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Analysis: trickle release on a Friday signals move to bury Trump ties
Sam Levine
The justice department’s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday signaled how the agency is using a variety of tactics to try to bury and obfuscate Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein, writes Sam Levine.
The release underscores how the Trump administration is trying to balance both the demand to release the files – something encouraged in large part by the Maga base – while also obfuscating with a slow trickle of document dumps to prevent any embarrassment to Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before they had a falling out.
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche has said the department will continue to produce documents on a rolling basis in the coming weeks – a holiday period – a bet that Americans will simply tune out the story as it drags on.
Read Sam’s full analysis here:
Key events
George Chidi
Conservative reaction to the partial release of documents in the Jeffrey Epstein case has been mixed, with Trump administration supporters highlighting the prominent presence of Bill Clinton and other Democrats in photographs, with others lamenting how the heavy redaction casts Donald Trump and Republicans in a bad light.
Administration officials defended the redactions with fervent hyperbole. “Never in American history has a President or the Department of Justice been this transparent with the American people about such a sensitive law enforcement matter,” said Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, who released a six-page letter describing the redaction process.
While Trump’s name and image appear in some of the documents, the redactions raise questions about what may be concealed behind the black blocks. Some Republicans immediately called for more transparency.
Rightwing Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – who has recently fallen out with Trump – criticized the release, describing “the heavily redacted Epstein files”, the “failure to release them all by today’s lawful deadline” and the redaction of “politically exposed individuals and government officials” as “NOT MAGA”.
Read more:
Democrats on the House oversight committee have accused the justice department of taking down a previously published photo which included Donald Trump from the administration’s partial release of the Epstein files.
On social media, the oversight Democrats wrote: “This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release. @AGPamBondi is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.”
Victoria Bekiempis
Donald Trump’s justice department has been hit with legal threats and scathing outrage after authorities released a limited, heavily redacted trove of Jeffrey Epstein files in an apparent violation of the law mandating the near-complete disclosure of these documents by Friday.
Trump’s justice department was required to release all investigative files involving the late financier by 19 December under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The legislation does allow for records to be withheld or redacted if their disclosure would imperil present criminal investigations, threaten national security or identify Epstein’s victims – but otherwise it mandates disclosure of everything else.
The department’s initial disclosure on Friday afternoon, and subsequent releases throughout the night, did not abide by this requirement. Several lawmakers have spoken out against the failure of the Trump administration to release the complete files.
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The US department of justice this morning posted two new batches of Epstein files online, which can be found here and here. The new documents are all labeled as being related to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. They include court documents from past cases against Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
A book titled Massage for Dummies was seen among the partial files released yesterday by the Department of Justice. It is mentioned as one of the “gifts” Epstein gave to a “girl” whose name is redacted.
Various reports say Epstein would often request massages from his victims – for both himself and others in his circle.
Analysis: Trump over-promises and under-delivers with Epstein cache
David Smith
“The Trump administration is the most transparent in history,” proclaimed Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, insisting that it has “done more for the victims [of Epstein] than Democrats ever have”. But it is apparent that Donald Trump has once again over-promised and under-delivered, writes David Smith.
Many of the documents in the data dump were heavily redacted, with text blacked out so it was impossible to read. Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said: “What they have released is clearly incomplete and appears to be over-redacted to boot.”
The documents extensively featured photos of former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s.
It smelled of a cover-up. And the rare reticence of Trump did little to dispel that notion. At a White House event on Friday with pharmaceutical companies who have agreed to lower some of their prices, the president – typically so garrulous on every issue under the sun – declined to answer reporters’ questions off topic.
Soon after the partial release of the Epstein files, it was announced that the US military had launched airstrikes against dozens of Islamic State targets in Syria in retaliation for an attack on US personnel. There were echoes of another December day in 1998 when Clinton ordered air strikes against Iraq and was accused by members of Congress of trying to distract from impeachment proceedings against him.
Read the rest of David’s analysis here:
Geraldine McKelvie
Here are some more the photos released in the first cache of files released by the Department of Justice.
There are several pictures of Andrew Mounbatten-Windsor in the cache of files released on Friday, appearing to show how he gave Epstein and Maxwell access to British high society. Read our detailed timeline of the former Prince’s ties with Epstein.
Peter Mandelson, who was recently sacked as the UK’s ambassador to the US after details about his friendship with Epstein emerged, is pictured looking on as Epstein blows out candles on a large birthday cake. Although the image was part of the cache of documents released on Friday, it has been published before.
The Labour peer, 72, is understood to have been close to Epstein since the early 2000s, describing him in a 50th birthday message as “my best pal”. Epstein was introduced to the then British prime minister, Tony Blair, in May 2002 in a meeting understood to have been facilitated by Mandelson, a former MP and cabinet minister.
Mandelson chose to continue his friendship with Epstein after the financier’s conviction for child sex offences in 2008, encouraging him to “fight for early release”. In September, shortly before he was forced out as ambassador, Mandelson said: “I regret very, very deeply indeed carrying on that association with him for far longer than I should have done.”
Kevin Spacey is pictured in a group with Maxwell and Clinton in Winston Churchill’s war rooms, the secret underground meeting place for the British cabinet during the second world war. This image is understood to have been taken in 2002, when Clinton travelled to the UK to address the Labour party conference.
There is no information to suggest Spacey, 66, was involved with, or aware of, Maxwell and Epstein’s crimes and he has not yet made any comment on the documents.
Separately, Spacey was acquitted of nine sexual offences during a criminal case in 2023.
See more of the images at the link below:
Timeline: former Prince Andrew and Epstein’s ties
1999-2010
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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor said he first met the American financier Jeffrey Epstein in 1999 through Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s then girlfriend who was already known to the former prince.
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Several undated photos of them together have been released in the recent tranche of Epstein files, showing how Andrew facilitated their access to British high society. Epstein and Maxwell appear to be pictured hunting with the former prince at Balmoral and with him in the royal box at Ascot. A separate picture shows Maxwell outside 10 Downing Street. One image shows Mountbatten-Windsor reclining across the legs of five people, whose faces have been redacted, with his head near a woman’s lap. Another picture, understood to have been taken in 2002, shows Maxwell posing in Winston Churchill’s war rooms, the secret underground meeting place for the British cabinet during the second world war, with a group that includes the former US president Bill Clinton and the actor Kevin Spacey.
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Andrew told the BBC that he used to see Epstein a maximum of three times a year at the time but confirmed that he had been on his private plane, stayed at his private island and at his homes in Palm Beach, Florida and New York.
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In July 2006 Epstein was invited to a masked ball at Windsor Castle to celebrate the 18th birthday of Princess Beatrice, Andrew’s elder daughter. The previous month Epstein had been charged with one count of solicitation of prostitution. Andrew said Epstein never mentioned that he was under investigation.
2010-2018:
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In 2010 Epstein provided Sarah Ferguson £15,000 to assist with her personal debt. When this was reported by The Telegraph the following year, she made a public apology for accepting the money, stating in 2011 that: “I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me. I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgement on my behalf. I am just so contrite I cannot say. Whenever I can I will repay the money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again. What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.”
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However, leaked emails from just weeks after this statement was made in 2011 show that Ferguson apologised to Epstein for disowning him.
She wrote to Epstein: “I know you feel hellaciously let down by me from what you were either told or read and I must humbly apologise to you and your heart for that …I was instructed to act with the utmost speed if I would have any chance of holding on to my career as a children’s book author and a children’s philanthropist,” she is said to have written. “As you know, I did not, absolutely not, say the ‘P word’ [paedophile] about you but understand it was reported that I did.”
2019-Present:
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After Epstein’s second arrest in 2019, Andrew released a statement in which he stated: “At no stage during the limited time I spent with him did I see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to his arrest and conviction.”
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On 16 November 2019, the BBC aired an interview with Andrew on Newsnight. Asked by Emily Maitlis if he regretted his friendship with convicted paedophile Epstein, Andrew said he did not, saying that “the people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn either by him or because of him were actually very useful”. The interview was widely seen as a disaster with Andrew being subject to strong criticism.
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Days after the Newsnight interview aired, Andrew stepped down from official duties in 2019.
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In May 2020 it was announced that Andrew would permanently resign from all public roles.
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In June 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced on Tuesday to 20 years in prison in her New York sex-trafficking case for procuring teen girls for Jeffrey Epstein for him to abuse.
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In 2022, Andrew paid millions in a settlement agreement to Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was sexually assaulted by him when she was trafficked by Epstein as a teenager. Andrew settled Giuffre’s lawsuit despite claiming he had never met her and despite a widely circulated photo of them taken by Epstein in Maxwell’s London home. He made no admission of liability.
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The publication of a posthumous memoir by Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, and the US government’s release of documents from Epstein’s estate, brought more scrutiny of his relationship with the financier.
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Mounbatten-Windsor’s brother, the king, stripped him of his royal titles in October 2025. The statement from Buckingham Palace added: “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”
The royal family have declined to comment on the photos released in the first tranche of ‘Epstein Files’.
‘What are we hiding here?’ asks Virginia Giuffre’s brother after limited files released
Virginia Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts tells Reuters he has “mixed feelings” after the partial release of the Epstein files. “What are we hiding here?” he asks.
Democrat Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, estimated the tranche of documents released yesterday included only about 10 per cent of the material in the department’s possession.
Giuffre’s sister-in-law Amanda Roberts adds that “nothing the Department of Justice does comes as a surprise”. She claims it has used the case as a “political toy”.
“When there were rumours that potentially the president could be named in there, all of a sudden the story changed,” she says. Then it was “hoax” and there was “nothing to see”, she adds.
Trump is scantly mentioned in the files released yesterday and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
Despite this, Sky Roberts tells Reuters his sister would have felt an “overwhelming amount of joy for her survivor sisters” on Friday.
Democrats criticize partial Epstein files release
Since the release of the first tranche of heavily-redacted Epstein files yesterday, Democrats have lined up to criticize the Trump administration and justice department, saying the partial release violates the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In a post on X last night, Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said: “Now the coverup is out in the open. This is far from over. Everyone involved will have to answer for this. Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, whole admin. Protecting a bunch of rapists and pedophiles because they have money, power, and connections. Bondi should resign tonight.”
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer accused the Trump administration of breaking the law: “Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law … We need answers as to why,” he said in a post on X.
Co-author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Ro Khanna, posted a video on X arguing the DOJ release “does not comply” with the law.
“Our law requires them to explain redactions. There is not a single explanation,” Khanna said, adding he would look at options like impeachment, contempt or referral to prosecution.
Analysis: trickle release on a Friday signals move to bury Trump ties
Sam Levine
The justice department’s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday signaled how the agency is using a variety of tactics to try to bury and obfuscate Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein, writes Sam Levine.
The release underscores how the Trump administration is trying to balance both the demand to release the files – something encouraged in large part by the Maga base – while also obfuscating with a slow trickle of document dumps to prevent any embarrassment to Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before they had a falling out.
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche has said the department will continue to produce documents on a rolling basis in the coming weeks – a holiday period – a bet that Americans will simply tune out the story as it drags on.
Read Sam’s full analysis here:
Here are some of the photos released in the first tranche of files released by the US Department of Justice.
A number of famous faces feature, including former US President Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, billionaire Richard Branson, and musicians Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson.
Angel Ureña, a spokesperson for Bill Clinton, said that the Epstein investigation wasn’t about the former president.
“There are two types of people here,” he said. “The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships after that. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that.”
See more of the images at the link below:
Survivors of Epstein’s abuse condemn justice department for partial release of files
Survivors of the late Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse have expressed disappointment over a document dump that was heavily redacted and only partially released.
Epstein survivor Liz Stein told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she thinks the Department for Justice is “really brazenly going against the Epstein Files Transparency Act” – the law which required all documents to be released by Friday.
She says survivors are worried about the possibility of a “slow rollout of incomplete information without any context”. The fight for justice has spanned decades, continents and political administrations, Stein says, adding: “We just want all of the evidence of these crimes out there”.
While the release of documents comes at a “great cost” to victims, Stein is hoping it will be a “path to justice”.
Lisa Phillips was in her 20s when she met the disgraced financier and says she suffered years of abuse from him and people linked to him.
She told CNN that she believes the Department of Justice was “protecting themselves, not the victims,” after Trump officials released only partial files that were heavily redacted.
“I feel like they have so much information to start connecting the dots and for survivors to get justice. But as you’re seeing, we just keep stalling,” she added.
Jennifer Freeman, a lawyer who represents the Epstein survivor Maria Farmer in her lawsuit against the federal government, told our colleague Victoria Bekiempis that one newly released document was important: an FBI report from 1996, documenting Farmer’s effort to report her abuse by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
“Maria Farmer reported Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes in 1996,” Freeman said. “Had the government done their job, and properly investigated Maria’s report, over 1,000 victims could have been spared and 30 years of trauma avoided.”
Opening Summary
Hello. We are resuming our live coverage of the Department of Justice’s long-awaited release of documents from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for more than 15 years.
The first cache of ‘Epstein Files’ were released on Friday evening after months of delay and stalling from the Trump administration. Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche told Fox News that he expected the department to release several hundred thousand more files in the coming weeks.
However, significant portions of the files have been heavily redacted. The photos lack crucial context, including dates and locations. Moreover, the justice department appears to be in violation of the law that required the release of all of the Epstein files by a Friday deadline, according to the two congressmen who drafted the legislation, Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican.
Missing documents & ‘over-redactions’:
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Khanna said that the partial “document dump this afternoon does not comply” with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and told CNN, adding: “The most important documents are missing.” Those documents are a draft 60-count federal indictment outlining charges against Epstein, and a detailed memorandum summarizing the evidence that was disregarded by the US attorney, Alex Acosta, who chose instead to offer Epstein an extraordinarily lenient plea deal.
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According to a Fox News report, the justice department redacted the names and identifiers of victims and “the same redaction standards were applied to politically exposed individuals and government officials”. Massie wrote on social media that the attorney general, Pam Bondi, could be convicted by a future justice department of obstruction of justice if she violated a provision of the law by redacting the names of government officials. Massie noted that the law explicitly states that no documents may be “withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official”. Blanche later called Fox News to insist that the justice department is “not redacting the names of any politicians”.
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Instead, the justice department said it may have “over-redacted” the Epstein files in order to “protect victims”. Jay Clayton, US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in court on Friday that it had blacked out the faces of almost every woman photographed with Jeffrey Epstein, citing issues determining who was a victim of the paedophile. Mr Clayton reportedly noted the approach could be “over-redaction”, but blamed it on the 30-day timeframe Congress set for releasing the documents.
Who is in the Epstein files?
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The files that were viewable included images of Epstein socialising with an array of prominent figures, including entertainers like Michael Jackson, Chris Tucker and Diana Ross, and the entrepreneur Richard Branson. The images also show former British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.
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Peter Mandelson, who was sacked from his job as the UK’s ambassador to the US earlier this year, could be seen in a picture with Epstein who is being presented with a giant birthday cake.
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There were many images of Bill Clinton, but very little about president Trump in the portion of the files released on Friday. But one seemingly innocuous snapshot of Epstein’s bookcase did include a reminder that he and Trump were once close. The image showed Epstein’s copy of Trump’s 1997 book, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, which the New York Times reported in July included an inscription from Trump reading: “To Jeff – You are the greatest!”
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