Live Updates: Trove of Epstein Files Includes New Photos and Court Records
“The material includes thousands of documents related to past investigations of Jeffrey Epstein, as well as hundreds of images. Some depict politicians, pop stars and royals; others show women whose faces have been redacted.
Times reporters are reading the Epstein files released on Friday and providing updates and analysis.
Pinned
The Justice Department released thousands of documents and hundreds of photographs related to investigations of Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, responding to a deadline set by Congress and reviving a scandal that has dogged the second Trump administration.
The significance of the disclosure was unknown, given the volume of the records and how much Epstein material has been previously disclosed. And because the Justice Department said that it had withheld some documents, citing ongoing investigations or national security concerns, the release is as likely to reignite the furor over the so-called Epstein files as quell it.
A woman who once worked for Jeffrey Epstein filed a complaint to the F.B.I. about his interest in “child pornography” in 1996, about a decade before investigators began scrutinizing his predatory behavior.
The woman, Maria Farmer, has for years said that she had called federal investigators in the summer of 1996, but the F.B.I. had never publicly acknowledged her original report, even to Ms. Farmer. Some people following the Epstein case had accused her of inventing the story. After the release of thousands of Epstein files on Friday, The New York Times contacted Ms. Farmer about a report stamped with the date of Sept. 3, 1996. She broke down in tears.
President Trump’s name is rarely mentioned in the batch of Jeffrey Epstein files that his Justice Department released on Friday, based on a preliminary New York Times scan of thousands of documents and hundreds of photographs.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were close friends for years, The Times has reported, and Mr. Trump’s initial refusal to release federal files related to investigations into Mr. Epstein sparked speculation about whether those files featured Mr. Trump. His allies have previously confirmed that his name appears in the files about Mr. Epstein.
The first tranche of documents released by the Justice Department from its investigations into Jeffrey Epstein appeared to focus significantly on material connected to former President Bill Clinton, at a moment when Republicans have fought to shift public attention away from Mr. Epstein’s friendship with President Trump.
The dozens of photos released on Friday include one of Mr. Clinton in a hot tub and another showing Mr. Clinton swimming in a pool with Ghislaine Maxwell, who conspired with Mr. Epstein to operate his sex trafficking operation and former girlfriend, along with a second woman. Another shows a woman seated closely with Mr. Clinton on what appears to be an airplane. There is also what appears to be a candid shot of Mr. Clinton speaking with Mr. Epstein and pictures of him with the musician Mick Jagger.
One of the redacted files, containing 119 pages and entitled “Grand Jury NY,” is entirely blacked out. The Justice Department went into federal court twice in Manhattan seeking the release of grand jury materials arising from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his close associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Even though a judge agreed to the department’s second request, it appears as if the grand jury materials remain shielded from the public.
Almost two hours after the Justice Department made public thousands of documents from its Jeffrey Epstein files, President Trump has not yet commented on their release. The case has long haunted him politically.
The files contain a set of phone message notes written years ago for Jeffrey Epstein. One message, dated Nov. 8, 2004, from a caller whose name was redacted, said: “I have a Female for him.” The following January, he got another message with identical wording: “I have a female for him.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called for more information on the redactions in the files released by the Justice Department today.
“Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law,” he said in a statement. “For example, all 119 pages of one document were completely blacked out. We need answers as to why.”
The law that required the release of the files allowed the Justice Department to redact some information. The department is required to file a report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in 15 days that details the legal basis for the redactions that it made.
President Trump has appeared in this initial tranche of documents only a handful of times, according to a preliminary New York Times scan of the material. One image, for instance, appears to show an array of photos in which he is posing with women.
A large portion of the investigative files are redacted, including what appear to be case files connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s multiple female victims. At least so far, the unredacted materials have not disclosed any major new revelations.
The trove of documents also contained a large number of undated, mostly uncaptioned photographs of Epstein with celebrities, including Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger. There are also several photos of former President Bill Clinton, including one that shows him reclining in a hot tub with a person whose face has been blacked out.
President Trump often generates multiple news cycles per day. White House officials believe that when the news is focused on immigration, crime or the president’s peacemaking efforts abroad, Mr. Trump is winning. As such, if Mr. Trump doesn’t like one news cycle, he can fire off an all-caps Truth Social post and create another.
But the Epstein files — which carry with them a constant reminder of the president’s long friendship with a sex offender — have dogged him in a way few other issues have. Nothing Mr. Trump has tried to do to get them out of the news has worked.
A preliminary review by New York Times reporters of the thousands of Jeffrey Epstein documents released this afternoon by the Justice Department suggests that much of the materials derive from three investigations into his interactions with young women: an initial inquiry opened by the police in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2005; a subsequent investigation conducted by federal prosecutors in Florida that ended in 2008 with a plea deal for Epstein; and a final inquiry by prosecutors in Manhattan in 2019 that was never resolved because he died in prison while the case was proceeding.
Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before Congress and explain why the Justice Department was not prepared to release all of its files by Friday, the deadline set by a law passed by Congress in November and signed by President Trump.
“They promised to release the files. They haven’t done it,” Schiff, a member of the Judiciary committee, said in a television interview. “They could have been completely ready for this moment, and they’re not, or they’re just simply willfully withholding the materials.”
Jeffrey Epstein paid teenage girls money to perform sex acts and used his onetime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell to recruit and manage his stable of victims.
An F.B.I. and Florida police investigation led to his indictment in 2006. Two years later he pleaded guilty in state court to two felony charges, including soliciting a minor, in a deal that avoided federal charges that could have meant far more serious prison time.
In his letter to members of Congress, which was viewed by The New York Times, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said that the material released on Friday included portions of the F.B.I.’s investigative files for its 2006 and 2018 cases against Epstein; its 2019 criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell; grand-jury materials from all three cases; and material from the F.B.I.’s investigation into Epstein’s death in federal prison in 2019.
Blanche said that the department had more than 200 attorneys reviewing material to determine what the Justice Department could release to the public.
Representative Ro Khanna, who helped lead the campaign in Congress to force Friday’s release of files, said that if Department of Justice officials do not adequately demonstrate that they are complying with the law requiring the release of the documents, Congress could hold impeachment hearings for Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, “if it comes to that.”
The trove of released materials contain hundreds of photographs collected during the Epstein investigations. A team of New York Times reporters is currently going through them. Former President Bill Clinton appears in many of them but it is difficult to assess the context. Other photographs show the pop star Michael Jackson.
There is also a large trove of investigative files arising from various inquiries into Epstein. Some of those files appear to be related to interviews with some of Epstein’s victims, but a large portion of the files are redacted, hiding the substantive information contained in them.
In a letter to members of Congress, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said that the Justice Department had identified 1,200 names of victims of Jeffrey Epstein or relatives of victims, and that it had redacted or withheld any materials that could reveal their identities.
In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Blanche also wrote that “the volume of materials to be reviewed” would lead to the release of more documents. He suggested that the process would be done before the year ends, writing that the Justice Department “will inform Congress when that review and production are complete by the end of this year.”
Representitive Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said that he believes that the Department of Justice is trying to comply with the law requiring the release of the trove of documents. But he urged Department of Justice officials to explain why they were not able to release all of the documents, and to explain “each redaction.”
Khanna, who spoke to reporters on a video call as the documents were released, said that “all options are on the table,” as members of Congress and survivors’ lawyers comb through the release. “I don’t know whether there’s new information or whether it’s stonewalling,” he said.
On first review, many of the files appear heavily redacted. The law mandating the release of the files, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, required the Justice Department to redact information that identified potential victims of Epstein or contained child sexual-abuse material.
It also allowed the Justice Department to withhold material involved in continuing investigations. Federal officials will legally need to submit a report to Congress providing details on this material, but they will not have to do so for at least two weeks.
The Justice Department’s website also contains a search function, though it is unclear if it’s working properly. A query for “Epstein” returned no results.
It will take time to go through these files, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, suggested that the documents here were not the full release, making it difficult to know what material has been withheld.
The Justice Department on Friday released a set of publicly downloadable files in response to a law passed by Congress. You can see and search them at this link on the department’s website.
On a site that it calls an “Epstein Library,” the files are sorted into multiple categories:
A group of Times reporters and editors with deep experience covering the Jeffrey Epstein case are examining the documents released by the Justice Department on Friday. But they will proceed with typical care to ensure accuracy and fairness.
Several of these staff members have covered the case since 2019. Others report on the Justice Department, Congress, the White House and the federal court system.
On a site that it calls a “full Epstein library,” the Justice Department has sorted files into multiple categories: court records from criminal and civil cases; disclosures it said it made because of the law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump in November; material it has released in response to public records requests; and the batch of files it released in September to the House Oversight Committee, much of which contained material that was already public.
The Justice Department has just released a set of publicly downloadable files in response to a law passed by Congress.
More than six years after his death, Jeffrey Epstein has become an American obsession. The public fascination only intensified after President Trump initially refused this year to release federal investigative records about the infamous sex offender — before reversing himself under pressure.
Much of the last quarter-century of Mr. Epstein’s life has been carefully examined — including how, in the 1990s and early 2000s, he amassed hundreds of millions of dollars through his work for the retail tycoon Leslie Wexner. Yet the public understanding of Epstein’s early ascent has been shrouded in mystery. How did a college dropout from Brooklyn claw his way to the pinnacle of American finance, politics and society? How did Epstein go from nearly being fired at the investment firm Bear Stearns to managing the wealth of billionaires? What were the origins of his own fortune?
The Justice Department will not release all of its files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison, by its congressionally mandated deadline of Friday, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said.
Appearing on Fox News, Mr. Blanche, the department’s No. 2 official, said that while the Trump administration would release “several hundred thousand documents” related to Mr. Epstein by Friday, officials would make public “several hundred thousand more” in the coming weeks.“
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