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The US Department of Justice on Friday (local time) released a major batch of investigative material linked to late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, making public more than three million pages of records along with over 2,000 videos and around 180,000 images.
Announcing the disclosures at a news conference, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the release fulfils a transparency mandate passed by Congress last year. "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. The move follows mounting criticism over delays and redactions in earlier disclosures. According to Al Jazeera, the administration of Donald Trump has faced scrutiny over the pace of the releases and the extent of information blacked out, amid renewed attention on Trump's past association with Epstein. Addressing concerns that influential figures were being protected, Blanche rejected such claims, saying, "There's this built-in assumption that somehow there's this hidden tranche of information of men that we know about, that we're covering up, or that we're not, we're choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case." Trump has acknowledged a long-standing friendship with Epstein but has denied knowing about the underage sex-trafficking network prosecutors say Epstein operated. The Justice Department had initially missed a December 19 congressional deadline to publish the full cache. The disclosures stem from the Epstein Files Transparency Act, adopted with bipartisan backing in November to compel the release of all federal records tied to Epstein, Al Jazeera reported. In response to the legislation, officials assigned hundreds of lawyers to review the files to determine what required redaction in order to protect victims' identities. Blanche said materials that could compromise ongoing investigations or expose potential victims were withheld. He added that all women referenced in the files, apart from Ghislaine Maxwell, have been obscured in the videos and images released. Maxwell, Epstein's former partner, was convicted of child sex trafficking and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Despite these measures, some victims have criticised the scope of the redactions, arguing that documents previously in the public domain were among those blacked out. An earlier batch of records released in December fell short of the full disclosure required by law, though it included flight logs indicating Trump had travelled on Epstein's private jet in the 1990s, Al Jazeera reported. The latest materials also contain images showing figures such as Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, Woody Allen and former US President Bill Clinton socialising with Epstein, sometimes on his private island. None of those depicted have been charged in connection with the case. Epstein died by apparent suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges. He had earlier served 13 months in custody in Florida following a controversial plea deal in 2008. One of Epstein's victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, filed multiple lawsuits accusing him of arranging sexual encounters with powerful men while she was underage. All those she named denied wrongdoing. Giuffre died in April 2025 in Australia. Among those she accused was Prince Andrew, who denied the claims but later reached a settlement. In October, his brother King Charles III stripped him of his royal titles following the controversy, Al Jazeera reported. (ANI)
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