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The US Department of Justice released 3 million additional documents from the Jeffrey Epstein case yesterday.
The files, posted on the department's website, include some of the millions of pages of data that officials said were hidden from an initial release of the documents in December.
“Today, we are releasing more than 3 million pages, including more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 photos in total, meaning the department has released approximately three and a half million pages in compliance with the law,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch said at a press conference.
They were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed after months of public and political pressure demanding that the government open its files on the late financier and his trusted friend and one-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
After missing a December 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files, the Justice Department said it had tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what should be redacted or deleted to protect the identities of sexual abuse victims.
The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photographs, interview transcripts, phone records and court records.
That data included previously released flight logs showing that Donald Trump flew on Epstein's private jet in the 1990s, before some photos of former President Bill Clinton were taken. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, have been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and both have said they were unaware that he was abusing underage girls.
Also released last month were transcripts of grand jury testimony by FBI agents describing interviews they had with several girls and young women who said they were paid to perform sex acts for Epstein.
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.
In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served a prison sentence in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had 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 federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a prominent British figure, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year sentence in a Texas prison camp after being transferred there from a federal prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.
US prosecutors never brought charges against anyone else in connection with Epstein's abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in a lawsuit of arranging for her to have sexual encounters at the ages of 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, prominent academics and others, all of whom denied her allegations.
Among the people she accused was Britain's Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, after the scandal led to his removal from royal titles. Andrew denied having had sexual relations with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.
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