete, unredacted" Epstein files, including "all video surveillance footage from Jeffrey Epstein's residence in Palm Beach, Florida." The FBI's internal timeline characterizes her letter as concerning "recordings" — which may be the Bureau's own summary rather than Blackburn's phrasing. The FBI Daily News Briefing for February 26 carried the headline: "Sen. Blackburn Requests Unredacted Epstein Files, Director Patel Vows Cooperation as AG Bondi Faces Bipartisan Pressure."

(EFTA01655686; EFTA01655683)

The FBI's internal timeline (EFTA00172473 p.3) records what followed:

• February 18: Black book, flight logs, masseuse list
• February 25: Response to Blackburn letter regarding "recordings," including the 50D case evidence report
• February 27: C-20 receives request to send all Epstein evidence to Washington by 8 AM the next day
• February 28: 84 digital items, 70 general items, and assorted materials shipped to WFO
• March 10: 1B items physically transferred to WFO CART
• March 16–April 1: Daily sitreps for 1B136 review
• March 19: DOJ users including Kashyap Patel added to DCAP

Blackburn publicly asks for surveillance footage on February 25. The FBI responds with the 50D evidence report the same day. Two days later, the order comes to ship everything to Washington. Thirteen days after that, two agents drive to the evidence room to pick up a hard drive that had been sitting there since 2021.

This timing does not establish motive. It does establish sequence.

At some point after the 1B review concluded, the Director asked for a status check on all remaining reviews. An email response (EFTA00163971 p.18) states: "The Director has asked for status of all remaining Epstein-related reviews." The response confirmed that all 1A media, 1B digital, and 90A death investigation reviews were complete, with "no outstanding reviews" remaining for the 50D case.

10. What the Documents Do Not Show

This report presents what the internal FBI email traffic documents. Several important questions remain unanswered by the corpus:

The OGC follow-up. OGC asked whether there were identifiable third-party men or public figures in 1B136. The FBI's response to that question does not appear in the EFTA production. The April 5 final report states "no third-party men in non-commercial images," but whether a more detailed response was provided to OGC, the DAG, or the AG is unknown.

The photographs of public figures. The redaction guidance request (EFTA01649100) refers to photographs of "former U.S. Presidents, Secretary of State, and other celebrities" in the 1B evidence items. These may be in 1B136 or in other items in the 1B series (physical photographs, framed images, etc.). The corpus does not specify which evidence items contain these images or what they depict.

The "adult former girlfriend." This detail appeared in the March 26 DAG briefing but was absent from the April 5 final report. Whether this was a deliberate editorial decision or an oversight is unclear.

Director Patel's review. The FBI timeline confirms Patel was added to DCAP for review of 1B136. What he accessed, what conclusions he drew, and what actions he took are not documented in the corpus.

The OGC media memo. On March 17, guidance was issued to prepare an OGC memo covering the release of 1B materials "without redaction." The status and contents of that memo do not appear in the production.

The Blackburn letter. Senator Blackburn's letter to Director Patel is referenced in the FBI timeline but does not appear in the EFTA production. The FBI's written response is also absent. Public reporting indicates Blackburn requested "all video surveillance footage," while the FBI's internal timeline characterizes her letter as concerning "recordings." Whether the FBI's paraphrase reflects additional content not in the public version of the letter, or is simply an imprecise summary, cannot be determined from the corpus.

The 5.7 TB question. OGC asked for a description of the contents of "approximately 5.7 TB of data in the hard drives." No response appears in the corpus. This figure likely refers to the partially restored content of 1B144 and 1B145, which, as documented above, were ultimately not reviewed.

What the record does show is narrower, but still significant: in March 2025, the FBI urgently reviewed an 85 GB subset of highly responsive Epstein digital evidence, escalated summaries of that review to senior DOJ and FBI leadership including the Director, the Attorney General, and the Deputy Attorney General, and concluded that a much larger 10.5 TB backup archive would not be substantively reviewed without a new warrant. That is the documented sequence in the public corpus — whether or not the full story behind it remains hidden.

Source Documents

All documents cited in this report are available at justice.gov/epstein. Dataset number is included for URL construction.

Primary Chain (1B136 Review Emails)

Sitreps and Dashboards

DCAP Operations and Access

Evidence Inventory and Timeline

House Oversight