The Justice Department on Friday released a huge trove of documents connected to the deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, partially complying with federal legislation that ordered officials to make public a collection of records long sought by his victims but entangled in political controversy.
The documents’ release, just ahead of a deadline imposed by the legislation, marked a closely watched step in the months-long bipartisan push to force President Donald Trump and his administration to disclose more materials related to Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019 while facing charges of sex-trafficking and abusing girls.
The material released Friday includes a large number of photographs of Epstein and other people, along with other pictures, flight logs and law enforcement records. But the release fell short of the comprehensive disclosures required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed last month.
The Justice Department said it needed more time to review records and remove information that might identify victims before disclosing additional documents. More records will be released over the next two weeks, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a letter to Congress.
Friday’s release included fairly few documents that mentioned President Donald Trump. Administration officials have acknowledged that the president’s name is in the files, and a person familiar with the redaction process said that Trump’s name was included multiple times throughout the files. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for retaliation.
Documents that mention Trump may be included in the future releases that Blanche said are coming.
By contrast, former president Bill Clinton appears a number of times in the photographs released Friday, including in one picture swimming with Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and another woman. In other pictures, he appears in more formal settings. Trump and his appointees have sought to focus attention on Clinton as the president has complained about news coverage of his relationship with Epstein.
Several Trump administration officials, including multiple Justice Department spokespeople, sought to promote the images of Clinton on social media Friday. A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the number of Clinton images included in the first release. Trump did not mention the Epstein case or Friday’s document release in a speech he gave Friday night at a rally in North Carolina.
Angel Ureña, a spokesman for Clinton, criticized the release of the photos and accused Trump’s administration of “shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever.”
“They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” he said. “Never has, never will be.”
Clinton, who also appeared in Epstein-related photographs released by Congress last week, has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. A spokesman for the former president has previously said he met Epstein several times and took four trips on his airplane, but knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes.
The partial release of files drew sharp rebukes from lawmakers, including Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Ro Khanna (D-California), the original sponsors of the Epstein transparency measure, who slammed the Justice Department and said it had failed to comply with the spirit of the law.
In a video statement posted on social media, Khanna said they were exploring “all options” against those “obstructing justice.”
The Justice Department said its extensive review process was meant to keep victims’ identities shielded. While compiling records, the Justice Department sought the names of people victimized by Epstein and found “over 1,200 names being identified as victims or their relatives,” Blanche, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, said in the letter to Congress.
Blanche also said the department had withheld some files that it claimed were covered by legal privileges that the new law did not specifically waive. Among those were documents that would reveal internal deliberations at the Justice Department, he wrote.
The records that the legislation mandated for release include extensive materials that are normally shielded from public view, including grand jury testimony, investigative records, immunity deals, sealed settlements and internal communications related to Epstein and Maxwell, his ex-girlfriend and accomplice, who was convicted in 2021 on sex-trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
At least some of the material released Friday had already been made public, including filings from court cases against Epstein and Maxwell. Other material was heavily or completely redacted, including one file that stretched 100 pages and was entirely obscured, leaving the record’s topic shielded from view. Some photographs were also partially redacted.
Blanche acknowledged Friday that the release was incomplete, writing to Congress that the more than 100,000 pages released were the first of multiple disclosures planned in the near future.
He attributed the delay to the sheer amount of records needing to be scrutinized, describing an extensive, multi-step review process involving more than 200 Justice Department attorneys, many from the National Security Division. The reviews were aimed at identifying needed redactions and hiding information that could identify victims, he wrote.
As part of the review, the agency asked attorneys for the names of Epstein victims, including any not previously identified, Blanche wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post.
Blanche also touted what he called the Trump administration’s “historic” commitment to transparency, though Trump fought against the files’ release and the Justice Department and FBI said in July that “no further disclosure” was needed in the Epstein case.
Earlier Friday, Blanche had told Fox News that “several hundred thousand more” records would be released after Friday.
The files released Friday added to the expanding universe of Epstein-related documents that have slowly been made public through years of civil lawsuits brought by his victims, court cases against him and Maxwell, and a months-long investigation by the House Oversight Committee, which has released copious records obtained from his estate.
Still, the Justice Department’s records were long sought by victims who accused Epstein of widespread abuses, their advocates and political figures in both parties, some of whom sought to link him to their opponents.
Trump had resisted efforts to release these files for much of this year, and he has lashed out at the continuing focus on Epstein, his onetime friend. After he was unable to defeat the congressional push to demand more records be released, Trump abruptly reversed course last month, urged Republicans to support the disclosure bill and signed it.
The legislation directed the Justice Department to release a wide assortment of materials, with exemptions for classified information and any that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.” The measure also requires the release of documents related to Epstein’s death behind bars, which was ruled a suicide.
According to the legislation, records cannot be kept secret because of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.” But Attorney General Pam Bondi can redact or keep hidden materials that include “personally identifiable information” or medical files relating to victims, as well as any content that depicts child sexual abuse, the legislation states.
Before his death, Epstein had been a politically connected figure with a web of associations and contacts that spanned the heights of media, finance, politics and other industries. He had also drawn the repeated scrutiny of law enforcement officials, although he long avoided any serious legal fallout.
Friday’s documents confirm that the FBI received a complaint about Epstein as far back as 1996. The woman who made the complaint, Maria Farmer, has said federal officials failed to follow up on her report.
Epstein came under serious law enforcement scrutiny a decade later and was arrested in 2006. He then reached an agreement with officials in Florida to resolve allegations that he molested dozens of girls. Under that deal, Epstein was able to plead guilty in 2008 to two state charges of soliciting prostitution, including one involving a minor, but he avoided federal charges and served just over a year behind bars, with ample work-release privileges.
That plea agreement generated extensive public outrage, especially after the Miami Herald in 2018 reported details of victims’ allegations of abuse by Epstein and how federal officials had agreed to such lenient terms a decade earlier.
Alexander Acosta, the top federal prosecutor in South Florida when the deal was struck, later defended the agreement as necessary to ensure Epstein would serve time. Acosta subsequently served as Trump’s first labor secretary and resigned in July 2019 amid criticism of the Epstein deal.
Days earlier, federal prosecutors in New York opened a new case against Epstein, charging him with sex trafficking. The indictment said Epstein had “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls” and had intentionally targeted young girls, seeking out young people who were “particularly vulnerable to exploitation.”
Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein. The two had been friends for years before having a falling-out. In a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein, Trump was quoted calling Epstein a “terrific guy” and saying: “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
This year, Trump said their friendship ended when Epstein poached young female spa workers from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and club. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also said that Trump had kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for “being a creep.”
Epstein-related issues have repeatedly roiled the second Trump administration. Some of the president’s political allies had long depicted Epstein as the center of a wide-ranging conspiracy and had predicted that Trump would act swiftly to uncover the wrongdoing.
Bondi in February touted the release of what she called “the first phase” of the Epstein files, then endured widespread criticism when they turned out to be material that was already public. She also went on Fox News that month and said Epstein’s “client list” was on her desk awaiting her review.
In July, the Justice Department and FBI released a memo saying that there was no client list and that no more documents would be released. That prompted a new wave of outrage directed at the administration.
Soon after, Blanche traveled to Florida to interview Maxwell, Epstein’s imprisoned associate, a highly unusual move for such a high-ranking Justice Department official. She was later moved from a federal detention center in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
Trump has bristled at the Epstein-related headlines and controversies that have buffeted his administration this year, including a backlash from Republicans. He has criticized Republicans questioning his administration’s handling of the issue and called the focus on Epstein a “hoax” fueled by Democrats.
The Washington Post has reported that Trump and White House officials tried to persuade congressional Republicans to abandon an effort to demand the files be released. When it became clear that the House would defy his wishes, Trump eventually changed course.
Trump has also sought to direct Epstein-related attention toward his perceived political foes. Before announcing that he had signed the bill, Trump ordered Bondi to investigate relationships between Epstein and prominent Democrats, including Clinton. Bondi acceded to the request, saying she had tapped the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan to lead the inquiry.
It is not clear whether that investigation led the department to withhold any Epstein records. The legislation directed Bondi to provide Congress with a summary within 15 days of any redactions in the records that were handed over, along with the legal basis for those omissions.
Beth Reinhard, Aaron Schaffer, Mariana Alfaro, Matthew Choi, Shayna Jacobs, Evan Hill, Alec Dent, Maegan Vazquez, Amy Brittain, Brianna Tucker, Derek Hawkins, Jonathan O’Connell, Matt Viser, Meryl Kornfield, Richard Sima, Daranee Balachandar, Ben Brasch, Azi Paybarah, Sarah Blaskey and Natalie Allison contributed to this report.
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