
The US Department of Justice on Friday released a massive—but incomplete—trove containing hundreds of thousands of records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a move that came as Democratic lawmakers vowed to pursue "all legal options" after the Trump administration blew a deadline to disclose all of the files.
The DOJ uploaded the files—which can be viewed here in the section titled "Epstein Files Transparency Act"—to its website on Friday. Earlier in the day, Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the agency would not release all the Epstein files on Friday, as required by the transparency law signed last month by President Donald Trump.
Friday's release includes declassified files, many of them heavily redacted and some of which were already publicly available via court filings, records requests, and media reporting. Files include flight logs and masseuse lists.
Curiously, a search for the words "Trump" and "Epstein" in the posted documents returned no results.
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While not accused of any wrongdoing, Trump was a former close friend of Epstein, who faced federal sex trafficking charges at the time of his suspicious 2019 death in a New York City jail cell.
Responding to the DOJ's document release and delay in fully disclosing the files, Elisa Batista, campaign director at UltraViolet Action, said in a statement that “if the Trump administration had its way, they would undo the sacrifice of survivors who came forward to demand transparency and accountability, as well as all those abused by Epstein who were unable to."
“Trump’s failure to release the Epstein files is an insult to survivors and a further stain on an administration that continuously bends over backwards to protect abusers—and just violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act to do so," Batista added. "We will continue to fight alongside the brave survivors—many of whom were young girls when they were abused by Epstein—who took great risk to reveal Epstein’s globe-spanning sex trafficking network.”
Britt Jacovich, a spokesperson for the progressive political action group MoveOn, said following Friday's release that “President Trump’s Department of Justice is breaking the law by holding all of the Epstein files hostage, and yet again, Trump is doing absolutely nothing."
"Trump doesn’t care about the victims or the millions of Americans calling for justice," Jacovich added. "He only cares about protecting the rich and powerful, even those who abuse young women and children. Every single person named in the Epstein files and involved in the cover-up should face accountability, regardless of their political party. No more delays, no more obstruction.”
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