The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier's sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, per the AP. The files, posted to the DOJ's website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December. It will take a while for news outlets to suss them out.
The files were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, enacted after public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. "Today's release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act," Blanche said at a presser announcing the disclosure. After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be redacted to protect the identities of victims of sexual abuse.
Among the materials being withheld is information that could jeopardize any ongoing investigation or expose the identities of personal details about potential victims. All women other than Maxwell have been redacted from videos and images being released Friday, Blanche said. The number of documents subject to review has ballooned to roughly 6 million, including duplicates, the department said. The DOJ released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photos, interview transcripts, call logs, and court records. Many of them were either already public or heavily blacked out.
Those records included previously released flight logs showing that Donald Trump flew on Epstein's private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling out, and several photos of former President Clinton. Neither Trump nor Clinton has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein; both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls. Also released last month were transcripts of grand jury testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who said they were paid to perform sex acts for Epstein, who killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges.
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