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Epstein files release raises new questions

DOJ's document trove fails to quell criticism

By: Josh Meyer
USA Today

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's partial release of the long awaited Jeffrey Epstein files raises important questions, lawmakers and victim advocates say, about potentially botched investigations - and about what other evidence the government may have about potential co-conspirators.
..... Many of the thousands of documents released on December 19 [2025] to meet a legal deadline included entire files and grand jury transcripts with significant redactions. Other key investigative documents known to be in the government's possession, including information leading to the federal indictment of Epstein in 2019 and of his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2020, were missing entirely.
..... The release did confirm, for the first time, that authorities have identified 1,200 alleged victims who were trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell, or by relatives of those victims, whose names needed to be painstakingly redacted from the documents.
..... The Justice Department released additional documents the afternoon of December 20, [2025] CBS News and Politico reported.
..... However, the release of the files failed to quell criticism of a cover-up and lack of transparency.

What was on Epstein's computers?

..... An evidence lists made public December 19, [2025] for instance, described quantities of computers, hard drives and digital tape recorders seized during searches of Epstein's homes, but their contents were not released. A list of more than 200 of Epstein's masseuses was included, but their names were redacted, in accordance with DOJ policy to protect the victims.
..... And while much has been alleged about ubiquitous cameras capturing everything that went on in his various mansions and massage rooms, none of that purported video, was contained in what the DOJ called its first batch of the "Epstein Library."
..... Investigators have found that, potentially over decades, the former hedge fund manager and international socialite lured girls as young as 14 into his estates in New York, Palm Beach, Florida, and the Caribbean, paying them cash for massage hat at times led to sex.
..... Representative Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, who led the charge to force the Trump administration to release the Epstein files, said the DOJ's partial release "grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law," and vowed legal challenges.
..... Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California, the co-author with Massie of the Epstein Files Transparency act, said the release amounts to a political cover-up - even after taking into account the DOJ's claim that it is processing the documents as fast as it can.
..... Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department was doing its best to balance its legal disclosure requirements with tis obligation to redact all information about the victims from the files. The DOJ planned to "release more documents over the next couple of weeks," he told Fox News.
..... Blanche also dismissed claims that the Trump administration would try to protect Trump, saying the DOJ would by the end of the year [2025] release any documents in its possession about him - and anyone in the files.
..... "Assuming it;s consistent with the law, yes," Blanche told ABC News. "So there's no effort to hold anything back because there's the name Donald J. Trump or anybody else's name."
..... Trump and Epstein were close friends for more than a decade in the 1990s and early 2000s before falling out.

Do the files mention Trump?

..... The documents include many photos of Epstein with celebrities, including former President Bill Clinton. He has been linked to Epstein but, like Trump, not accused of any wrongdoing.
..... Two of the photos show Clinton in a hot tub and a pool with women whose faces are blacked out, prompting White House and DOJ officials to floor social media with claims he was with Epstein victims at the time.
..... Clinton spokesman angel Urena denied that, saying in a statement that the Trump administration as trying ti use people like Clinton as "scapegoats."
..... "This is about shielding themselves form what comes next or from what they'll try hide forever," Urena said. "So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn't about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be."
..... The tranche of photos and other information erased December 19 [2025] contain almost no references to Trump, despite the fact that the two men were close friends for more than a decade.
..... Trump's name, like Clinton's and those of dozens of other VIPs, has appeared on flight manifests for Epstein's private jet. Trump has strongly denied wrongdoing.
..... Democratic lawmakers and victim advocates have openly questioned whether Trump is in the files, nothing that he opposed any release of the DOJ and FBI material for months, and made a failed attempt at arm-twisting Republicans to vote down the bill requiring it.
..... Trump's allies in Congress, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, went so for as to refuse - for weeks - to swear in a newly elected Democrat to prevent her vote to order the DOJ to release the files.

What's missing from the release?

..... Khanna and Massie said the DOJ was flouting the new law by failing to turn over key investigative materials.
..... That includes information about how federal authorities handled their investigation into Epstein in 2008 and again in 2019 after Brown;s Miami Herald expose of a lenient plea agreement between Epstein and local prosecutors.
..... That second investigation led to Epstein's arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. he died by suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trail. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after he conviction on sex trafficking charges.
..... But more than 350 pages were entirely blacked out. Documents missing from the earlier South Florida investigation include a 53-count draft indictment and as 82-page prosecution memo from 2007 that came to light in victim lawsuits against Epstein in 2020.
..... The U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida at the time was Alex Acosta, who allowed Epstein to take a lenient plea deal from the local Palm Beach prosecutor on lesser state chargers of soliciting a minor for prosecution.
..... Epstein served only 13 months at a Palm Beach facility where he was allowed to leave custody and work out of his office six days a week. Acosta was later tapped by Trump to be his first secretary of labor but resigned when the plea deal became public.

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