The Department of Justice on Friday afternoon released thousands of files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, high-profile people involved and the victims.
The DOJ was facing a deadline to release the files Friday after President Donald Trump signed a bill last month to trigger their release. The bill cleared both chambers of Congress and instructed the attorney general to release its full investigation into Epstein.
“The Trump administration is the most transparent in history,” Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, said in a statement. “By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, the Trump administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have.”
The website organized the files into four categories: court records, Justice Department disclosures, Freedom of Information Act requests, and documents released by the House Oversight Committee. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche noted the documents released on Friday may not be the full tranche required to be made public, meaning more documents could be published at a later time.
High interest led the department to regulate access to the files. Visitors were met with a message that said “You are in line for Department of Justice web content.” After waiting in the queue, the webpage showed the four categories of information.
Much of the court documents contained heavy redactions, likely censoring personal identifying of victims or child sexual abuse material. The Epstein Files Transparency Act required the Justice Department to redact that information
Information pertinent to ongoing investigations must also be redacted. That information will need to be handed to Congress in a separate report, but the DOJ does not need to do so right away.
The department said in regard to the congressional deadline, “all reasonable efforts” have been taken to redact personal information about the victims and other private individuals. However, given the volume of the information in the case, the files may “inadvertently” include identifiable information of some people.
California Rep. Ro Khanna, the leading Democrat on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, told reporters on a call that he believes the DOJ is complying with the request — but is pushing for explanations on why some information was redacted. He also wanted to know why some documents are being withheld.
Epstein, a financier, was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution of a minor and procuring a minor for prostitution. He was later arrested on federal charges in 2019 and was not convicted because he died in a federal jail in New York City.
Trump was an associate of Epstein’s and has been pictured with the financier in the ’90s in New York. The president has faced growing pressure to release the files after promising to make them public during his campaign last year.
It’s the latest development in a monthslong debacle for the Trump administration after Attorney General Pam Bondi said there was no “client list” from Epstein. The controversy about what Bondi and the DOJ knew caused her to be in hot water with the public, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles even said she “completely whiffed” the release.
The House Oversight Committee investigating Epstein released several batches of photos, including several that include Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Top Democrats on the committee said they received over 95,000 photos from the Epstein estate and when releasing them to the public, names of victims and their faces were redacted because some of them were “incredibly disturbing.” The White House accused the committee of cherry-picking the photos and only releasing some to create a “false narrative.”