US Justice Department Epstein files heavily redacted
Brad Heath, Sarah N Lynch, Joseph Ax and Andy Sullivan |
The US Justice Department has released thousands of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that made scant reference to President Donald Trump but extensively featured Democratic former president Bill Clinton.
The absence of references to Trump was notable given that pictures and documents related to him have trickled out of previous Epstein releases for years.
Trump’s name appeared in flight manifests listing passengers on Epstein’s private plane that were part of a first batch of Epstein material the Justice Department released in February, for instance.
Friday’s release was intended to comply with a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress in November that mandated the disclosure of all Epstein files, despite the Republican president’s months-long effort to keep them sealed.
The scandal surrounding Epstein has become a self-inflicted political wound for Trump, who for years had promoted conspiracy theories about Epstein to his supporters.
It was not immediately clear how substantive the new materials were, given that many Epstein-related documents have previously been made public since his 2019 death in jail, which was ruled a suicide.
Many of the files were heavily redacted – several documents with 100 pages or more were entirely blacked out – and the Justice Department acknowledged it was still reviewing hundreds of thousands of additional pages for possible release.
The material included evidence from several investigations into Epstein, along with photos of Clinton, long scorned by Republicans.
But they appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s before they had a falling out prior to Epstein’s first conviction in 2008.
Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowing about Epstein’s sex trafficking.
The disclosure law required the Justice Department to turn over information about its handling of the Epstein investigation, including internal reports and emails. None of those materials appeared to be in the batch of documents the government released on Friday.
Trump ordered the Justice Department last month to investigate Clinton’s ties to Epstein, in what critics viewed as an effort to shift the focus away from his own relationship with Epstein.
Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Angel Urena, said in a statement the White House was attempting to “shield themselves” from scrutiny by focusing on the former president.
“They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” he wrote.
In images released on Friday, Clinton can be seen in a swimming pool with Maxwell and another person whose face is blacked out and in a hot tub with someone whose face is also blacked out. Clinton, who did not respond to a request for comment, has previously expressed regret for socialising with Epstein and said he was not aware of any criminal activity.
There were more than 1200 victims or their relatives whose names must be redacted from the files, said Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche in a letter to Congress.
Some lawmakers immediately criticised the administration for failing to release all of the files.
“This set of heavily redacted documents released by the Department of Justice today is just a fraction of the whole body of evidence,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
The law that Congress passed allowed the Justice Department to withhold personal information about Epstein’s victims as well as material that would jeopardise an active investigation.
Many Trump voters had accused his administration of covering up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscuring details surrounding his death in a Manhattan jail, where he was awaiting trial on charges of trafficking and abusing underage girls.
Just 44 per cent of American adults who identify as Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of the Epstein issue, compared to his 82 per cent overall approval rating among the group, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. The issue has damaged Trump’s political standing ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake.
Reuters
