Justice Department removes Epstein files

WASHINGTON — On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department released its investigative files on the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein… sort of.

Congress passed a law last month giving the Trump administration 30 days to place the material in a public, searchable and downloadable database. Despite fighting for months, the president finally signed the legislation.

The new website, calling itself The Epstein Library, includes browsable catalogs of thousands of PDF documents from the government’s investigations into Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 after being accused of sex trafficking of minors.

The site also includes a search function, although queries for names of people known to have been associated with Epstein, including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, returned no results when News themezone accessed the site on Friday afternoon. A disclaimer notes that many records are handwritten and may not appear in the search function.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested early Friday that while the Justice Department has “been working tirelessly” to make the files public, the department may not fully meet the deadline set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

“I expect that we will release more documents in the next two weeks. So today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next two weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said in an interview with “News & Friends.”

The new website says it “will be updated if additional documents are identified for publication.”

The law does not establish sanctions for non-compliance. It gives the Justice Department leeway to withhold personally identifiable material related to victims and matters related to ongoing investigations.

In response to Blanche’s comments, Democrats said the Trump administration has defied the law.

“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now violating federal law as they continue to cover up the facts and evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long multi-billion-dollar international sex trafficking ring,” Reps. Robert Garcia (California) and Jamie Raskin (Maryland) said in a joint statement. “We are now examining all legal options in light of this violation of federal law.”

Blanche defended the president’s stance on the issue, baselessly claiming that Trump has long favored making the full documents public.

“Just so everyone appreciates, President Trump has said for years that he wants complete transparency and wants the Department of Justice to release everything we can regarding this investigation and these cases,” Blanche said.

Andrew Harnik via Getty Images

Despite Blanche’s claims, the Trump administration has failed to provide as much transparency, and the president himself dismissed demands for disclosure of the files as a Democratic “hoax.” He only asked congressional Republicans to support the Epstein Transparency Act, co-sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), after it became clear that its passage was inevitable.

Massie said there will be ways to tell if the administration hasn’t released as much as it should. He also noted that the law will be binding on future attorneys general.

“The victims know 20 defendants who should be in those files. If we don’t see them in the files, they won’t be released,” Massie told News themezone this week.

Trump, who was once friends with Epstein, has not been charged with any crimes in connection with the disgraced financier. However, Epstein claimed that Trump knew of his criminal activity. according to emails made public by House Democratic supervisors earlier this year. The Republican-led committee has obtained tens of thousands of documents from Epstein’s estate, a trove of material that is completely separate from what is at the Justice Department, which declined to prosecute Epstein in 2008, despite significant evidence of sex trafficking crimes, but then filed charges in 2019. The committee also obtained some of Epstein’s files from the Justice Department after it sent a subpoena.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair in an interview published this week that Trump is mentioned repeatedly in Justice Department documents but is not implicated in “anything horrible.”

Photography by Davidoff Studios via Getty Images

Friday is a momentous day for survivors of Epstein’s abuse, including Maria Farmer, who alleged that Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence, sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.

“This is a moment I have waited for three entire decades, more than half my life,” Farmer said in a statement shared with CNN.

The Justice Department’s National Security Division has been working to draft the documents, CNN and Reuters reported. While the law permitted some redactions, including any information that could jeopardize an ongoing federal investigation or prosecution, the bill specifies that “no record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted for reasons of embarrassment, harm to reputation, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

Despite this law, more than 100 pages of the new treasury have been crossed out without explanation. Khanna, one of the leading lawmakers behind the push to release the files, posted a video message Friday night saying the Justice Department’s release “does not meet” his and Massie’s bill.

“They released a 119-page redacted New York grand jury document,” Khanna said. “This, despite the fact that a federal judge ordered them to publish that document, and our law requires them to explain the redactions. There is not a single explanation for why that entire document was redacted.”

“It is an incomplete publication with too many redactions,” Khanna added.