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The US deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said on Friday that the justice department had released more than 3m pages of documents related to its investigation into the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a long-awaited announcement that appears to represent the bulk of the so-called Epstein files that have dogged Donald Trump politically.
In a testy news conference, Blanche said that the release would include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, which will have “extensive redactions”. He added that the Trump administration had produced roughly 3.5m pages in an effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He said that they include large quantities of commercial pornography and images “that were seized from Epstein’s devices”.
“The department’s collection effort resulted in more than 6m pages being identified as potentially responsive, including Department and FBI emails, interview summaries, images, videos and various other materials collected and generated during the various investigations and prosecutions that the act covered,” Blanche said.
A large tranche of documents became available on the Department of Justice website during the news conference.
While an analysis is still underway, the file release exposed previously unknown financial ties and social connections between Epstein and prominent figures in the US and UK.
One back-and-forth email chain between Epstein and Elon Musk in 2012 shows the world’s richest billionaire responding to the question “how many people will you be for the heli[copter] to the island” with “what day/night will be the wildest party on =our island?”
Documents also reveal that Howard Lutnick, Trump’s commerce secretary, planned a visit to Epstein’s private island in December 2012 with his wife and children for a lunch gathering, despite claiming last year that he and his wife had been so “revolted” by Epstein around 2005 that they decided to “never be in a room with that disgusting person ever again”.
A day after the planned meeting, the emails show Epstein’s assistant forwarded Lutnick a message from Epstein that read: “Nice seeing you.”
Emails also show Epstein transferred thousands of pounds to the former British ambassador Peter Mandelson’s husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, beginning in September 2009, just two months after Epstein’s release from prison for soliciting prostitution from a minor. The payments included £10,000 for osteopathy school fees and anatomical models, followed by monthly transfers of $2,000, with Mandelson himself instructing Epstein in one email to structure the arrangement as a loan “to avoid a gift-tax filing”.
Other emails reveal that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, more commonly known as ex-prince Andrew, attended an intimate dinner party at Epstein’s New York home in December 2010 – during the same visit the former prince claimed was meant to sever ties with the convicted sex offender, with Peggy Siegal, a publicist, assembling a guest list including Woody Allen and George Stephanopoulos.
Trump promised during the 2024 campaign to release the Epstein files, but after taking office, he spent months downplaying the files’ significance and at times lashing out at Republicans who demanded their release.
The files became Trump’s “worst issue by far”, according to the CNN analyst Harry Enten, who noted that while 87% of Republicans approved of his overall job performance in a September NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, only 45% approved of his handling of the Epstein files.
Under mounting pressure from both parties, Trump abruptly reversed course in November, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act while dismissing the controversy as a “Democrat hoax”.
A letter from the Department of Justice to Congress on Friday explained that the documents were drawn from primary sources spanning over 20 years, including the Florida and New York cases against Epstein, the Ghislaine Maxwell prosecution, investigations into Epstein’s death, and multiple FBI investigations. The department has also filed court motions to release additional materials currently covered by protective orders from a civil lawsuit and grand jury materials from a case against corrections officers who worked where Epstein died.
Blanche said that what was withheld were personal and medical files, documents depicting death, physical abuse and injury, as well as any depiction of child sexual abuse “that would jeopardize an active federal investigation”. He shared that the department will submit to the House and Senate judiciary committees a report listing “all categories of records released and withheld”.
Approximately 200,000 pages were redacted or withheld based on various legal privileges including attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, according to the letter to Congress.
When asked if there were new names in the document drop, Blanche said he did not have anything to share.
He did say that the release reiterated what “President Trump has said for years …which is detailing his relationship, and lack thereof, with Mr Epstein, and what he thought about Mr Epstein.”
The justice department also established an email inbox for victims to report redaction concerns and will allow members of Congress to view unredacted portions under confidentiality agreements. Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, who co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act to secure their official release, said the redactions are potentially suspicious.
“The DoJ said it identified over 6m potentially responsive pages but is releasing only about 3.5m after review and redactions,” Khanna said in a statement. “I will be reviewing closely to see if they release what I’ve been pushing for: the FBI 302 victim interview statements, a draft indictment and prosecution memorandum prepared during the 2007 Florida investigation, and hundreds of thousands of emails and files from Epstein’s computers.”
Just ahead of the files being released to the public, Blanche told Fox News Digital that “in none of these communications, even when doing his best to disparage President Trump, did Epstein suggest President Trump had done anything criminal or had any inappropriate contact with any of his victims”. Later in his press conference, the deputy attorney general said he wanted to dispel rumors about Trump and the justice department working hand-in-hand on Epstein.
“What we told our reviewers, is that that was the goal … there’s this mantra out there that, oh, you know, the Department of Justice is supposed to protect Donald J Trump, and that’s what we were telling that’s not true,” Blanche told reporters. “That was never the case. We are always concerned about the victims.”
The huge document dump follows weeks of delay after the department conceded in a 5 January letter that only 12,285 documents totaling 125,575 pages had been published to date, falling far short of a 19 December deadline mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, in the letter, wrote that “more than 2 million documents potentially responsive to the Act” were under various phases of review at the time.
Documents released in prior batches under the act have detailed systemic failures by law enforcement officials to stop Epstein’s abuse and included graphic testimony about the recruitment methods used to ensnare victims.
Earlier disclosures under the act included grand jury testimony describing how Maxwell allegedly asked one victim to recruit other girls, telling her “they have to look young at least”, though the victim refused, saying she “didn’t want anyone else to go through that”.
