Ryan Goodman, editor-in-chief of Just Security, uncovered a document in which the New York Police Department was told by the federal government to "stand down" on its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

In a video posted Monday, Goodman said that he found documents in which the FBI sent the instructions to the NYPD just five days after Epstein's arrest. Goodman said he found it surprising that the order also applied to the SVU (Special Victims Unit). Goodman explained that it's the key part of law enforcement "that is specially trained and equipped to investigate crimes against minors and crimes of such abuse."

The documents show that the existing district attorney of New York was overseeing an ongoing investigation into Epstein and was communicating with the victims. Some of those victims then began to speak out, including a 2019 interview with Savannah Guthrie on NBC.

Goodman said that authorities in Washington considered the DA reaching out to victims a "fire" that needed to be put out. All of this was during President Donald Trump's first administration.

"It's quite stunning because a large part of the allegations against Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and alleged co-conspirators happened in New York. That would be the epicenter of a lot of the crimes, of the trafficking of the young girls and women, the sexual abuse of the young girls and women happened in the townhouse of the Upper East Side in Manhattan," Goodman explained.

To close off such an investigation from those on the ground, he said, is "astonishing" as it would be the most productive avenue of getting at the other men involved in the crimes.

While the federal government may have assumed that the NYPD and DA stopped, they actually continued the probe through a "robust investigation," including speaking to the survivors through their attorneys. One part of that investigation focuses specifically on Leon Black, a private equity investor, whom Business Insider reported on last week. Black has never been charged.

The Office of the New Mexico Attorney General, Raúl Torrez, said last week that in 2019, it was also told to stand down.

The "investigation was closed in 2019 at the request of the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York," Torrez said. He wants them to be reopened. The U.S. attorney in 2019 was Geoffrey Berman, who was also actively investigating potential financial abuses related to Donald Trump's 2017 Presidential Inaugural Committee and pursuing investigations involving Michael Cohen from 2018 to 2019.

The documents show that on December 6, 2018, the New York Police Department, the Sputhern District of New York and the FBI Child Exploitation/Human Trafficking Task Force opened a case on Epstein.

On July 10, 2019 an Epstein survivor, Jennifer Araoz, was interviewed by Guthrie for NBC's Today Show. She said the recruiter knew she was 14. After the interview aired, Araoz submitted a New York State court filing seeking information from Epstein about a recruiter who allegedly worked with him to "recruit" her. Her lawsuit against Maxwell and an assistant was filed on Aug 14, 2019, just four days after Epstein was found dead. She then filed the suit against his estate.

The "stand down" directive came in 2019 on July 10 and 11. One month later, Epstein was dead.

By January 2020, emails showed that the FBI was discussing the NYPD's probe of Epstein.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet