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
Summary
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Trump over-promised and under-delivered with the Epstein files release. Many of the documents in the data dump were heavily redacted, with text blacked out so it was impossible to read.
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One of the most notable cases of excessive redaction is a 119-page document labeled Grand Jury-NY, likely from one of the federal sex-trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021. Every line of every page has been completely blacked out, sparking outrage from lawmakers and the public.
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Virginia Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts told Reuters he has “mixed feelings” after the partial release of the Epstein files. “What are we hiding here?” he asked.
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The US Department of Justice this morning posted two new batches of Epstein files online. 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 his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
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Democrats on the House oversight committee accused the justice department of taking down a previously published photo that included Donald Trump from the administration’s partial release of the Epstein files.
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These accusations were confirmed by a report from the Associated Press that at least 16 files have disappeared from the justice department’s public webpage.
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The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, responded to the allegations that the justice department removed a photo of Donald Trump from its website, calling the handling of the Epstein files release possibly “one of the biggest cover ups in American history”. He was far from the only lawmaker to speak out against the decision to do only a partial release.
Excessive redactions include every line of 119-page document labeled Grand Jury-NY
One of the most notable cases of excessive redaction within the Epstein files released by the justice department is a 119-page document labeled Grand Jury-NY, likely from one of the federal sex-trafficking investigations that led to the charges against Epstein in 2019 or Maxwell in 2021.
Every line of every page has been completely blacked out, sparking outrage from lawmakers and the public.
At least 16 files have disappeared from the justice department’s public webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, including a photograph showing Donald Trump, less than a day after the files were posted, the Associated Press has reported.
The missing files, which were available Friday and no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showing a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image (originally labeled file 468), inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The justice department did not say why the files had been removed or whether their disappearance was intentional, and no notice was offered to the public before the removals.
Summer Lee, the Democratic representative from Pennsylvania, took aim at the Trump administration’s hyperbolic claims of transparency following the release of heavily redacted documents.
“Most transparent admin in history?” Lee wrote on X, accompanying a photo of a full page of blacked-out text. “These redactions are an absolute mockery of the survivors of Epstein’s abuse and the American people.”
“The DOJ is still compelled by our subpoena to release the full, unredacted files to the Oversight Committee,” she added. “This cover up must end.”
The Associated Press has some more on the investigation into Epstein in 2007, reporting:
The meatiest records released so far showed that federal prosecutors had what appeared to be a strong case against Epstein in 2007 yet never charged him.
Transcripts of grand jury proceedings, released publicly for the first time, included testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who described being paid to perform sex acts for Epstein. The youngest was 14 and in ninth grade.
One had told investigators about being sexually assaulted by Epstein when she initially resisted his advances during a massage.
Another, then 21, testified before the grand jury about how Epstein had hired her when she was 16 to perform a sexual massage and how she had gone on to recruit other girls to do the same.
“For every girl that I brought to the table he would give me $200,” she said. They were mostly people she knew from high school, she said. “I also told them that if they are under age, just lie about it and tell him that you are 18.”
The documents also contain a transcript of an interview Justice Department lawyers did more than a decade later with the US attorney who oversaw the case, Alexander Acosta, about his ultimate decision not to bring federal charges.
Acosta, who was labor secretary during Trump’s first term, cited concerns about whether a jury would believe Epstein’s accusers.
He also said the Justice Department might have been more reluctant to make a federal prosecution out of a case that straddled the legal border between sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, something more commonly handled by state prosecutors.
“I’m not saying it was the right view,” Acosta added. He also said that the public today would likely view the survivors differently.
“There’s been a lot of changes in victim shaming,” Acosta said.
Schumer calls Epstein files release ‘one of the biggest cover ups in American history’
The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, has responded to the allegations that the justice department removed a photo of Donald Trump from its website, calling the handling of the Epstein files release possibly “one of the biggest cover ups in American history”.
“This is what Susie Wiles meant when she said Trump and Epstein were “young, single playboys together”, Schumer wrote on social media. “And if they’re taking this down, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide… This could be one of the biggest cover ups in American history.”
Several of the photos released provide glimpses inside of Jeffrey Epstein’s properties. Here are some images:
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”.
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Democrats accuse justice department of taking down photo of Donald Trump
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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US Department of Justice posts two new batches of Epstein files on Saturday
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.
