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The Department of Justice has released a long-awaited and huge tranche of documents related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein’s case has captivated public attention for years, and been the subject of countless conspiracy theories – largely due to his connections to powerful and wealthy figures in the US and overseas.
The release comes after Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the justice department to release all “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” in its possession relating to the investigation and prosecution of Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors.
The law also requires the justice department to release any materials from the investigation that relate to Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell was found guilty in 2021 of aiding Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of teen girls and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In the days before the House vote on the measure in November, as it became evident that the legislation would pass, Donald Trump, who had spent months opposing the measure and urging Republicans to block it, abruptly reversed his position and encouraged Republican lawmakers to support it.
On 19 November, Trump, who has the authority as the president to release the documents himself but has chosen not to, announced that he had signed the bill into law.
Although the legislation mandates the release of unclassified materials, it may not provide the full transparency demanded by numerous Epstein victims, as it does include notable carve-outs, including a provision exempting materials “that would jeopardize an active federal investigation” from being released.
The legislation also states that “no later than 15 days” after the materials are released, the justice department must provide Congress with a list of all categories of records released and withheld, a summary of any redactions made, and a list of “all government officials and politically exposed individuals named or referenced in the published materials”.
Before the release of the materials, experts warned that the disclosure of records may not provide a full accounting of Epstein’s crimes or his network, and that it could still leave many Epstein questions unanswered.
On Friday morning, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said that he expected that the DoJ would “release several hundred thousand documents today” on Epstein, in compliance with the law.
But, he said, that he expects that the DoJ is going to also “release more documents over the next couple of weeks”.
“So today, several hundred thousand, and then, over the next couple of weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” he said.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump vowed to release Epstein-related files. But, over the summer, his administration drew backlash after the justice department announced it would not release additional Epstein files and said it had found “no incriminating ‘client list” despite earlier claims from Pam Bondi, the attorney general, that the Epstein “client list” was sitting on her desk.
The announcement sparked bipartisan outrage – including from some Trump supporters – and reignited scrutiny of Trump’s past ties to Epstein, with whom he was friendly with for at least 15 years before falling out in 2004.
Trump has consistently denied any knowledge of or involvement in Epstein’s criminal activities. He has also described the push to release the Epstein files as a Democrat-led “hoax”.
In mid-November, several days before Congress voted to release the DoJ files, Democrats on the House oversight committee released three email exchanges they received from Epstein’s estate in response to a subpoena from the panel, from 2011, 2015 and 2019 – including one email in which Epstein claimed that Trump “knew about the girls”.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, dismissed the emails, and accused Democrats of “selectively” leaking them “ to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump”.
Later that day, Republicans on the committee released over 20,000 documents they received from Epstein’s estate, including emails between Epstein and prominent figures.
Then, earlier this month, House Democrats on the committee released several dozen photographs from Epstein’s estate, that highlight his ties to prominent figures, including Trump, Bill Clinton and British former royal, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
The images represent a small number of the almost 100,000 images released to the House committee, and they were released without context or captions.
And this week, House Democrats on the committee released another batch of photos from Epstein’s estate, as the deadline for the DOJ to release its files loomed.
Among the images were photographs of lines from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita – which is about a middle-aged man’s sexual obsession with and sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl – written on different parts of a woman’s body. It was reported earlier this year that photos from inside Epstein’s Manhattan mansion revealed that he kept a first edition copy of Lolita in his office.
The batch of photos released Thursday also included photos of travel documents, and notable people like Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Noam Chomsky, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
The images provided by the estate were undated, and provided without context. The appearance of these people in the photos is not evidence of any wrongdoing.
