What we know so far from newly released Epstein files
If you’re just joining us, the day in US politics has been dominated by the latest trove of Jeffrey Epstein documents. Some key things to know include:
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The documents were released overnight on Tuesday and include a claim that Donald Trump was on a flight with Epstein and a 20-year-old woman in the 1990s. There is no indication that the woman was a victim of any crime and being included in the files does not indicate any criminal wrongdoing.
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The files also include a series of emails between Ghislaine Maxwell and someone who signs himself as “A” and uses the alias “The Invisible Man”. In August 2001, “A” wrote to Maxwell: “I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family”.
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Emails show Maxwell discussing arranging “girls” and “two-legged sight seeing” for a man identified in the correspondence as “The Invisible Man”, who is widely believed to be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. In a February 2002 email exchange about a proposed trip to Peru, Maxwell forwards messages from Juan Estoban Ganoza outlining possible activities, including visiting the Nazca Lines.
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The former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley and the ex-US Treasury secretary Larry Summers were appointed as executors of Epstein’s estate, according to a newly released tranche of documents linked to the now-deceased child sex offender.
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Included in the batch of files was a now-deleted fake video that appeared to depict Epstein attempting to end his life. Also in the trove are photos of the fake Austrian passport uncovered from a safe during a 2019 FBI raid of Epstein’s home in Manhattan. There is also a 2021 subpoena to the Mar-a-Lago Club relating to the federal investigation into Maxwell. Also revealed was that the FBI sought to question Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor about his links to a second millionaire sex offender, Peter Nygard.
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The US Department of Justice a rare statement defending the president as it released nearly 30,000 of additional pages of documents related to Epstein. The department said some of the material includes “untrue and sensationalist claims” submitted to the FBI shortly before the 2020 US election, including allegations made against Trump. The department said the claims are “unfounded and false”.
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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has called on the justice department to release details on “at least ten potential Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirators” it was looking at and why they did not prosecute.
Key events
Supreme court refuses to allow Trump’s national guard deployment in Chicago area
The supreme court has refused to allow Donald Trump to deploy national guard troops to the Chicago area, in a rare departure from recent cases where the court’s conservative majority has largely sided with the president.
While the justices’ order is preliminary, it marks an important reining-in of Trump’s efforts to expand the use of the military for domestic purposes in historic moves against a growing number of Democratic-led jurisdictions.
The nation’s highest court denied the US justice department’s request to lift a judge’s order in October that has blocked the deployment of hundreds of national guard personnel in a legal challenge brought by Illinois state officials and local leaders, who had opposed any federalization of those troops to offer back up to immigration enforcement.
The department had asked to allow the deployment while the litigation plays out. There have been sustained protests outside an ICE facility in Broadview, on the outskirts of Chicago, with aggressive tactics used against the resistance by the authorities.
The justices decided on a 6-3 vote on Tuesday to back a lower court and rule that the Trump administration had not met the legal burden needed to show that it was not able to execute the laws of the land without federal military intervention.
The three justices leaning furthest to the right on the bench, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, dissented.
‘Not justice or accountability’: Maria Farmer says DOJ still ‘evading truth’ on Epstein
Maria Farmer, who reported the abuse of her sister Annie Farmer by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to law enforcement in 1996, has released this statement today, following congressman Robert Garcia’s request to the Office of the Inspector General to conduct an independent investigation into the failure of the FBI to properly investigate her reports of child pornography and abuse:
The release of the Epstein files has been many things – initial victory and optimism for a long-fought push for truth, crushing disappointment and frustration at the Department of Justice’s continued evasion of the truth with the heavily yet irresponsibly redacted release of the files, and the surrealism of finally being vindicated after the truth was revealed.
We now all know that the FBI ignored my 1996 reports of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell’s sexual abuse of minors and possession of CSAM which I made – not for myself – but for vulnerable girls like my younger sisters and Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Since then, they have engaged in a systematic cover-up to protect him and his circle of powerful abusers.
This revelation brings some validation – but not justice or accountability. It must lead to real answers about who knew what and when, and why our government’s justice system failed so badly. I am grateful to Congressman Garcia’s leadership in continuing to demand answers and join him in insisting that the Office of the Inspector General stop protecting institutions and start providing the truth that survivors and the public have been denied for far too long.
The day so far
Much of the day so far has been dominated by the latest trove of Jeffrey Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice.
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The documents were released overnight and include a claim that Donald Trump was on a flight with Epstein and a 20-year-old woman in the 1990s. There is no indication that the woman was a victim of any crime and being included in the files does not indicate any criminal wrongdoing.
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The flight records further indicate that Trump traveled on Epstein’s private jet at least eight times between 1993 and 1996, including at least four in which Ghislaine Maxwell was also present.
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Another file released is a letter referencing Trump that appears to have been sent by Epstein to Larry Nassar, the US gymnastics team doctor convicted of sexually abusing scores of young gymnasts, while he was in jail. The DOJ later said it was “looking into the validity of the letter and would follow up as soon as possible.
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The files also include a series of emails between Maxwell and someone who signs himself as “A” and uses the alias “The Invisible Man”, who is widely believed to be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. In August 2001, “A” wrote to Maxwell: “I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family”. He goes on to ask Maxwell if she had “found me some new inappropriate friends”. She replied: “So sorry to disappoint you, however the truth must be told. I have only been able to find appropriate friends.”
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Emails show Maxwell discussing arranging “girls” and “two-legged sight seeing” for “The Invisible Man”. In a February 2002 email exchange about a proposed trip to Peru, Maxwell forwards messages from Juan Estoban Ganoza outlining possible activities, including visiting the Nazca Lines.
-
It was also revealed that the FBI sought to question Mountbatten-Windsor about his links to a second millionaire sex offender, Peter Nygard.
-
The former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley and the ex-US Treasury secretary Larry Summers were appointed as executors of Epstein’s estate, according to a newly released tranche of documents linked to the now-deceased child sex offender.
-
The batch of files also included a now-deleted fake video that appeared to depict Epstein attempting to end his life.
-
There are also photos of the fake Austrian passport uncovered from a safe during a 2019 FBI raid of Epstein’s home in Manhattan.
-
Also released was a 2021 subpoena to the Mar-a-Lago Club relating to the federal investigation into Maxwell, demanding “any and all employment records relating to” a person whose name is redacted.
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The DOJ a rare statement defending the president as it released nearly 30,000 of additional pages of documents related to Epstein. The department said some of the material includes “untrue and sensationalist claims” submitted to the FBI shortly before the 2020 US election, including allegations made against Trump. The department said the claims are “unfounded and false”.
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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has called on the justice department to release details on “at least ten potential Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirators” it was looking at and why they did not prosecute.
In other news:
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The US economy surged over the summer, with GDP rising at a far higher rate than expected and its fastest rate in two years. But consumer sentiment fell in December for the fifth month in a row, the longest consecutive fall since 2008.
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The Trump administration announced it will delay the imposition of tariffs on Chinese semiconductor imports until June 2027, in another move to cool down tensions and maintain a detente with Beijing after a heated trade war earlier this year.
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Former Republican senator Ben Sasse shared that he has terminal stage-four pancreatic cancer, calling it a “death sentence”. In 2021, he was among seven Republicans to vote for impeaching Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot.
US economy grew strongly in third quarter, GDP report says
Dominic Rushe
The US economy surged over the summer, the commerce department announced today in one of the final snapshots of the nation’s finances to be released in 2025.
GDP rose at an annualized rate of 4.3% over the third quarter, far higher than expected and its fastest rate in two years. The surprisingly strong growth “reflected increases in consumer spending, exports, and government spending that were partly offset by a decrease in investment”, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Economists had been expecting the growth rate to slow to 3.2% from an annualized rate of 3.8% in the second quarter.
But the summer surge was offset by more bad news on consumer confidence. The Conference Board’s closely watched gauge of consumer sentiment fell in December for the fifth month in a row, the longest consecutive fall since 2008.
The US economy has demonstrated resilience in a year of extraordinary challenges. Trump announced sweeping tariffs in April on the US’s major trading partners and while he has watered down or rolled back many of the levies, the uncertainty they have caused has rattled businesses and consumers.
The GDP figures will further complicate the decision-making of the Federal Reserve. The Fed announced its third interest rate cut of the year earlier this month amid signs of a weakening jobs market but is divided about how it should proceed.
Its dual mandate is to maintain price stability while maximising employment. Inflation remains stubbornly above its 2% yearly target – supporting the argument that rates should stay high to bring down prices – but the cracks in the job market suggest lower rates might help keep unemployment from rising.
The Fed’s decisions is also clouded by a lack of data. As has been the case with other key economic reports, the latest GDP figures had been held back by the government shutdown, which lasted from 1 October to 12 November and furloughed government workers, including those responsible for collecting economic data.
Trump administration delays announcement of China chip tariffs until 2027
Earlier today, the Trump administration announced it will delay the imposition of tariffs on Chinese semiconductor imports until June 2027, in another move to cool down tensions and maintain a truce with Beijing after a heated trade war earlier this year.
“China’s targeting of the semiconductor industry for dominance is unreasonable and burdens or restricts US commerce and thus is actionable,” the Office of the United States Trade Representative said in a filing, adding that this was the conclusion of a year-long probe that began under the Biden administration.
Reuters notes that the move to delay tariffs for at least 18 months preserves Trump’s ability to impose the duties whilst seeking again to dial down tensions with Beijing in the face of Chinese export curbs on the rare earth metals that global tech companies rely on and which China controls.
As the New York Times also reports: “Republicans and Democrats have grown concerned in recent years that the United States’ growing dependence on these products could pose a national security threat. China has invested heavily in the production of older kinds of semiconductors, making it difficult for US factories making similar products to stay in business.”
As we’ve been reporting, documents to Jeffrey Epstein contain emails between Ghislaine Maxwell and an individual signing off as ‘A’ and ‘The Invisible Man’.
My colleague Ben Quinn examines the evidence released in the latest trove of files that suggest a link between Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Maxwell, from burnt toast to the trip to Peru.
Mountbatten-Windsor was approached for comment. In October, he said of claims about his links with Epstein: “I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”
DOJ ‘looking into validity’ of letter purportedly from Epstein to Larry Nassar that includes reference to Trump
Earlier we reported on a letter that appeared to have been sent by Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Nassar, the US gymnastics team doctor convicted of sexually abusing scores of young gymnasts, while he was in jail.
Moments ago, the Department of Justice said it is looking into the validity of the letter and would follow up as soon as possible. In a post on X, the DOJ added:
In the meantime, three facts stand out:
-The postmark on the envelope is Virginia, not New York, where Jeffrey Epstein was jailed at the time.
-The return address listed the wrong jail where Epstein was held and did not include his inmate number, which is required for outgoing mail.
-The envelope was processed three days AFTER Epstein’s death.
Edward Helmore
Elsewhere in US politics, former Republican senator Ben Sasse announced that he has terminal stage-four pancreatic cancer in a post on X, calling it a “death sentence”.
Friends – This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.
Sasse, 53, represented Nebraska in the US Senate from 2015 to 2023. In 2021, he was among seven Republicans to vote for impeaching Donald Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot. The Senate vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict.
Donald Trump also said today in a post on Truth Social that he wanted the next chair of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates if financial markets are doing well. He added:
Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!
Some Epstein file redactions are being undone with hacks
George Chidi
People examining documents released by the Department of Justice in the Jeffrey Epstein case discovered that some of the file redaction can be undone with Photoshop techniques, or by simply highlighting text to paste into a word processing file.
Un-redacted text from these documents began circulating through social media on Monday evening.
Here’s the full report:
In other news, the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, hosted by Donald Trump, will be broadcast tonight at 8pm ET. Trump promoted the broadcast of the event, which was recorded earlier this month, earlier today on Truth Social. He wrote:
THE TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER HONORS will be broadcast tonight, on CBS, and Stream on Paramount+. Tune in at 8 P.M. EST! At the request of the Board, and just about everybody else in America, I am hosting the event. Tell me what you think of my “Master of Ceremony” abilities. If really good, would you like me to leave the Presidency in order to make “hosting” a full time job? We will be honoring true GREATS in the History of Entertainment: Sylvester Stallone, Michael Crawford, KISS, George Strait, and Gloria Gaynor.
What we know so far from newly released Epstein files
If you’re just joining us, the day in US politics has been dominated by the latest trove of Jeffrey Epstein documents. Some key things to know include:
-
The documents were released overnight on Tuesday and include a claim that Donald Trump was on a flight with Epstein and a 20-year-old woman in the 1990s. There is no indication that the woman was a victim of any crime and being included in the files does not indicate any criminal wrongdoing.
-
The files also include a series of emails between Ghislaine Maxwell and someone who signs himself as “A” and uses the alias “The Invisible Man”. In August 2001, “A” wrote to Maxwell: “I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family”.
-
Emails show Maxwell discussing arranging “girls” and “two-legged sight seeing” for a man identified in the correspondence as “The Invisible Man”, who is widely believed to be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. In a February 2002 email exchange about a proposed trip to Peru, Maxwell forwards messages from Juan Estoban Ganoza outlining possible activities, including visiting the Nazca Lines.
-
The former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley and the ex-US Treasury secretary Larry Summers were appointed as executors of Epstein’s estate, according to a newly released tranche of documents linked to the now-deceased child sex offender.
-
Included in the batch of files was a now-deleted fake video that appeared to depict Epstein attempting to end his life. Also in the trove are photos of the fake Austrian passport uncovered from a safe during a 2019 FBI raid of Epstein’s home in Manhattan. There is also a 2021 subpoena to the Mar-a-Lago Club relating to the federal investigation into Maxwell. Also revealed was that the FBI sought to question Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor about his links to a second millionaire sex offender, Peter Nygard.
-
The US Department of Justice a rare statement defending the president as it released nearly 30,000 of additional pages of documents related to Epstein. The department said some of the material includes “untrue and sensationalist claims” submitted to the FBI shortly before the 2020 US election, including allegations made against Trump. The department said the claims are “unfounded and false”.
-
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has called on the justice department to release details on “at least ten potential Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirators” it was looking at and why they did not prosecute.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a House Republican who is resigning in January after breaking with Donald Trump and many in her party, called the latest Epstein files “horrifying.”
“Trump called me a traitor for fighting him to release the Epstein files and standing with women,” she wrote on X. “Only evil people would hide this and protect those who participated. I pray for these women.”
The House Democrats on the oversight committee accused the White House of a “cover-up” in a post on X:
The new DOJ documents raise serious questions about the relationship between Epstein and Donald Trump. And why are Epstein’s co-conspirators being protected? What else is the DOJ hiding?
This is a White House cover-up and we are going to end it.
In another post on X, Chuck Schumer responded to a the letter that appears to have been written by Jeffrey Epstein and sent to Larry Nassar, calling it “disgusting and abhorrent – and just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Everything must be brought to light,” the Democrat wrote.
Schumer demands DoJ release details on ‘at least ten Epstein co-conspirators’
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has called on the justice department to release details on “at least ten potential Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirators” it was looking at and why they did not prosecute.
Schumer said in a statement:
Buried in the Epstein files is an email disclosing the Department of Justice was looking into at least ten potential Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirators. The Department of Justice needs to shed more light on who was on the list, how they were involved, and why they chose not to prosecute. Protecting possible co-conspirators is not the transparency the American people and Congress are demanding.
Nicola Slawson
Newly released Epstein files show that the FBI sought to question Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor about his links to a second millionaire sex offender, Peter Nygard.
In a request for mutual legal assistance sent to UK authorities in April 2020, US officials asked British police to help obtain answers from Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, about visits to Nygard’s Bahamas estate, known as Nygard Cay, and whether he had seen any girls under the age of 18 there.
The documents state that investigators believed he may have information relevant to an inquiry into Nygard’s alleged involvement in an international sex trafficking operation.
Nygard was sentenced last year to 11 years in prison in Canada for sexual assaults committed between the 1980s and early 2000s, with further proceedings ongoing in the US and Canada.
The same request shows US prosecutors were also seeking to question Mountbatten-Windsor about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, including any sexual or romantic relationships with women met through them and any financial dealings between the parties.
There is no suggestion that the request indicated criminal wrongdoing.
Jes Staley and Larry Summers made executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, files reveal
Kalyeena Makortoff
The former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley and the ex-US Treasury secretary Larry Summers were appointed as executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, according to a newly released tranche of documents linked to the now-deceased child sex offender.
Filings published today by the DOJ included various versions of Epstein’s last will and testament, which showed the financier intended to hand responsibility of managing his affairs to associates including the two high-profile men in the event of his death.
Staley’s name initially appears in a 2012 version of Epstein’s will, but as a “successor executor”, meaning he would be required to handle Epstein’s affairs only if others were unable to carry out their duties. However, he appears as a full executor in later versions, dated 2013 and 2014. Summers is also named in the 2014 will as a successor executor, the filings show.
Neither Summers nor Staley are in what appears to be the final version of Epstein’s will in 2019. The well-connected financier died in prison in August 2019, while awaiting trial over child sex trafficking charges.
The newly released filings will raise further questions about the depth of the two men’s relationships with Epstein, with Staley having already been banned from the UK banking sector for playing down his relationship with the convicted child sex offender.
Summers, an economist and former US Treasury secretary, stepped down from a teaching role at Harvard in November after a previous tranche of documents suggested he stayed in contact with Epstein well into 2019, and ceased shortly before Epstein was arrested in July of that year.
More on this story here:
New trove includes 2021 Mar-a-Lago subpoena related to Maxwell investigation
Included in the new batch of files is a 2021 subpoena to the Mar-a-Lago Club relating to the federal investigation into Ghislaine Maxwell.
Dated 5 October 2021, the subpoena demands “any and all employment records relating to” a person whose name is redacted. Maxwell went on to be convicted on sex trafficking charges in December that year and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
With the documents released without context and explanation, there is no indication whether Mar-a-Lago complied with the demand and what, if anything, was released.
Donald Trump has said that he cut ties with Jeffrey Epstein and expelled him from the private club after he “stole people that worked for me”, later elaborating that they were “people who worked in the spa”. Asked by a reporter if one of the people was Virginia Giuffre, Trump said: “I think that was one of the people, yeah.”
One of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year, accused Maxwell of recruiting her from the Mar-a-Lago spa, where she worked when she was 16. It is unclear if the records requested in the subpoena are those of Giuffre.
