NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday released more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, reinstating disclosures under a law aimed at revealing what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with wealthy and powerful people.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Branch said the Justice Department will release more than 3 million pages of Epstein’s latest disclosures, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The documents, posted on the department’s website, include some of the millions of pages of records that officials said were withheld in documents first released in December.
The information was disclosed under the Epstein Dossier Transparency Act, which was enacted after months of public and political pressure for the government to release files on the late financier and his close friend and ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
“Today’s release marks the culmination of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the Act,” Branch said at a news conference announcing the disclosure.
After missing a congressionally mandated Dec. 19 deadline to release all documents, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of attorneys with reviewing records to determine what needs to be redacted or removed to protect the identities of sex abuse victims.
Information in the withheld materials could jeopardize any ongoing investigations or expose personal details of potential victims. Branch said all of the women except Maxwell have been removed from the video and images posted Friday.
The department said the number of documents requiring review had ballooned to about 6 million, including duplicates.
The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents on Christmas Eve, including photos, transcripts of interviews, transcripts of phone calls and court records. Many of them have either been made public or are heavily blocked.
The records include previously released flight logs showing Donald Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s (before their falling out), as well as several photos of former President Bill Clinton. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, have been publicly accused of wrongdoing related to Epstein, and both have said they had no knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of underage girls.
Transcripts of grand jury testimony by FBI agents were also released last month, describing their interviews with several girls and young women who said they were hired to perform sex acts for Epstein.
Epstein committed suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
In 2008 and 2009, Epstein was jailed in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from people under the age of 18. At the time, investigators gathered evidence that Epstein sexually abused underage girls at his Palm Beach home, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser state charges.
In 2021, a New York federal jury convicted British socialite Maxwell of sex trafficking for helping to recruit some of his underage victims. She was transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas and is currently serving a 20-year sentence. She denies any wrongdoing.
U.S. prosecutors have never charged anyone else with Epstein’s abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, alleged in a lawsuit that Epstein arranged for her to have sexual encounters when she was 17 and 18 years old with numerous politicians, business tycoons, prominent academics and others, all of whom have denied her accusations.
Those she accuses include Britain’s Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after the scandal led to him being stripped of his royal title. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.
Giuffre committed suicide on his family farm in Western Australia last year at the age of 41.
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Tucker and Richer reported from Washington.
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